Taking Greipel out of my fantasy team after yesterday. So far, Lotto have been great at hitting the front at the right time but now it will be more than difficult. Sieberg and Henderson - two of Greipel’s most important leadout riders - both went down hard in the crash and like Veelers, they probably need a few days to get ready again. Furthermore, Jurgen Roelandts hurts his back again after another rider didn’t manage to break in time.

Looking at the remaining stage profiles to see where the GC contenders might be able attack Sky and Froome, and i can only see 1.

Stage 19 Bourg-d'Oisans to Grand-Bornand.

http://www.bicycling.com/tour-de-fra...-july-19-204km

It's up and down all day, and has a HC climb near the start, so it looks like Movistar & Saxo bank can attack from the get go, but saying that i still can't see Froome losing 4minutes to any of them.

Should be fun anyway!

Any thoughts?

Sorry to be a party pooper, but I'm getting rather tired of these pan flat stages with 1km of racing around 4pm.

Hopefully they mix it up next year, but i doubt it... They have to keep all parties happy. (i.e. the sprinters teams)

Today should be the last one before the Champs. Tommorow's stage has some climbs, then it's big mountains just about all the way. Even the time trial has two cat2 climbs.

A bit more variety would be nice. Not a lot for the puncheurs this year, sadly.

It's good to see an old friend of the Tour featured on the Euronews web site today:
http://www.euronews.com/picture-of-the-day

The picture on that page will change tomorrow, so here's a direct link to the picture without the surrounding text:
http://static.euronews.com/images_ne...g-pod-1207.jpg

Split in the peloton.... Froome and Bertie in the lead group!

Good old cross winds!

Echelon time!

Didi makes a brief guest appearance in the Oreca Greenedge team tribute to Aussie rockers AC/DC..........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAl1-mBhFpU


they've also done a 'Call Me Maybe'............

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEvX_vKDYEw

Kittel missed out on the front group..............

Kittel has missed the split. That's one way to beat him.

The Kittel group is getting back..............

I assume none of the GC boys were in the 2nd group as the front group are not hammering it to get away............

Oh blimey..............I flicked over to watch a race at Newmarket and when I got back the Kittel group was a minute behind the yellow jersey group..........they got back to within 10 seconds then the gap went out again !

Cav, Griepers and Saggy all in the front group

Looking positive but then we thought Cav had it wrapped up yesterday all the way to the line.

This could be fun.... Valverde in trouble now!

Yeah...........Valverde had a technical problem, 4 of his team mates have dropped back and they're halfway between the two main groups............

I don't know ... I looked at the profile and thought that it was tailor made for the likes of Virenque or Chiappucci ... so I'll stick with that and say that someone with the designs on the polka dot will go from the gun to mop up the big points and get a moutain stage win.

Surely Saxo bank have to put a shift in here now... And maybe Sky?

It might be a flat stage but it's certainly not boring...

Movistar look shot to me...

Bertie must be loving this!

Froome & Bertie must be praying they don't have a mechanical.

Not the boring stage we thought we might have had!

Not only is this a great stage at the moment, Oleg Tinkov has tweeted another gem ..



nutter!

Valverde has given up trying to get back and gone into the 'Kittel' group, which I suppose is now the Valverde group............

So we have two main groups separated by around a minute and a half.................

Have Belkin & Omega knocked it on the head?

Belkin are putting down the hammer...

The front group is breaking up!!!