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Tour de France 2016 |OT| Lead-out: EUROs / Autobus: Olympics

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bjaelke

Member
Just under 24 hours until Grand Departure in Utrecht Le Manche, so quickly threw together an OT by stealing all the content from last year's thread.

The route
Running from Saturday July 2nd to Sunday July 24th 2015, the 103rd Tour de France will be made up of 21 stages and will cover a total distance of 3,519 kilometres.

  • 9 flat stages
  • 1 hilly stage
  • 9 mountain stages including 4 summit finishes
  • 2 individual time trial
  • 2 rest days

The 2016 route in 3D
zJwl8Ai.jpg
BORDERS
The 103rd Tour de France will visit three neighboring countries: Spain, the Principality of Andorra and Switzerland.

TIME-TRIALS
Individual time-trials return in style to the 2016 Tour de France with a total of 54 kilometres divided into two sequences: 37 between Bourg-Saint-Andéol (stage 13) and La Caverne du Pont-d’Arc and 17 between Sallanches and Megève (stage 18).

BONUSES
Back in 2015 after a seven-year absence, time bonuses will again be given at the finishes of normal stages. The bonuses will be of 10, 6 and 4 seconds for the first three of each stage.

POINTS
The green jersey will be rewarded to the leader of the points classification. Points will be given at the finishes of each stage as well as at an intermediate sprint on every normal stage.
The polka dot jersey will be worn by the leader of best climbers classification. Points will be given out at the top of mountains and hills and at the 4 mountain-top finishes (Andorre Arcalis, Mont Ventoux, Finhaut-Emosson and Saint-Gervais Mont Blanc).


GC Favorites
  • Chris Froome
  • Nairo Quintana
  • Alberto Contador
  • Fabio Aru
  • Richie Porte
  • Teejay van Garderen
  • Thibaut Pinot
Video, previews, interviews, etc.
 
And we're off! \o/

Looks blustery, hopefully some sidewinds today for some chaos. Throw the riders in the deep end and all that :D
 

Joni

Member
Ah, the real event of the year. I hope Kittel gets a good start to the Tour. I also hope Quick Step and Lotto can cause some panic amongst the GC favorites by using the winds.
 
Ah, the real event of the year. I hope Kittel gets a good start to the Tour. I also hope Quick Step and Lotto can cause some panic amongst the GC favorites by using the winds.

Quick Step have had a super year, hopefully Dan Martin can mix it up. Don't know whether he has the legs to not have a bad day, but yeah looking forward to this. All the big riders aside from Nibali have saved themselves for this.

We haven't really had a fresh man on man action between Froomy, Nairo and Bertie in the tour either.
 
Quick-Step's start to the season has been a minor disaster though with not a single victory in the Classics which is typically their focus.
 
Will be interesting to see what Nibali does.

Aru needs to show how strong he is early otherwise Vincenzo is gonna say fuck it and try to go for the double.

Not sure who I want to win, will just be happy with an Italian victory and holding all the grand tour's jerseys

edit: I really recommend the Cyclingnews.com tour tracker. Fantastic app, especially if you upgrade to pro for a couple dollars
 
A couple of recent changes.

Orica-Greenedge is now Orica-Bike Exchange and mostly blue not white.

Cannodale is now Cannondale-Drapac having swallowed up yet another team.


Hopefully Gerrans and Matthews can work together. Who am I kidding, they'll cost each other wins.
 
Decided to buy NBCSports Gold package this year b/c it covers the Tour, Vuelta, Paris Roubaix and 15 other races. For $30 and streaming access that's not a terrible deal.

I didn't watch as much lead up races this year as I did last year. I think Nibbles can do a double but it's still too early.

Kittel wins stage 1
 

Ruruja

Member
Although Kittel is clearly going to win today's stage, I'd like Cav to surprise.

Thanks for making the thread bjaelke, here's hoping for another great Tour.
 

Joni

Member
Quick-Step's start to the season has been a minor disaster though with not a single victory in the Classics which is typically their focus.

Yes, that was a minor point, but they should so have won Paris-Roubaix for a truly epic showing.
 
Ah yes, the yearly big event where the best doped up individual wins without being caught and the most annoying 'fans' in sports during mountain stages that make your blood boil. Sign me up.
 
My tv signal cut out as things got interesting. Missed the crash. What caused it? Yet to see a replay.

edit: n/m just seen it on twitter. Nasty. Got lucky there, hope there are no fractures, want to see some epic in the mountains.
 
Heart skipped a few beats when Contador crashed. Maybe it's good sign a la Giro 2015..

Don't think I can stomach another year watching Froome time trial up the first mountain followed by two weeks of Murdoch train. I think the route organizers have accounted for that this year but we'll see.

Rooting for Contador but expecting Quintana to not wait until last 2 days to attack and ultimately, win.

Also hoping to see Aru and Nibali come to loggerheads resulting in Vino losing his shit and promoting some unknown domestique to GC favorite.
 

Joni

Member
Ah yes, the yearly big event where the best doped up individual wins without being caught and the most annoying 'fans' in sports during mountain stages that make your blood boil. Sign me up.
They should be as smart as all other sports, where nobody does tests so they can pretend they are all clean.
 

LayLa

Member
Hats off to Cav, didn't think he'd do anything in this race as he's been training for the Olympics.
 

kmag

Member
I don't think he well but I've got a sneaky feeling Cavendish will pull out of the Tour early now he's gotten the yellow which was a life long dream for him.
 

Ruruja

Member
I don't think he well but I've got a sneaky feeling Cavendish will pull out of the Tour early now he's gotten the yellow which was a life long dream for him.

I'm not sure, I think the most stage wins record is something he wants (or to claim 2nd anyways), even though he won't say so. He'll think he can win more now he's got this one, maybe he'll pull out before the mountains. Can't see him beating Kittel at the Arc de Triomphe anymore so no need to stick around for that.

---------------

Sprint finish: https://streamable.com/37p3
 

RivalCore

Member
Genuinely shocked Cav, or anyone, managed to beat a fresh Kittel on the first stage. Though Sagan looked strong, so I'm hoping he does well in the coming stages.
 

kottila

Member
I don't think he well but I've got a sneaky feeling Cavendish will pull out of the Tour early now he's gotten the yellow which was a life long dream for him.

almost guaranteed that he will. He needs to get back to the track to prepare for the Olympics
 

hom3land

Member
Was in chamonix yesterday and drove through the Swiss side that will be a stage of the race. Holy shit the incline! Haven't watched the race before but damn do they have my respect now.
 

Joni

Member
Looks like the peloton messed up, especially BMC that really wanted a win today. Tony Martin might be the one that can solve it still. More exciting now.
Richie Porte lost time! He will fall far behind with that bike exchange.
 

Ruruja

Member
Contador isn't looking good at all. Porte is over a minute down.

Looks like Froome vs Quintana for GC at this rate.

Anybody else got a velogames fantasy team done? We could make a league.
 

LayLa

Member
happy for Sagan, Alaphilippe's time will come soon!

seems like the ITV Tour daily podcast is no longer available directly via iTunes as they've switched to SoundCloud https://soundcloud.com/user-379492923
although you can add this RSS feed http://feeds.soundcloud.com/users/soundcloud:users:237444090/sounds.rss

would also recommend The Cycling Podcast as their daily Giro coverage was excellent, particularly their Kilometre 0 episodes that go behind the scenes of the race
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/telegraph-cycling-podcast/id665713706?mt=2
 

teepo

Member
i've yet to tune into the tdf save for the opening minutes of the first day but i'm loving how sagan isn't shying away from putting a lot of the blame on the recent number of crashes this year on the riders themselves.

"It's like everybody is riding (as if they) lose the brain. There are stupid crashes in the group, it's very dangerous. When it's wet nobody brakes -- for sure you're going to crash. It's not logical. In the group, before there was respect. When someone did something stupid, everybody throws their (water) bottle on him or beats him with (tyre) pumps. But now cycling has lost this. When I came in cycling in 2010, it was a little bit different."

http://pelotonmagazine.com/feedzone/peter-sagan-blasts-brainless-peloton-at-tour-de-france/
 

Joni

Member
i've yet to tune into the tdf save for the opening minutes of the first day but i'm loving how sagan isn't shying away from putting a lot of the blame on the recent number of crashes this year on the riders themselves.

http://pelotonmagazine.com/feedzone/peter-sagan-blasts-brainless-peloton-at-tour-de-france/

It is an opinion that is coming up more and more amongst older riders. Greipel, Boonen and Cancellera have echoed similar things in the past for instance. Boonen even recently in a meeting between organizers and cyclists as part of what to improve after the Stig Broeckx accident.
 
i've yet to tune into the tdf save for the opening minutes of the first day but i'm loving how sagan isn't shying away from putting a lot of the blame on the recent number of crashes this year on the riders themselves.



http://pelotonmagazine.com/feedzone/peter-sagan-blasts-brainless-peloton-at-tour-de-france/

They're letting too many teams in. It's just a given that there will be crashes throughout the first week. Hell, even the announcers make jokes about it now.
 

Ruruja

Member
Do it up. It's definitely still early enough in the race

Okay the league code is: 30032348206

Obviously only people who've already made a team can join as entries for TdF are now closed on the site.

Hopefully next year bjaelke can set one up and put it in the OP a few days before the race starts.

http://www.velogames.com for anyone who doesn't know (they do a fantasy game for all the grand tours and quite a few stage races like Dauphiné etc).
 

JPKellams

Member
Okay the league code is: 30032348206

Obviously only people who've already made a team can join as entries for TdF are now closed on the site.

Hopefully next year bjaelke can set one up and put it in the OP a few days before the race starts.

http://www.velogames.com for anyone who doesn't know (they do a fantasy game for all the grand tours and quite a few stage races like Dauphiné etc).

Joined. Just you and me so far.

How obnoxiously slow is this stage... Go Tommy. :)
 

LayLa

Member
As well as the combativity award they should give out a passivity award, there would be plenty of contenders today
 

Ruruja

Member
Wow, another fantastic win for Cav. Getting me all nostalgic.

Nice to see Tommy Voeckler's gurning face make its first appearance this Tour.

Joined. Just you and me so far.

Good team you got there. I had a bad result picking a balanced team a year or two ago and the guy in my other league who won overall just had a stacked GC team so I decided to do that (but you even have 2 of those! go Froome!)
 

bjaelke

Member
CmiFosRWgAAQ8zP.jpg:large

Okay the league code is: 30032348206

Obviously only people who've already made a team can join as entries for TdF are now closed on the site.

Hopefully next year bjaelke can set one up and put it in the OP a few days before the race starts.

http://www.velogames.com for anyone who doesn't know (they do a fantasy game for all the grand tours and quite a few stage races like Dauphiné etc).

Definitely. Been a bit busy in the days leading up to the Tour this year.
 
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