French teams are bad, they just dont have the riders to protect lzaders

Barguil in a foreign team doesnt get caught

quite a terrible crash it was: http://gfycat.com/UnnaturalMiniatureGoral
shame for cancellara
now go valverde! don't really like him as a rider, but have a bet on him

Martin 1sec behind froome overall. He is getting closer every day

I guess Tony is just not destined to get a yellow jersey. You have to feel bad for him. First his teammate denies him the yellow jersey yesterday and now he misses out on it by 1 second.

Although there's still a chance he can take the jersey from Froome tomorrow on the cobbles.

Froome isn't the problem, it's van avermaet/stybar/sagan

Stybar is far behind and very unlikely to get the yellow jersey(and besides he's a teammate of Tony). Sagan's only job tomorrow is helping Contador. GVA will probably also have to babysit TJVG.

The cobbles tomorrow are not as difficult as the ones on last year's stage, and on top of that it looks like it's gonna be dry whereas it was pouring rain last year. Don't expect very big gaps.

Cav is far from done. He's won 13 times this season (Kittel has won 0 times). He mistimed it. Too much of a headwind. Renshaw was spent, leaving Cav out in front too early.

You're far from the only one. The Telegraph Cycling podcast and reddit basically spent the entire post-race discussing Cav and Martin.

I don't get it. Two of the four pre-race favorites have an epic ****-up resulting in them losing over a minute on a flat stage and all anyone wanted to talk about is who wears yellow for a couple of days in the first week of the Tour.

I get that yellow is big for some riders to build a name for themselves. But this is Tony Martin, one of the most decorated riders in the peloton. In the annals of history, him missing yellow for 2 stages of the 2015 TdF is going to be an afterthought. OTOH, Quintana/Nibali not winnng the TdF because they ****ed up stage 2 should be a much bigger story. But no one cares.

put cav in my tour fantasy team based on his national champs ride.

obv doesn't show he can sprint, but a strong ride

That stage was just made for Rodriguez - a 1km steep climb for all the money. 250m longer and he'll **** the bed like always.

+1
and it's even questionable if he really "sat up" or was just completely spent. i mean his sprint effort is obviously at his absolute max. and as everyone saw, he was left in the wind too early by renshaw. and then in the end he was just completely gassed and his body shut down. now, probably he still had it in him to make third if he knew the outcome. but it's not like he just chilled while seeing cancellara passing him and not caring. it was more like "go go go go damn i'm ****ed, go go, damn, that's hard, go go go, greipel has me, ****, good game".

BUT: you can't deny that expectations for eqs are just very high and they ****ed up (once again). their sprint train just didn't work as it should. martin was position 3 most of the train (and i assumed he would be lead out for renshaw), but then with 1k to go they misstimed something, martin let go (without being ever in the wind) and renshaw was out in front too early. there are not many sprinter stages, and without kittel and especially in stage 2 here with only greipel as a real strong classical sprinter, cav just HAS to win, everything else is a big disappointment. but of course, the expectations are only that high, because eqs has such a strong team and because they always expect to win themselves.

Cancellara out with a broken back.

http://www.cyclingweekly.co.uk/racin...e-crash-180855

Cancellara is out. Went to the hospital after the race and his twitter says he has the same injury as in the spring. Btw the gap between Rodriguez and Froome was 0,93 sec. So Rodriguez's celebration costs Martin the yellow jersey. Musst be taff to miss out on yellow by 0,07 sec. He now went from 5sec to 3sec to 1sec behind yellow and has the strongest team tomorrow, judging by his facebook he strongly beliefs to get it tomorrow.

In an odd way, I find Cav's attitude fine. He doesn't care about second place or third place. If he's not in first place, he might as well be last. You hear of athletes who say something like that, but he clearly lives it--if he can't get first, he doesn't care. Obviously, though, that attitude sucks for Martin.

I'm rewatching the finish now (NBC TdF app for the win). When they cross under the 1 km banner. EQS had Kwiatkowski, Uran, Martin, and Stybar all at the front of the peloton, in addition to Renshaw and Cav. But Renshaw and Cav lost contact with them (Lotto was in the way), so Renshaw started his move on his own, instead of getting behind their teammates. Looks like Renshaw had to start his move at around 750 m to go instead of the usual 400 to 500 m to go. So you can either blame it on Renshaw for losing contact with his train or credit Lotto for forcing Renshaw to lose the train.

EDIT: Actually, Renshaw didn't have contact with his train even at 2.5 km to go. Looks like it's all his fault.

Body cam of the OGE mechanic running around after the crash.

Hectic.

Really interesting to see. Wasnt there something like 8 riders will have a go pro on board??

Found it: here is Stage 3

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn-HeyBPs2c

Shame I don't put my money where my mouth is, could have gotten 10/1

Thought it was a little telling that when Froome made his break, Contador initially tried to get on his wheel but ultimately just couldn't cope. Thinking back to last year's Vuelta when Froome attempted all those breaks in the mountains and Contador made mincemeat of him, must have been so demoralising, he'd have broken anyone else everytime with those efforts. Looks like it could be a different story now. Although it's only stage 3 and a fairly meaningless climb. Meh.

Is anyone actually believing this?

"Hey doc, some riders went down with 60km/h+ and need your help." - "Sorry, i can't, i have to stay with the peloton".

Can't wait to hear your conspiracy on why the race was neutralised.

Yes, conspiracies... I definitely mentioned conspiracies... Whatever reason for the neutralisation, it was the wrong call.

They neutralised once, and then opened the road. What was the reason for the second neutralisation?

The stage should have continued. Are we stopping every stage that has a crash now?

All the medical staff was occupied

There was a second crash after the first one and no escape group. They stopped the race right befor the first hill. Imagine they go down the hill in normal speed, someone falls and the next doctor is 10km away. Thats why they have this rule that a doctor needs to be behind the field and that was not the case.

Not sure what to think about those two this year. Last year it was like a season long demonstration from Contador that Froome can't drop him. Not really attacking until the last km and just following him around the mountains to prove he can follow those attacks. This year who knows. Froome looked strong but it's such a short and steep climb with a week still to go until they hit the real mountains. The others might be happy just not to dig too deep and wait for next week. At least Quintana and Nibali looked like they made little effort to follow anyone. Contador looked like he might be going the same way most of the Giro winners aiming for the double have gone since Pantani. A lot of talk pre race and by third week desperately trying to steal a stage from a breakaway. Well maybe not that bad, but the Giro has to have some effect on his preparation.

Froome really is and odd one. He has obviously gone backwards in TTs. Last year he was climbing like Wiggo in the Vuelta after the couple of years accelerating away from everyone and now he's doing short and steep with Rodriguez. Not really sure what to expect from him at this point. Today should be fun at least since we get to see him on the cobbles. Last year he was out before the first sector. If he does as much hand waving and bumping in the riders next to him on the cobbles than he did yesterday on the narrow climbs things should be interesting even if it's dry.

great jump by Tony Martin