Tour de France Stage 6: 216km Vesoul / Troyes

neris

another long flat stage today in the heat with a sprint finish that will be missing 2 great riders and a day for dan to recover from a great 2nd place yesterday.

The main point of interest of stage 6 is probably Colombey-les-deux-églises, the village of Charles de Gaulle. The French ruler at the time, he was on the road side waiting for the Tour in 1960 but as the peloton had been informed of his presence, a stop was organized by French rider Henry Anglade to enable the General to shake the hand of yellow jersey holder Gastone Nencini who was going to win the Tour de France the day after at the Parc des Princes in Paris. That stage also finished in Troyes. Starting from Vesoul today, it'll be one of the longest stages of the 104th Tour de France and a very important one for the sprinters who will look at two lines: the intermediate sprint in Colombey-les-deux-églises at km 135 and the final one in Troyes after 216km of racing. French champion Arnaud Démare wears the green jersey. He's hungry for one more victory against the likes of Marcel Kittel and André Greipel. The list of the sprinters has been made thinner by the disqualification of Peter Sagan and the withdrawal of Mark Cavendish. Démare leads the points competition by fourty points over Kittel. Even before the end of the first week of the Tour, French fans are already asking him to become the first Frenchman to win the green jersey this century.

GC top 10

1 FROOME CHRISTOPHER 1 TEAM SKY 18H 38' 59''
2 THOMAS GERAINT 9 TEAM SKY 18H 39' 11'' + 00' 12''
3 ARU FABIO 51 ASTANA PRO TEAM 18H 39' 13'' + 00' 14''
4 MARTIN DANIEL 105 QUICK - STEP FLOORS 18H 39' 24'' + 00' 25''
5 PORTE RICHIE 41 BMC RACING TEAM 18H 39' 38'' + 00' 39''
6 YATES SIMON 89 ORICA - SCOTT 18H 39' 42'' + 00' 43''
7 BARDET ROMAIN 11 AG2R LA MONDIALE 18H 39' 46'' + 00' 47''
8 CONTADOR ALBERTO 31 TREK - SEGAFREDO 18H 39' 51'' + 00' 52''
9 QUINTANA NAIRO 21 MOVISTAR TEAM 18H 39' 53'' + 00' 54''
10 MAJKA RAFAL 115 BORA - HANSGROHE 18H 40' 00'' + 01' 01''

Live on TV: ITV 4 & Eurosport 11am

Macy0161

The Gorilla to maintain his win a Grand Tour record today, if the break doesn't survive (which it could, as I can't see Sky being interested, and no sprint teams have really been arsed so far).

Inquitus

Weak break allowed to go up the road, kept within 3-5 minutes all day and a big sprint at the end......5 hours of coverage and 5 mins of racing again, roll on Sat and Sun!

MPFGLB

Very interesting hearing Mick Rogers on ITV4 now

Was someone taking a wee there and getting pushed along by a team mate ?

MPFGLB

Deleted User wrote: »

Was someone taking a wee there and getting pushed along by a team mate ?

Yep that is how they do it

Rem the story about some teammate giving their cap back in the day for Lemond to dump into during a race

neris

https://twitter.com/BORAhansgrohe/status/882953937116123136

Kirby showing the usual lack of class around 70km to go while I came back to check how things were going, mic picked him up low saying "he's loving this" and sneering while Jonathan was on talking about wine.

Daroxtar

neris wrote: »

https://twitter.com/BORAhansgrohe/status/882953937116123136

So if he's reinstated will he have to go back and ride the last 2 stages on his own and try to catch up with the others or what?

CramCycle

Daroxtar wrote: »

So if he's reinstated will he have to go back and ride the last 2 stages on his own and try to catch up with the others or what?

Alas he cannot be reinstated and they know that, he knows that.

dastardly00

15 km to go.
So about 10km to go before we need to starting watching.

neris

Where da fuq did kittle come from

irishrover99

That was sketchy. Demare looked like he was gonna hit the barriers and i think Kristoff

neris

Demard squeezing through a gap. Lucky EBH didn't stick the elbow out

neris

neris wrote: »

Where da fuq did kittle come from

I was thinking the same, well done to him. Pulled out to the left and a clear road to put the hammer down on .

dastardly00

Yeah I thought Demare was going to end up in the barriers ala Cav the other day.

Super finish by Kittel. He was 9th with less than 200 metres to go. This demonstrates that he is the fastest out-and-out sprinter in the TdF.

Replay terrible , doesn't show from how far back he came.

The handbags were out after todays finish, haven't seen the long replay yet myself so not sure if there is much in it.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tempers-continue-to-flare-in-tour-de-france-sprints/

dastardly00

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The handbags were out after todays finish, haven't seen the long replay yet myself so not sure if there is much in it.

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/tempers-continue-to-flare-in-tour-de-france-sprints/

:pac: :pac: :pac:

Demare lead-out man Jacopo Guarnieri pointed the finger at Cofidis sprinter Nacer Bouhanni, whose wheel Demare had severely chopped two days before in the stage 4 finale.

“Bouhanni is an idiot,” Guarnieri said in a television interview after the stage. “He didn’t just pass me, he also put his knee into my bars. He’s a dick, he’s always making people crash. We know he’s like that. He’s probably upset with us because he always loses…”

Lumen

Deleted User wrote: »

Replay terrible , doesn't show from how far back he came.

Monster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2UVy8XjR3k

Kaisr Sose

neris wrote: »

Where da fuq did kittle come from

A long way back!!!

Are these long stages really worth anything in the modern game with teams able to control with precision ? Even Froome was saying it was his most relaxing /enjoyable day of his 46 days in yellow!

pelevin

Thanks for that Lumen. What a surge from Kittel there. A higher species from the men around him.

How much stress do guys like that put on a bike with the watts they are putting out etc I'm almost fearful of them snapping the bike in half. I'm sure there is a science piece on it somewhere :pac:

Lusk_Doyle

Deleted User wrote: »

How much stress do guys like that put on a bike with the watts they are putting out etc I'm almost fearful of them snapping the bike in half. I'm sure there is a science piece on it somewhere :pac:

They have big headsets/stems design to withstand large torques.

Lusk_Doyle

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

They have big headsets/stems design to withstand large torques.

Now I really want to see a video of what they would do to a standard bike in a sprint

Lusk_Doyle

Deleted User wrote: »

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

They have big headsets/stems design to withstand large torques.

Now I really want to see a video of what they would do to a standard bike in a sprint

The worst in terms of style, in that they pull the absolute bejaysus out of the handlebars when sprinting, have to be John Degenkolb and Brian Cocquard[sic]. They mist have been responsible for shearing a few headsets in their time.

Lusk_Doyle

Lusk_Doyle wrote: »

The worst in terms of style, in that they pull the absolute bejaysus out of the handlebars when sprinting, have to be John Degenkolb and Brian Cocquard[sic]. They mist have been responsible for shearing a few headsets in their time.

Actually Cocquard is a talking point in his absence this tour for sure , he's leaving so don't pick him for the tour? Maybe it's not that simple and most of the TV coverage picked up on it and talked about but you'd image if his legs have 3 weeks in them and chance of wins they'd select him other wise it's pretty petty not to.

Somedude9

Demare firing himself through that narrow gap by the barrier at 65kph was ****ing insane! How he didn't get taken out by a spectator I'll never know. Incredible bike handling.