On Friday Dave Millar played a clever game to win a the stage from a beak-away and make it a full house on team GB Olympic road race riders at the Tour winning stages, as he was the fourth different British stage winner this year. Remember those days where we’d hope for a cheeky prologue win and then hold on to see if the British rider would make it to Paris..?
Saturday saw a tricky little stage where a super-steep hill in the last kilometres spoilt the pure-sprinters’ day after the rest of the day saw wind play the biggest part. In the final shake-down Wiggins, in yellow, tore through to lead out Boasen-Hagen who didn’t quite have the legs on Griepel and Sagan but showed the race-leader’s strength and class.
Sunday was a potentially dangerous stage for Sky, but they continued to dominate and control the race. When tacks attacked (to steal a phrase form ITV) causing around thirty punctures, including multiple flats for Evans, Wiggins’ Sky team neutralised the race and sat up to wait.
All of this left Wiggins still in the lead over team-mate Froome and with a significant lead to defend, with only a handful of seriously dangerous stages to control as they have. The team ethic shows with World Champ Cavendish driving the peloton as much as he was collecting team bottles and kit.
Around the Tour Wiggins elaborated on his thoughts on doping, slightly more reservedly than his outburst to the French press, in the Guardian.
My big question of the weekend was as Radioshhack took the team-lead they seemed to either ignore the yellow-helmet rule, or do it in a far more subtle way than Sky had?
In other cycling spheres I like the idea of this Red Bull event in Somerset. I look forward to more details.
I’m not ignoring the grass-roots of cycling, and so I enjoyed this design idea to carry a built-in lock with you at all time. Also I was “keeping it real” messing around on a BMX, which went well until a squirmy front tyre deposited me on the road and gave me my very own Tour de France –esque road rash and bleeding.
Ouch.
At least, for actual professional riders, it turns out that Gee Atherton isn't as badly injured as first feared, with no ligament damage.
Also some people raced down a glacier.
A
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