Weekend Touring

A weekend of riding on the Tour can change everything and nothing. Friday’s stage was touted as a perfect day for Sagan and came so close to giving him a win after a run of top-fives on the stages so far. He was up there in the sprint, but edged out by the smallest of possible margins by Matteo Trentin in the sprint from a slimmed down pack that had dealt with the last climb. Behind the line Talansky got involved and then took himself out to leave him tumbling out of the group and limping the last few metres home to blame an innocent Simon Gerrans for the crash.

In the background it was revealed that Froome had several fractures in his wrist and hand that explains his retirement from the race. His Team leader replacement, Richie Porte, worked hard in combination with Eisel and Thomas to get into serous contention.

The weekend took the race to the first small mountain s of the Vosges with a summit finish on Saturday. In the GC race Talansky went down again and lost significant time on a right hand bend, while the big names shaped up to each other properly. The stage was won by a French rider, Blel Kadri, who went in a solid break and stayed away to get the French a first week stage win in their home race and take the polka-dot jersey. Also in the break was Simon Yates, the youngest rider in the race now and one of only two remaining Brits. He was seen as the danger man by the rest of the breakaway and, although he dropped away to be swallowed by the pack he really made a case to be kept in the competition until Paris.

Behind the lead Contador’s Astana team worked to put him poised to attack which he duly did, trying to drop Nibali through the rain. Nibali calmly sat on him all the way to a few metres to the line allowing him to only gain 3 seconds on the leader. In the background of this man-on-man challenge Porte eased up the hill to stay firmly in touch.

Sunday was a stage the other way round with early climbs and a long flat run in to the line in Mulhouse. The first story here was the Panzerwagon, Tony Martin, going in the break then leaving them to go alone and time trial his way to a fabulous stage win, finally taking a road win to add to his TT win a few years ago. Further back a group of over 20 riders was putting time into the peloton and putting Tony Gallopin into the virtual race lead. His work and commitment dragged this group on to put the yellow jersey on his back for today.

That ride wrapped up a very good weekend for France that sees a stage win and a race leader for Bastille day for French riders. Gallopin won’t hold yellow today as the race goes up to La Planche des Belles Filles with Nibali and Contador looking to show exactly who has form, and Porte and Sky getting into the mix as well. From the other GC contenders Talansky is looking strong but has dropped back with crashes and Rodriguez has lost so much time that a win is impossible and he has stated his ambition on the climbers’ jersey as he raced out for the minor points on the hills.

Elsewhere a Sky rider left out of the Tour team was perhaps showing that he should have been there as Pete Kennaugh won the Tour of Austria,

Pete Kennaugh claimed his second GC win of the season in style at the Tour of Austria. Report: http://t.co/A2milvG5TE pic.twitter.com/BAdS4z4uNw

— Team Sky (@TeamSky) July 13, 2014

Looks like he won a sausage.

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