Competition Time
Last weeks questions turned out to be quite easy as everyone answered the same thing – and were completely correct. Damn you predictable first week of the Tour

I will be gone over the weekend so you will have plenty of time to PM me your bets before the next stage is posted.

Real life: Froome took the stage ahead of Evans and Wiggins.

Vorganov leads 11 riders over the first categorized climb. 87 km to the finish line and 7’28’’ to the peloton.
The gap has started to decrease thanks to a lot of work from Kessiakoff and the rest of the Astana domestiques and the break is unlikely to succeed.
50 km left for the break and 5 minutes advantage Bos and Renshaw has lost contact with the peloton.

7 km of climbing left and things are starting to get serious among the favourites. Kern, Weening and López has 2’30’’ to the main GC riders at this point.

5 km to go. The front trio maintains a small advantage – now about 1’30’’ to the Nibali-group. The peloton is only just starting to crack but Rodríguez, Nibali, Voeckler, Wiggins and Froome have got a small gap to the rest.

With 1,5 km to the top the breakers can forget about winning the stage as Contador, Froome, Purito, Voeckler and Nibali catch up with them.

Contador is strongest on the final part, but not a lot of difference is made in the GC.

Real life: Pinot took the stage ahead of Evans and Gallopin.

Nothing much to tell about the first 100 km except that a break gets away with usual suspects like Kern, Westra, Bak and Nerz.
They enter the last 50 km with an advantage of 4’36’’.

Moreno Moser of the break is first across the last hill followed by Sylvain Chavanel, who have only just joined the break after attacking with 35 km to go. The two has 20 seconds to Meyer and Kern, another 20 to Thomas, Westra and Nerz. The peloton is a further 2’30’’ behind.

Nibali continues his aggressive style of riding 700 m from the top of the hill. He gets a small gap on the descent, but Saxo - Tinkoff and Sky Froome have him under control.

Going into the last five km Moser and Chavanel is still half a minute ahead of Meyer.
Chavanel is either wheelsucking or extremely tired…

Moser is hoping for the last and opens the sprint early.

Chavanel waited for the last 500 m and then he sprinted away easily to great joy for the French fans.

Real life: Wiggins took the stage easily ahead of Froome and Cancellara.

Taylor Phinney is the first good TT’er on the route and sets the first reference time

How did that happen? Boonen sets new best time 3 seconds faster than Phinney.

Pinotti getting a provisional seconds is hardly surprising. It is very surprising however that the best time is held by Philippe Gilbert.

Cancellara is determined to set things back to normal and crushes Gilberts time by more than a minute.

Once again it looks like it comes down to Martin vs Cancellara.
Today the world champion is the slowest of the two.

Van Garderen is 3rd on the first intermediate and second on the second. Will he be able to challenge Spartacus?
Not quite, but 1 second faster than Martin is quite good as well!

Wiggins are still hoping to get back into the GC fight and sets new best time on the first intermediate. Doesn’t last long though as the time gets further improved by Froome.
At the first intermediate Nibali is 1 second faster than Contador, 21 seconds slower than Froome and 15 seconds slower than Wiggo.

Second intermediate and Froome is 16 seconds faster than Wiggins, 38 seconds faster than Contador, but Nibali surprises bye only losing 29 seconds this far.
It seems Contador surprisingly will be the biggest loser from the GC-top.