[Closed] Tour de France 2018, the look back thread.

And a couple of thoughts from me.

First up, big shout to CyclingTips for some wonderful photography and to Inrng for very good insight. Whilst STW is clearly the place for MTB work, those are both well worth a glance for a more road focused site.

G finally getting it together was the obvious big highlight, that no-one has a bad word to say about him says a lot. The sprint game was perhaps the lowlight, too many top tier riders gone early mean that even Paris felt a bit low key.

In terms of riders, once again Kwiatkowski was absolutely incredible, the perfect domestqiue and a seemingly lovely guy too, just a shame G forgot about him on the podium! At the other end, Porte once again got unlucky, whilst Movistar came in amoungst much hype and ended up doing very little.

Overall a good, but not vintage tour. But I am so chuffed for G and don't mind saying my eyes were a little moist during his speech.

Cheers for these threads Lunge. I said in the first one that I didn't think G would be able to win a grand tour. Happy to be proven wrong though with this one!

I have enjoyed the tour. Will be strange tonight sitting down once the little guy has gone to bed with no tour highlights to watch. Vuelta starts the 25th August!

Movistar are using the same line up for the Vuelta. I cant help but think they need to designate someone to improve their chances.

Thank you lunge, great threads every day.

Enjoyed the stage yesterday and delighted for Kristoff, who effectively sealed his career with the biggest sprinters win. A bit like G sealing his career with the biggest win of all. Froome looked absolutely delighted for G all day. I though Martin was a good pick for combative rider, but much of that was down to his crash allowing him the freedom to attack. Allaphillippe was the rider for me, and of course Chavanelle who got the jersey out there in the first week.

Craddock the first man to hold the lantern rouge from the first to last stage. What a ride.

Sagan beating only himself to secure green. Untouchable again, so pleased he finished. He us just so exciting to watch.

Bernal was the rider of the tour, what a talent. Magnificent first tour. When Team Sky have improved his TT performance, he’ll be ready for GC.

Vuelta in four weeks...

Fantastic race again.. I was disappointed most in Movistar, but there's nothign new there. They just seem so tactically inept. We 3 really solid climbers in Landa, Quintana and Valverde, they should be world beaters and giving the GC a run for it's money... Instead, they make a mess of team tactics time and time again.

Porte was a loss... to the race and to the event... He could have been the one to push Sky IMO.

Sagan, truly brilliant.... what a rider he is.

Saddened by Cav... Just wasn't there, even when he was.... Tried but you saw him sit up every time about 150m out and hearts sank... along with his hopes of a win. Damn.

Thanks for these Lunge, they’ve been required reading every morning (not least to decide whether to watch live or save myself for thehighlights). Agree with what you say about CyclingTips - very high quality content from good writers and photographers.

Heroes - Kwiatkowski as always. Alaphilippe for a couple of gutsy wins. And Quick Step for four stages and being a threat on many more. Brailsford and Portal for another perfectly calibrated victory. No wonder the French are getting cheesed off.

Villains - some of the French public. Hinault for inciting them.

Will be interesting to see what next for Froome and Thomas. If I was Froome I’d want to focus on getting that fifth TDF title next year.

Like when the clocks go back I always feel sad when the tour is over. It seems like summer is over too

Firstly many thanks for all those posts Lunge, you have given me focus to early morning Tour de Jour.

👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍

I was going to write a précis but this early in the morning you’ll just get some snippets of my (lack of) wisdom...

1) Wanty, pointless inclusion. Prudi needs to hand back the brown envelope and Offredo needs a new team. Bring in Androtti or Cippo or another Pro-Cont French squad...anyone but pointless Wanty. Sorry lads, you aren’t up to it.

2) Stages, the first weeks Sprints were dull and frankly tailored to enable the big lads to walk home after the first week, which most of them did... so I’m not thanking Prudi for this becuse the Tour needs balance and thier inclusion tilted the Tour at 40deg.. Too many mountains, too hard mountain stages, too long stages in the mountains. Cut down both length and gradient and that will encourage the big lads to ride along too, remember them? Oh no, they unclipped didn’t they. The mountains need to be spaced out more, less intensity and fewer to climb over in one stage... keep the big famous lumps, throw in a few unknowns too because there are plenty to choose from. I like the long transition stages, I think these could be upped in length to 300k maybe a bit more and have them riding for 5hrs or so.. this would enable a break and punts off the front. ITT and TT’s I dislike, I understand why they are there so put them in the first week one after the other and get them over and done with.

3) Rider performance, I really expected more from Dillier, Küng, Schär, Chavanel, Oss, Valgren. Burghart the big rouleurs the big puncheurs... the lads that punt off the front and ride like cowboys into the distance. Sadly the Tour stages were too complex and geared towards SKY and BMC and Astana for the lads to go for it. QS did amazing, brought a well rounded squad and had more than thier fair share of glamour and Ala proved being small climber doesn’t mean you can’t roll with the big boys and smile, so too Gaviria.. GvA did an awesome job, fought the Yellow every day he held it and he’s become a favourite of mine over the last couple of years, the Tour needs riders like him who challenge the parcor and the jersey. Porte, yeah.. erm nope. Can’t see why he keeps getting included in the Squad, be good when he moves on IMO.. TJvG is another pointless addition, famed for being Lances clip in buddy but nothing more.. stay in the US please, you don’t like Europe. Vanmarke and Mollema, hurumph... c’mon lads get yer mojo back pleeeeeese you have the talent, get your minds in the right place. Cofidis need a big kick up the arse for not even trying, I think Navarro was the only red jersey up front for one stage and I’m glad to see you’ve binned the bully Buhahahahani. Calmejane, what a talent, so too Groanwaggon .. honest plain clean and fast. Astana, apart from one stage looked lacklustre.. Vino was missing, what’s wrong with the team? Lost whatever they had a few years ago, I’d go so far as saying they should be dropped from next years event. Scott did really well, some excellent and exciting performance from Yates. Dan Martin played out Dan martin without support yet again.. UAE ought to find someone who supports Dan and find them quickly. John Degenkolb, Awesome 💪🚀

Sky, well yeah kinda. After Fromages AAF that turned the whole Tour into a Greek tragedy before it even got underway, they proved that turning up planned and prepared makes for good outcomes. The derision from some supporters was inevitable IMO, and Fromage played a blinder in keeping his manner and coolness under very extreme pressure on and off the bike... but he looked cooked, pale and lacking the bite he normally has. The rest of the squad performed flawlessly and Moscon gained a place in the WWF I hear. Geraint, what can you say? Too little time (and I’ve got meetings to attend) but purely simple and effective with his own humble stamp writ large over a Tour that always courts controversy.

Sagan, he’s the winner IMO. The sport of cycling needs Geraint and Sags But needs Sags more. Talent, humour and honour in bucketfuls and a wet dream for marketers. Long may Geraint and Sags ride out in the same Tours.

Too many mountains, too hard mountain stages, too long stages in the mountains. Cut down both length and gradient and that will encourage the big lads to ride along too, remember them?

But it was the short mountain stages that did for them. I like the inclusion of short snappy stages, though the cut off time clearly needs some looking at.

Some impressive sportsmanship on display - Alaphillipe/Yates and Sagan crashing just to give himself some sort of competition.

A big thank you to you Lunge.  Another year over.

Enjoyed this tour, better than previous years (I say this every year).

G a hero and well deserved winner.  Froome a gentleman in his patience and tolerance of the idiots.

I could go through all the others but think Bikebuoy has it covered.

See you all for the Vuelta.

Great Daily threads.. thanks for the effort.

Wonder why G didnt ride over the finish line with the whole team?

Good Tour but probably not a classic. My biggest disappointment was the fantasy website thing getting closed down, I had G and Sagan in my team 🙁

Thanks lunge. Much appreciated

G a hero and well deserved winner. Froome a gentleman in his patience and tolerance of the idiots.

Well said.

Thanks for the threads Lunge, I've enjoyed this years tour and admire both G and Froome for the way they've ridden. Pity about Cav, but he's had a good run.

Biggest fools award goes to the Gendarmes for: not keeping the crowd the right side of the barriers which led to Porte's crash; pepper spraying the peleton; dragging Froome off his bike causing him to crash and trashing his bike; and finally for walking across the finish line and triggering the timing sensors......................

Big love here for Dan Martin and Julian Alaphilippe for their endless appetite for attack. Huge respect for G, who was faultless and real. And great to see Froomey's obvious delight for his mate, he actually seemed more pleased about G's win than he ever has for his own. Oddly not winning seemed to humanise him, so in a way he also won.

Felt so sorry for Adam Yates when he crashed on that descent into Luchon, though he'd arguably have had trouble holding off Alaphilippe regardless. I also felt perversely sorry for Gianni Moscon, who seems like a cycling version of Paul Gascoigne. Huge talent undermined by the fact that he appears to be a massive idiot with serious anger management issues. It just seems like a huge waste of potential and almost an insult to those riders who can only dream of having as much natural ability as him.

I can't imagine he has a future at Sky now. Not just due to him being a PR disaster, but because he's a liability in performance terms. How can you ever pick him for a major stage race team and know that he won't be kicked off the race for some mad moment.

In contrast, Egan Bernal was just phenomenal. To perform like that in the mountains and finish 15th in GC into the bargain - don't forget he crashed twice early in the race - in his first Tour at the age of 21 all the while looking like he's been bossing the peloton on the climbs for years was just immense.

Wonder why G didnt ride over the finish line with the whole team?

I suspect it's just not in his character. And more pragmatically, it denied the boo-boys an opportunity to have a go at the team. There's a hilarious video on, I think, Luke Rowe's twitter feed where they're sat on the bus before the final stage and Froome says something along the lines of 'best crowds ever...' Bit like the pre-race presentation when they interviewed G on the stage and he said, absolutely straight faced, 'We love the French'. Anyway...

The one thing i can't work out is how the team competition works, how does Movistar win team contest with one stage win and GC riders way back in standings, yet Sky have more stage wins and finished first and third and with more riders higher up in the stages?

(should maybe actually read ASO website on this is calculated!).

@scud - the team competition is the lowest aggregate time of the three best riders from each team on each stage. This is then accumulated through the race. It's not the aggregate of the overall times of a team's top three riders. Hopefully that explains it (but I'm not sure!).

Enjoyed this tour, fantastic that Thomas won, but if it hadn't been for partisan interest in him winning it wasn't a phenomenally exciting GC competition IMO. Not that that takes anything away from his win. Shame Porte and Uran crashed out as it would have been good to have more contenders to keep things spicy. Bardet clearly wasn't quite there which is a real shame. As people have said Movistar need to sort it out as they are a massive waste of talent at the moment.

Otherwise some great displays of riding and sportsmanship.

Movistar met their objective - they won their precious team competition - cumulative time of top three riders less time bonuses. The prestigious yellow number, but not the jersey, Sky had G and Froome, followed by Bernal. Movistar squeaked it by about five minutes. If Bernal had been five minutes faster, he'd have taken the white jersey.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_classification_in_the_Tour_de_France

Lots of pretty pictures for your lunchtime enjoyment,

http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/2018-tour-de-france-in-pictures-gallery/

Shame also the race lost Nibali, not sure if he'd have done much but it would have been good to find out.

Taking a non-British non-Sky view I think this Tour under-delivered:

- so much potential in the GC lost due to silly crashes (Porte, Nibali, Uran)

- so much potential in the GC just didn't surface (Bardet, Quintana, Landa)

- so much potential lost in the sprints due to short stages (Gaviria, Kittel, Cav, Griepel, Groanywagon)

- no adverse weather impacts - rain and echelons

But I thought it was spectacular! All the podiums were well deserved.

oh and it seems Movistar are trying to clone champions:

Thomas or Soler?

Shame about Porte and Nibili. Would have been nice to see them fight!

I reckon Nibz has had it for GT’s now. Could do the Giro and if Bahrain threw a team together for him I reckon he could do it.

But he’s built a week long/classics team around him for some reason, so like Tom all the “contenders” do is stay in the same pack as Sky...

And that’s a bit 45k rolling Dull.

Nah, Nibs for the Lombardy/Spring/Asian-Middle Eastern Tours now.

I purposely didn’t comment on Bardet, for the main reason I think he needs a rest and recoup. He looks way underweight and knackered and it would be unfair to criticise him becuse the lads been like this for about a year now... and I reckon he knows it.

Baguettes, pastries, coffee and a holiday.

AG2r did perform rather well all things considered, FDJ on the other hand always lack zing and panache... Démare is the talent, but Vichot is a cool kid.. quite why he didn’t shine through is baffling.

Really don't know why Movistar are bothered about the team prize, unless they think it's the only thing they have a plan to win to give the sponsors something to shout about. It's also valverde still hanging about expecting special treatment, someone should tell him to sod off. they need to focus on Landa and Soler, I'm not sure what to make of Nairo.

So happy that G won it, I very rarely have favourite riders but he is one and I've been hoping for years he'll have a decent performance in a GT but didn't think it would be TdF.

Shame to see Cav off the pace, it really is brutal the way you win one year then don't the next for a sprinter and there's seemingly no way back. However finishing the stage outside the time cut was properly classy.

Interesting question is what do Sky do now for the Vuelta?? they could go stage hunting or would they give G the option? he's had a long season so maybe not, what about Bernal ???

Top class write-up from Inrng below, well worth a read.

http://inrng.com/2018/07/the-moment-the-2018-tour-de-france-was-won/

I really want to see a French contender, I thought Bardet would have been ready but maybe he does need to rest or change his approach. there do seem to be too many teams in France with no team selecting the best of the best

Really don’t know why Movistar are bothered about the team prize

Well if you want to win something pick something no one else is even remotely interested in.

I'd hope they'd give G the option of the Vuelta as Froome has ruled it out.

Unless Wout fancies a go?

Won't be Bernal for the Vuelta as he's already done 2 GT's this year, Wout maybe or a Henao? Or they could really throw it out there and give Geoghegan-Hart a free rein.

Would love to see Movistar start thinking like acting like a GC team, i think Landa has to be the best all-rounder in the team now, imagine if they actually built a team around him and used Valverde and Quintana as domestiques with Soler (bringing him on to take over), i think Quintana is too much of a pure climber and Valverde whilst still strong is on the downslope of his career.

Again i'd love to see Dan Martin ride a Grand Tour just once with a great team around him and see just what he is capable of

Really don’t know why Movistar are bothered about the team prize

Being a one trick pony is better than being a no trick pony

Given the ages of both Froome and G, how many grand tours do you think they have left in them, and where is the next generation for Sky?

Personnally I think they will go for Froome for next years tour to equal the record. After that, G may get one more shot. But who takes over then? Bernal will only be 23? by then and probably to young to lead despite his obvious ability.

Well if you want to win something pick something no one else is even remotely interested in.

Teams take this prize seriously. It gets all your guys on the podium in front of the Arc. If you can't get a rider in one of the jersey's it's still very good for publicity and the sponsor should be happy

Same reasoning behind getting a rider in the breakaway doomed to fail, you still get millions of viewers seeing the sponsors logo for 4 hours

This year's race was actually a bit of a surprise, and had an unexpected degree of competition with Dumoulin actually making it seem close. And Thomas winning is something new, and well-deserved.

But watching, it didn't feel like there were genuine contenders, and in a way G winning reinforced how little competition there really is. Every year before the start, there's talk of of one of the Yates challenging, Quintana being a thread, Valverde perhaps going close, Nibali, Porte and so on. And every year, the race shows that there really isn't any competition to Sky.

- Porte, perenially unlucky and destined to crash out.

- Nibali: genuinely unfortunate; he wasn't really challenging, but may have had a shot at the podium

- Quintana: just isn't the threat he's hyped up to be.

- Movistar in general: the 'trident' approach always seemed wrong-headed, like they didn't have the balls to tell two of them that they're supporting the third. And there were moments - like when Landa needed pacing back up to the peloton in the Alps, leaving Quintana and Valverde with no support - that it was clear how misguided it was.

- Bardet: just no. He's not a genuine contender, and his team isn't strong enough anyway.

- Yates, Dumoulin, Dan Martin, some others: excellent riders, and may have TdF wins ahead of them. But right now their teams just can't match Sky, and nor are they strong enough to sieze the opportunity when Sky slip up.

It was noticeable how virtually every attack and challenge (with the occasional exception of Roglic, and Movistar) was dependent on a single rider. Dumoulin was virtually unsupported at the pointy end of the race, and so his achievements are even more impressive.

It's why people hate Sky - not because of the clumsy, somewhat incendiary comments, or even the brown bag affair, but because they stifle the race. They are the equivalent of Man United under Mourinho; what we all enjoy watching is Liverpool under Klopp, who could win 6-0, draw 3-3, or lose 6-4 and play an exciting game while doing so. Really, I guess it shows the disparity between what teams want (to win) and what fans want (excitement).

Still, I'll be watching next year!

But watching, it didn’t feel like there were genuine contenders, and in a way G winning reinforced how little competition there really is. Every year before the start, there’s talk of of one of the Yates challenging, Quintana being a thread, Valverde perhaps going close, Nibali, Porte and so on. And every year, the race shows that there really isn’t any competition to Sky.

Get used to it. I have been watching the tour for 30 years and the most exciting tours have always been the ones fuelled by peds (with the exception of the Indurain years which were dull as ditch water)

In this era of cleaner competition this sort of racing will be the norm I`m afraid. All the more reason to split the tour in two. One tour for the clean athletes, and one tour were you are allowed to take as many drugs/transfusions as you like, I know which edition would be more exciting to watch.

Taking a non-British non-Sky view I think this Tour under-delivered...

Tend to agree. Maybe expectations are high coming off the back of the Giro, but there could have been so much more. It was good, but not great. Some big names sadly missing, and others just not firing.

I think G's win is great though, and well deserved. Even from a non-British view, I think people the world over will appreciate that, just like with Degenkolb's emotional win on the cobbled stage. That stuff is great for cycling, and is a welcome change from the months of negativity which preceded it.

Bernal will only be 23? by then and probably to young to lead despite his obvious ability.

Jan Ulrich won the Tdf when he was 23. Eddy Merckx also won his first Tdf when he was 23

I really want to see a French contender, I thought Bardet would have been ready but maybe he does need to rest or change his approach.

I don't think Bardet is the right kind of rider for the current model TdF. I'm wondering if G (sorry Lord Thomas of Maindy) will be contesting the TdF next year. He might think once is enough and try something else given his advancing years.

I reckon Sky should have some fun and stick Kwiato forward for GC for Vuelta with Froome and G in support..... Then Bernal for one next year.

G could, just maybe, now throw stage racing to one side and try to win Flanders or Roubaix. He won't but it'd be awesome if he did.

Lunge wrote

Won’t be Bernal for the Vuelta as he’s already done 2 GT’s this year, Wout maybe or a Henao? Or they could really throw it out there and give Geoghegan-Hart a free rein.

He didn't ride the Giro, and I'monly aware of Giro, TDF and Vuelta being classed as Grand Tours? He's ridden the Tour Down Under (as team leader) and a few others like Oro Y Pax, Tour de Romandie and the Tour of California. I think he's worth a fiver for a Vuelta podium at least...

Top class write-up from Inrng below, well worth a read.

http://inrng.com/2018/07/the-moment-the-2018-tour-de-france-was-won/

Interesting read cheers. Quoting from that article though

[Geraint] joined Sky on its inception in 2010. Once again Sky had a grand tour winner on their roster but it took them years to discover it.

I was under the impression that when Dave Brailsford said "we will win the TDF with a british rider in the next 5 years" (not sure of the exact quute but that's more or less it), he was specifically referring to G rather than Wiggo. Not sure where I got that from, but I'm pretty sure I read it.

Cheers lunge, good work over the last 3 weeks and greatly appreciated.

Some good posts on today's thread.

All I can throw into the pot is

#  With regard to La Vuelta I'm sure Brailsford and crew will have been preparing a team since December (in the same way as they have been preparing Thomas for the Tour).

#  With regard to gc in the Tour being a bit mleh, with just 3 days to go the podium was still realistically in reach of 5 riders. There will always be casualties amongst top gc riders throughout the 3 weeks including in past years Froome & Thomas, the race still goes on.

#  I'm not sure that Dan Martin's style of riding would suit a support team, he'd destroy them! Would love to see him podium in a GT before he retires though.

Just random thoughts! Good stuff Lunge.

He didn’t ride the Giro, and I’monly aware of Giro

Did he not? I was sure he did, a quick google suggest I am wrong, apologies.

I really enjoyed it this year, felt quite competitive even if it wasn't the usual suspects.

On the subject of sprinters, there has to be steep climbs, a cut off, some atritition and tired legs by Paris.  Otherwise you'd get riders bulking up and looking like Hoy on the start line.  Which whilst great for the sprinting if they made it to the end, wouldn't really improve things much.  All the sprinters know the game, get as big and powerful as you think you can be and still make it over the mountains.  They gambled and lost this year and some lighter guys made it to Paris.

That said, they could always split it up better, start in the mountains with fresh legs, then some sprinters stages, more mountains and then some more flat stages on the run to Paris. That way at least they've got a reason to hang around after the first mountains as they've got some fun to have, then only a few more hilly days before Paris.

In this era of cleaner competition this sort of racing will be the norm I`m afraid. All the more reason to split the tour in two. One tour for the clean athletes, and one tour were you are allowed to take as many drugs/transfusions as you like, I know which edition would be more exciting to watch.

Problem is, they'd mostly just kill themselves.

So rather than bemoaning the difficult course for sprinters causing attrition, forums would just be moaning about how 3 of the GC contenders had withdrawn due to heart attacks and one missed the start due to liver failure.

And while it might produce some spectacular attacks, you'd just end up with another lance armstrong, the guy with the best Dr winning year after year.

How far outside the time were the sprinters on the day a large group got eliminated? I always thought rules were relaxed in those circumstances but maybe it was a conscious decision to try and make things a bit less predictable for the remaining flat stages.

I never made reference to Katusha in my summary neiverz..

I’m not sure what to think about the squad these days, Tony Martin was (yeah still is) a fabulous talent. Yet he has been on the wrong end of injuries lately, s’pose that’s the reason he was out this year.. and sadly lacking because of it.

Him and Zakarin would have made a good team, I like Zakarin I have a lot of time for him. He’s a fighter, has been brilliant in previous GTs and I’m hoping soon he will be able to win something significant, along with Turbo-Tony. But, they must break the mould of sticking behind Sky on every stage..

In fact that’s a point ought to be made on its own...

We’ve mooted the Sky Train many times over the years, I am simply not a fan of the rolling roadblock tactics.

Argue all you like about “fittest, sits on the front at 45clicks,drags everyone in the wake, prevents attacks becuse the pace is so relentless” I hate it.

Kwiat is definitely the new Kyri, never thought I’d see another Kyri because when he was born Michalangelo had just gone off to sharpen his chisels and left the marble alone for 10mins and Kyri broke free and nicked the butchers bike and rode off into the hills... grinding out a marble paste that littered the white roads of Tuscany...

Yes you use the talent pool to maximise gains, Kwait is a thinking mans rider, yet to poke him out front for 100k must be demoralising to say the least.. Hope he gets his wings in a GT pretty sharpish.

Back to the Sky train, some bloke once said “if you can’t beat em’, join em’” but flock in numbers in the wake is just pointless, there are no tactics not until Poels goes for a piss and everyone shouts “gap!” and Dan Martin squeezes through for 80mtrs...

It is no wonder the racing has become dull, the French have started to turn away... The French fans, like I, enjoy the baroudeur.. the fighter, the punter, the rouleur the entertainer yet all we see is rolling roadblocks without blue flashing lights.. Dull.

We need a couple of strong men, big Vocklers to start breaking the stranglehold up and the soonernthe better.

Wonder what Geraint is doing now??

Hated seeing Cav of the pace, but so much respect for him finishing the stage when he could have easily stepped off.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/45011052

Talk about damning with faint praise...

Geraint on the One show (earlier)

Nearly fell off the sofa when he walked on. It's made my night.

Another thank you for these threads, Lunge. Always appreciated.

All the best,

Rich

Thanks lunge+1 more.  I thoroughly enjoyed it this year. My son really got into it, as much as the fitba! When he spotted G on the 1 show he was delighted.He loves Bardet just a little less this year.

I’ll miss “Ask Sagan” on Eurosport & do hope G can ride the tour of Britain.

There will always be one team that is a little bit stronger than the others and riders line up behind them, it was the same for Highroad, USPS , banesto, Renault, Molteni, and le dopage isn't the reason either. It's how GTs work.

FWIW I thought that the Lance years were as boring as the indurain once the pattern was set and it was as much a result of the same old courses playing right into their hands so Gouvenu and Prudhomme take a bow

Lows - Bardet. Well, not actually Bardet but the bloody awful gushing praised laddled on by Miller and Ned in the commentary box, which normally went "There goes Bardet on the attack with 100km to go. What a genius, he's such a brilliant rider, blah blah blah". Normally followed about ten minutes later with a "And there's Bardet off the back of the group". They genuienely seemed to think he was going to do a massive solo effort and take the lead by 15 minutes every time.

I'm also going to say the Roubaix sections aren't a TdF thing. They just felt like they were there to maim a GC rider which isn't the point of the tour. You takes your chances on a classic one-dayer but not the three week event.

Oh, and while I'm on a random rant, downhill finishes on mountain stages. Whats the point?

But I agree with others, the flat stages/first week was a bit dull. I sadly think it's due to radios, all the data people have at their disposal these days, powermeters  etc. which I suppose is 'progress'. Gone are the days of someone belting off and then the mad chase that may or may not work. Now it's the team car saying ''I've calculated on the laptop you need to ride at this speed/wattage and you'll catch them with 1.8km to go'.

Highs - obviously the result.

And short stages. If you're going to stop the Sky dominance I think shorter,rather than longer stages might be the way. Maybe not the mad F1 grid startline but shorter sharper mountain stages where people could get away and stay away. It's either that or every other team are going to have to agree to work together to blast Sky away and that ain't gonna happen. hrist, Movistar can't even get their own team to work properly...

And watching Dan Martin just having fun after losing that time early one.

My broadband was playing silly bu@@ers, so im still catching up!

a) the coverage could do with the speeds and distances in miles. I didn't support brexit, but short of nuclear war, were committed to 'old imperial'.

b) Chris boardman could present his stage features/ monologues on an e-bike. Lycra and skinny tyres don't endear the unfit 95 percent of the population to enjoyable cycling.

Chris boardman could present his stage features/ monologues on an e-bike

He won't be presenting any of it next year.  A great loss in my view.

A great loss in my view.

Agreed.

Lows: Sill grid start. Very few of the sprinters making the time cut off.  Moscon losing it. Booing, spitting and pushing by idiots who aren't racing fans, but people who just want to be on the telly.

Highs:  Ned and David commentating.  Letour (I think) riding through his home town being cheered by his locals.   Alaphillipe making sure Yates was ok after his crash.  Sagan being Sagan.  Chris Froome being a top sport (you still have chance for another tour win).  Dan Martin going for it (he needs a better team).  And of course my favourite rider winning. A lot of riders didn't have the luck this year, but this has been G in the past, this was his time, his luck, his skill and fitness.

Kwiat is definitely the new Kyri, never thought I’d see another Kyri because when he was born Michalangelo had just gone off to sharpen his chisels... etc

I'd have said Kwiato is quite a different rider from Kiri. The latter is a huge, but largely one-paced engine, Kwiato is a far more versatile rider. Better high mountain climber. Better sprinter. Has legitimate GT leader ambitions. Arguably Castroviejo is closer to Kiri if you want to compare riders.

I do occasionally wonder what would happen if Team Sky were to take on say, Bardet or Pinot. Could a year of Tim Kerrison training and Team Sky support turn them into GT winners. And what would the French media and public make of it? Or maybe in a few times Pavel Sivakov - half-French / half-Russian, raised in France - will be leading Sky at the Tour, who knows.

"Downhill" finishes on mountain stages. There's not a lot of places that can cope with a mountain top finish, many of the cols are pretty tight for space, some have a hotel or ski lift and associated car park but many don't. Alp d'Huez is a ski resort, the finish is on the edge of town, when you look down the finishing straight there's a ruddy great field on the left that gets filled with the Tour's paraphernalia on the day. A downhill finish also gives the opportunity for someone to breakaway rather than the whole stage just being a pre-amble to the GC contenders slugging it out on the final climb.

Shorter stages. I think most of the big GTs are going this way. The UCI have a maximum length for a stage, 240km or 250km from memory, but they tend to be pretty boring IMO. ASO try to cover as much of France as possible without having every stage being a 200km slog fest so shorter stages mean less of the country can be visited without having lots of transfers (there may be a limit on those as well). Then again there are quite a few stages that are almost loops.

Glad to see G win it. He's always seemed like a "nearly man", a Welsh/British Raymond Poulidor if you will. Surprised to see him on The One Show, I thought he'd be resting up in Paris.

Not sure if you could build a GC team around Dan Martin. His style is very much a lone wolf approach. Exciting to watch as he's very seat of the pants in the way he rides, any plan gets ripped from the stem before the Depart Real.

Get a better team around the Yates brothers and they'll win a GT.

A pity to see so many sprinters not make it through the mountains. Cav might not have been a surprise - he didn't look race ready. The time cut-offs are there to stop riders just taking it easy and turning up two hours after everyone else.

The coverage is just fine in metric. This is the 21st century not the 17th!

I thoroughly enjoyed it this year, I know this shows my age, but the first Tour de France I watched was won by Jan Ulrich, and few have matched the drama of 2018.

Highs: Thomas' grace and dignity in everything he did.  The Roubaix stage - I know there were casualties but it was exciting to watch.

Lows: the TV motorbikes becoming a part of the race.  Last year was bad enough when one hit a crowd and lead to the ridiculous Froome running up the hill incident, but they have contributed to crashes too often, and there was the supposed drafting by Primoz Roglic alleged by Tom Dumoulin.

Also, call me a fusspot but I will not watch ITV coverage any more unless David Millar can learn to speak proper, and stop prononcing the t in often.  And it is "Tours de France" David, not "Tour de Frances".  They don't ride around a different France each year you numpty.

Offen and often are both correct pronunciations.

Nope.  Off-tin is 100% wrong.

You mean that you don't like it. OED has both for GB English but only with the 't' for US English.

I'm the opposite, i much prefer the ITV4 coverage to the Eurosport, where everyday Carlton has to mention Sagan and mountain biking and the only thing he seems to know about TT'ing is the phrase "negative split".

David Millar often gives a real insight and knowledge of what is happening and i will miss Chris Boardman too.

a) the coverage could do with the speeds and distances in miles. I didn’t support brexit, but short of nuclear war, were committed to ‘old imperial’.

b) Chris boardman could present his stage features/ monologues on an e-bike. Lycra and skinny tyres don’t endear the unfit 95 percent of the population to enjoyable cycling.

I ****ing despair, if there was a point, you missed it!!!

“Tour de Frances”.

Yes he surprised me with this one. Certainly as a French speaker I would have expected him to get that right. Anyway apart from that I often put a t in often.

"The French coming round here with their bidons, casquettes and peletons" if it was up to me it would the Tour of her majestys Great Britain, sponsored by John Smiths and Johnny Foreigner would have to show his passport and work visa at signing on for each stage"

All about Eurosport for me, Carlton and Kelly are the voice of cycling and much better than Ned and Millar in my humble opinion. How can you watch cycling and not have "the calculation" being talking about, or the rivet being sat on?

... but in English Tour de France is said differently to in French, with France being pronounced France and not Fronce. So if you pluralize the English Tour de France you get Tour de Frances. N'est-ce pas?

My thoughts:

Richie Porte - everyone commenting on how "unlucky" he is but missing that imho to a large extent in this, as with many sports, you make your own luck. That has been said many times in the past of G, but Richie seems to get a pass for some reason.

The "team" prize, as a few others have said, is silly. Don't know why they have it. Given that no one wins Le Tour as a soloist, to my mind the team prize, should there be one, goes to the team that have their guy in yellow in Paris.

Peter Sagan has markedly improved his racecraft over the last year or two - much better at picking the right wheel on the way in and then timing his final sprints than he used to be. He always had the legs but used to miss out on too many stages simply by going off too early / late. I wonder what he could do with a team riding for him rather than "freelancing" - not sure because maybe that's the style that works for him, but it would be interesting to see.

Team Sky couldn't have played it better - G gets a little bitty lead and no one really notices or cares cos they're all watching Froome and everyone knows he'll have a bad day or crash and won't be able to keep it up for three weeks and, oh shit, too late, while we were all marking Froome, G's run away it. Brilliant. I still think it was the plan from Day 1, Froome knew he didn't have the form and was running as a distraction.

Carlton and Kelly are the voice of cycling

Carlton Kirby is horrific, a babbling, know-nothing, cacophony of meaningless cliches and fake hysteria. He properly does my head in with his imagined conversations between riders and the team cars, his repeated crap about riders 'having their fun' and the awful contrived links... you know, 'It's raining here today, and Chris Froome is the reigning champion... etc. And the bit where at the finish he disintegrates into an absurd crescendos of screeching, hysterical white noise as if that somehow makes it exciting. Horrific.

I do like Sean Kelly, but his accent sometimes makes it hard to understand what he's saying along with the odd thing where he puts clauses and sub-clauses together in an eccentric random order. He's very good at correcting Kirby when he spouts some new snippet of idiocy without being nasty though, for which he deserves some sort of medal.

The joy of Millar is that he actually tells you stuff that you wouldn't otherwise realise about why riders are positioned where they are for example. Or about the personality of individuals who he's ridden with. He's still of this time as opposed to the likes of Kelly or Philippa York who've not raced for years.

That's my take anyway. I just find Carlton Kirby almost impossible to listen to, but it's great that we have a choice.

I'm glad it's not just me that hates Carlton Kirby and his terrible cliches

Peter Sagan has markedly improved his racecraft over the last year or two – much better at picking the right wheel on the way in and then timing his final sprints than he used to be. He always had the legs but used to miss out on too many stages simply by going off too early / late. I wonder what he could do with a team riding for him rather than “freelancing” – not sure because maybe that’s the style that works for him, but it would be interesting to see.

I think his racecraft has always been top notch but as a non specialist sprinter didn't have the pure speed against specialists and there lead outs. He has always IMHO chosen the right wheels and always seems to get in the right breaks, that's what has made him a multiple world champion.

I’m glad it’s not just me that hates Carlton Kirby and his terrible cliches

It's not just on cycling, he's put a big dent into my enjoyment of Le Mans for years too.

Millar and Boulting are much more interesting and insightful.

A medium-good Tour IMO. Which still makes it a great bike race because it’s the tour.

agree with the Carlton haters above. The final straw for me was when he was commentating on Strade Bianche and kept calling the Piazza Del Campo ‘the Palio’, which is like calling the champs Elysee ‘the tour de france’

Richie Porte – everyone commenting on how “unlucky” he is but missing that imho to a large extent in this, as with many sports, you make your own luck. That has been said many times in the past of G, but Richie seems to get a pass for some reason.

Very much so. After so many years of what if, and his history of major crashes, I wonder if there's something that a sports psychologist could help him with.

Lows – Bardet.

Totally agree. He just isn't that, and I wish ITV4 would stop making out that he is.

And Ned Boulting is a nice guy, excellent at the co-presenting piece, but he isn't a commentator. The number of times he had to correct himself "oh that's Sagan, oh no wait, that's his teammate", and so on. Maybe he'll get better with practice.

Finally, interesting to see stories in the papers today suggesting a team salary cap. It would basically only affect Sky, but it would be fascinating to see how a Tour with a more level playing field in terms of money played out.