Le (100th) Tour de France 2013

shoestring25

froome destroyed them on the last climb hope he wins yellow this year he deserves it he should have won it last year hes a much better climber than wiggins was but team orders made him stay back and help wiggins

NorvernRob

I couldn't agree more, if anyone deserves to win a Tour it's Froome. He would have destroyed Wiggins in the mountains last year, but gets virtually no recognition. Wiggins is an exceptional rider but by far the poorer climber.

inzaman

Yesterday was as strong a mountain finish as I can remember.
Froome totally blew everyone away in the last few k of the climb. It would've been interesting had Quintana (sp?) saved himself for the last climb instead of going on the first climb. He looks a great climber as well.

The tempo set by Sky was fantastic. Taking nothing away from Wiggins as what he did last year was amazing but I prefer Froome's style of riding as I love the mountain stages but find the TT a bit stale tbh.

Froome should've also won the Vuelta the other year as well but again team orders stopped him from doing so. I hope Froome goes onto win the Tour as I think he could win a good few more as well. I think the final week is going to be tough and great as well

severe dainjah

totally agree, seeing a rider win a mountain stage like Froome did yesterday deserves more respect than a sprinter who is "carried" to the finish by his team IMO.  

I know teams help the climbers too but being pretty poor at climbing myself, I love seeing a rider power up the steepest of hills to victory.

VaVaFroome

Se777eN

This goes to show why wiggo did not want to ride this year froome is better rider and it shown it today if that was wiggo yesterday he would of needed his team froome can go on his own. The pace froome shown up the last climb is a huge message to all but alot dropped early yesterday i was very suprised it was the 1st mountain stage. Its over all ready and its only week one he just needs to stay on his bike. But what a team ride yesterdays by sky... They will be some attacks today and froome will just sit back and watch with sky setting the pace again..

shoestring25

the sky team are in tatters, cracked badly today. lucky froome is one hell of a cyclist and managed to do what he needed. wiggins had a better team last year behind him

Se777eN

It was the pace so early on it was going to happen porte lost alot of time today with the work he did yesterday nice to see shleck back up there again today.. If that was wiggo today he would not of been up there. Your right about the sky team are not as strong as last year am suprised Uran is not in the team as he is a really good climber..

Lin3ar

I can't understand how the Sky team does not look anywhere near as strong on paper as last year

Plus they have just lost one of their climbers due to finishing over the time limit yesterday.

Froome is going to have to do this the hard way this year, mostly on his own. Unlike last year where hardly anybody attacked Sky because it was not worth the effort, this year the other teams know that Froome can be isolated so expect attacks, even on the flatter stages.

I still think Froome is good enough to hold on though.

inzaman

I was surprised that Froome wasn't attacked more yesterday? He was isolated for over 100k yet there were only a couple of attacks by Quintana on the final climb.

I would have expected the Movistar team to be attacking far more to try and wear him down, once Quintana attacked then Valverde could've attacked straight after as it would have been difficult for Froome to have reacted whilst still recovering having chased down Quintana. I thought Contador might have had a go as well.

However they could have just been too spent from the day before as pretty much all the favourites had gone well into the red on Saturday as Sky and Froome just toally blew the race apart .
The stronger teams can now see that Sky is not maybe strong for two days so I think during week three the other teams will try and undo Sky like they did yesterday, but put in a lot more attacks on the longer climbs. Froome is certainly good enough to counter the odd attack but it just takes one bad day and a few attacks in the Alps and it would be very interesting then.
It was two awesome stages this weekend though

Gizbert

Absolutely brilliant couple of days.  Already more interesting then last year's TdF, although loved the Wiggo win last year.

I think both Movistar and Saxo missed a trick yesterday, but as Inzi has said, they were probably spent after a long week of cycling and Saturday's show by team Sky.  Maybe they were content to just get rid of Porte from the standings and the little digs by Quintana were just to see what Froome had left. He showed them what he had, but a flat tyre or mechanical could've been a real problem.  Would've been interesting to see whether they would've attacked or held back a little if he did have a problem.  As it was, Movistar acted as Froome's team in a way.

I expect Sky to rest up for next few days, as the sprinters teams will probably do most of the work this week, apart from the TT on Wednesday.  Froome will need to put in a good time in the TT, but the rest of Sky don't really need to break too much sweat, especially Porte as his Tour is now all down to help Froome.  Just hope Kennaugh isn't too badly hurt after his leap into a hawthorn bush as he'll be needed.  Shame Kiryenka has gone.

Roll on tomorrow.