Hi all! The Tour is back on Friday so here's a thread to discuss all the thrills and spills of the biggest race in cycling. Whether you're an avid fan or just want to make a passing comment about a headline, you're more than welcome in here!

Full coverage will be shown on ITV4 as usual, with highlights at 8pm on the first night and 7pm thereafter.

Who are the contenders?

 

Tadej Pogacar - After having won the last one by a country mile, there's no doubt Pogacar is odds-on to take the title again. He's already topped the GC of three stage races this year so he still has the form, one could imagine that only a crash could stop him taking the win.

 

Primoz Roglic - Roglic was very unlucky to get caught up in a crash last year, but his form is looking good. He won the Dauphiné, the natural Tour de France predictor, earlier this month, however Pogacar wasn't present for that.

 

Jonas Vingegaard - Runner-up at the Tour last year, he could do the same again this year however the fact he's on the same team as Roglic might cause a little bit of tension. He's co-leader for this year's event, and finished second in the Dauphiné after riding in support of Roglic. Although there was a point in that race where it was looking like he was dropping his leader...

 

Geraint Thomas / Daniel Martinez / Adam Yates - With Bernal still out injured and Carapaz having ridden the Giro, Ineos seem to have a lot of riders who could challenge for the podium, but none of them seem like they're on the same level as those mentioned above. Thomas won the Tour de Suisse last week, however that does have the caveat that half the field (including quite a few of the main contenders) pulled out with Covid. One of them was Yates, so whether he starts the race will be another question. I'm sure by next week we'll know who the leader of the team is though!

gonna see the first day as it starts here in Copenhagen on Friday!!!!

That's very exciting - hope you enjoy! (something I never did when it came through Yorkshire, although I did watch lots of places I knew go past the TV screen...)

Geraint Thomas has been named in the Ineos Grenadiers team for the Tour de France along with three other British riders.

 

Thomas, 36, won cycling's biggest race in 2018 under the team's previous guise, Team Sky.

 

The eight-man squad named for the Tour also includes Great Britain's Adam Yates, Tom Pidcock and Luke Rowe.

Starting tomorrow! :cheer: Stage 1 is looking like a relatively flat time trial, but will certainly give us at least some gaps between the favourites before the race gets going properly!

Here are some of start times to keep an eye on of the riders who will be hoping to end this evening wearing yellow:

 

15:20 Primoz Roglic

15:34 Stefan Kung

15:35 Jack Haig

15:39 Aleksandr Vlasov

15:40 Ben O'Connor

15:41 Geraint Thomas

15:42 Jonas Vingegaard

15:56 Thibaut Pinot

16:03 Filippo Ganna

16:04 Wout van Aert

16:05 Tadej Pogacar

16:22 Kasper Asgreen

16:25 Adam Yates

And so the Tour is underway! And we begin with a fantastic underdog win, Yves Lampaert snatching the time trial win just after all the big names finished.

 

Nice to see Pedersen and Vingegaard get Top 10 in the stage in their home country as well.

went to see the first one, was great but raining like hell and I didn't have an umbrella so was very challenging for me :D

went to see the first one, was great but raining like hell and I didn't have an umbrella so was very challenging for me :D

The weather certainly looked atrocious!

 

Fabio Jakobsen picked up a belated first stage win today, Van Aert finished second giving him the 6 bonus seconds and hence the Yellow Jersey.

 

Also just realised that there are no black riders in the Tour this year - for the first time since at least 2010 - which is sad to see.

Dylan Groenewegen takes Stage 3 - very clear that the sprinters are quite even with each other this year! Loving Magnus Cort entertaining his home crowd on his lone breakaway as well.

After three second places in a row, Van Aert finally got his win by simply riding away from everyone in the last 10km! I definitely feel for Phillipsen though, who celebrated thinking he had won when he crossed the line 20 seconds later. At least he seems to have found some of the funny side.

A completely mad stage on the cobbles! After eveything that happened I'm amazed Van Aert managed to keep the yellow jersey - the big losers were Primoz Roglic (who fixed his own broken collarbone!) and Ben O'Connor (and Jack Haig who crashed out)

Another bizarre stage today! Van Aert decided to go on a wild breakaway in the Yellow Jersesy, got caught and ended up losing 7 minutes. Pogacar won the final sprint and took enough bonus seconds to leapfrog Powless and take yellow - Vingegaard is third, Yates/Pidcock/Thomas maintain a British block in positions 4-6.

Pogacar takes his second win in a row, although was run very close to the line by Vingegaard! They are the top 2 now, with Geraint Thomas in third

 

(you have to feel for Kamna though, out in the breakaway all day only to be overtaken with 200m to go!)

A very standard day today - Van Aert took the stage win, Pogacar finished third and hence took another 4 seconds out of everyone else. A decent effort from Fred Wright though - last man in the breakaway and fought a pretty decent fight to stay up there!

Bob Jungels took the win yesterday after an unbelievable 60km solo attack. Delighted for him!

 

Behind, Pogacar and Vingegaard took three seconds from everyone else.

oh my amazing Vingegaard today, wasn't expecting such an incredible performance

very good for Quintana too

So Pogacar is human after all! :o Fantastic tactics from Jumbo today and a great performance from Vingegaard. Romain Bardet up to second behind Vingegaard as well, great to see him back to his best.

Pogacar back to his best today - matching Vingegaard all the way to the finish. He's up to second again, with Thomas up to third.

 

Tom Pidcock winning the stage as well - a good day for Leeds!