The Tour is back on Saturday 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 7pm.

Stage Guide:

 

1. Florence-Rimini (205km)

2. Cesenatico-Bologina (200km)

3. Piacenza-Turin (225km)

4. Pinerolo-Valloire (138km)

5. Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne-Saint Vulbas (177km)

6. Macon-Dijon (163km)

7. Nuits-Saint-Georges-Gevrey-Chambertin (25km) [individual Time Trial]

8. Semur-en-Auxouis to Comlombey-les-Deux-Eglises (176km)

9. Troyes-Troyes (199km)

10. Orleans to Saint-Amand-Montrond (187km)

11. Evaux-le-Bains to Le Lioran (211km)

12. Aurillac to Villeneuve-sur-Lot (204km)

13. Agen to Pau (171km)

14. Pau to Pla d'Adet (152km)

15. Loudenvielle to Plateau de Beille (198km)

16. Gruissan to Nimes (187km)

17. Saint-Paul-Trois-Chateaux to Superdevoluy (178km)

18. Gap to Barcelonnette (179km)

19. Embrun to Isola 2000 (145km)

20. Nice to Col de la Couillole (132km)

21. Monaco to Nice (31km) [individual Time Trial]

 

Teams list:

 

https://www.procyclingstats.com/race/tour-d.../2024/startlist

Yellow Jersey Odds: (Coral)

 

Tadej Pogacar 8-13f

Jonas Vingegaard 5-2

Primoz Roglic 8-1

Remco Evenepoel 16-1

Adam Yates 20-1

Carlos Rodriguez 20-1

Juan Ayuso 25-1

Matteo Jorgenson 25-1

Joao Almeida 40-1

Egan Bernal 50-1

Simon Yates 50-1

Enric Mas Nicolau 50-1

Jai Hindley 66-1

Alexander Vlasov 66-1

Felix Gall 66-1

Tom Pidcock 80-1

Richard Carapaz 80-1

We get going tomorrow! Should be an interesting one - if we were basing this off the past few years Vingegaard should win comfortably, but with his injury plus Pogacar completely dominating the Giro it should make for an interesting battle. Can't rule Roglic out either (or Evenepoel for that matter, although his recent results haven't suggested he's in the best shape for a 3-week race).

On another note, I had a look through the team line-ups the other day and it seems like Biniam Girmay will again be the only black rider taking part. A bit of a shame as there are other black riders in the peloton but it seems the teams have chosen to utilise them in the Giro/Vuelta instead.

Romain Bardet takes Stage 1 with a couple of seconds to go, getting a first yellow jersey after all these years! Really happy for him, and Van Den Broek really made that happen so good that he managed to get two jerseys as well.

Quite a bit of action over the past few days! 23 year-old Kevin Vauquelin took the stage yesterday on his debut Tour, with the hills immediately putting Pogacar into yellow. And today Girmay becomes the first black person to ever win a stage at the Tour - really happy for him! Richard Carapaz now in yellow as a result of finishing higher in the sprints than the others on the same time.

Pogacar taking a firm grip on the yellow jersey today with a stage win and with only Evenepoel and Vingegaard within a minute of him! Let's see if he's able to hold on over the coming weeks.

Vingegaard said he was expecting to lose 2 minutes so losing just 1 was a success :/ :o

^ I guess your expectations will be dampened if you've spent the first half of the year recovering from an injury like his.

 

Anyway, Cavendish has his historic win now, well done to him. Girmay in green which is nice to see!

So happy for Cav- I mean he's worked so hard for this and it has finally paid off after so many close calls to taking the record TdF most stage wins. Completely deserved - what a legend!

Nice to see Evenepoel get his first Tour stage win today in the time trial! He took 12 seconds from Pogacar, so the Top 4 are now Pogacar/Evenepoel/Vingegaard/Roglic. Exciting times!

Caught up with yesterday's stage now it's the rest day - I'm sure the gravel stage will split opinions! It was certainly exciting but also felt a bit unfair as a puncture could have basically ruined any onf the contenders' chances of winning, plus the fact that the riders at the back ended up grinding to a halt and literally running up one of the hills. Thankfully the Top 4 were unharmed, and I'm sure winner Anthony Turgis will be happy!

One of the dullest stages in a while today as the teams all conserved energy for crosswinds that never happened! Nice win for Philipsen though.

Yesterday's stage was a cracker, great to see all four contenders really making their mark! A real shame to see Roglic losing two minutes because of a crash he couldn't do anything about todaya though, takes a good chunk of the excitement out of it. Hopefully he can get in a long-range attack and pull back some time.

 

On a more positive note, nice to see Girmay get his third win!

Pogacar taking both the stage win and more time over Vingegaard! Let's see if he's able to keep up the momentum.

First day back after the rest day was fairly dull, aside from the crashes towards the end bringing Philipsen within touching distance of the Green Jersey. Back into the mountains tomorrow, where Pogacar seems fairly likely to continue putting minutes into everyone else.

Richard Carapaz has won the Giro. He's won the Olympic road race. Now he wins a Tour de France stage.

And from a breakaway of 50+ riders - well done to him! Nice to see a bit of GC action as well, Evenepoel getting those few seconds over the others must be a real psychological victory.