No Chris Froome this year. And Team Sky is now Team Ineos. Geraint Thomas, last year’s Tour winner, will be the leader of Team Ineos. Wish JALLEN was still with us – he always kept up with the Tour.

“Chris Froome was “lucky” not to have sustained even greater injuries following his crash last week, according to his teammate Geraint Thomas.

Froome crashed into a wall at 37mph in the French town of Roanne last Wednesday, leaving him with multiple broken bones including a fractured neck, a fractured right femur, a broken hip and fractured ribs. Thomas, who will lead Team Ineos into the Tour de France in Froome’s absence, said the accident “could have been a hell of a lot worse” and admitted the absence of the 34-year-old will be a “big blow” to the team…”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/a...ineos-tour-de-france

I look forward to the Tour de France every year because its when about 4000 bikers pack up and leave Tucson - makes driving Catalina Highway and some of the main streets much more pleasant without a gaggle of 30 bikers in a cluster...

My favorite event of the summer!

Froome's injuries are gnarly. I wish Thomas the best of luck in defending his title.

Geraint Thomas crashed and had to pull out of the Tour de Suisse. Hopefully he will be ok!!

Always watch it if anything for the sights and scenery. Not so much interested in who entered this year..

I enjoyed following it in the mid-00s, but lost interest after a couple years.
Andy Schleck was my rider & he retired after a crash at the Dauphine.

The Sky train made the race different. Seemed more pace management & much less aggressiveness & attacks, especially on the climbs.

quote:

Originally posted by nhtagmember:
I look forward to the Tour de France every year because its when about 4000 bikers pack up and leave Tucson - makes driving Catalina Highway and some of the main streets much more pleasant without a gaggle of 30 bikers in a cluster...

Ha! That's the heat that does that too. Also, the World Cup Mountain biking series takes place over the summer and all the mountain bike teams are gone. I know the Trek and Scott teams train in Tucson and are often on road bikes to get conditioning.

We have had some pretty nice days recently. And that has brought out many road bikers. I see them often on 480 and 553.
With logging, mining and other tandem trailer semi rigs. And other traffic passing at 65 MPH.
Thats a hard nope!
I watch a few stages of T-D-F but dont really follow it.

Looking forward to stage 14 (Tarbes-Tourmalet Bareges)

https://www.letour.fr/en/stage-14

“Defending champion Geraint Thomas and Colombian Egan Bernal have been named joint leaders of Team Ineos for the 2019 Tour de France.

Jonathan Castroviejo, Michal Kwiatkowski, Gianni Moscon, Wout Poels, Luke Rowe and Dylan van Baarle complete Ineos' line-up for the 21-stage race…”

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/48805585

I haven’t watched since Lance cheated. I tried but all the talk of cheating turned me away from the sport.

quote:

Originally posted by YooperSigs:
We have had some pretty nice days recently. And that has brought out many road bikers. I see them often on 480 and 553.
With logging, mining and other tandem trailer semi rigs. And other traffic passing at 65 MPH.
Thats a hard nope!
I watch a few stages of T-D-F but dont really follow it.

Michigan bumped the speed limits on many roads in the Northern Lower Penninsula up to 65mph last year. Even with what little traffic there is, I agree: Hard nope.

Cav is out too.

“Mark Cavendish will not ride in the Tour de France for the first time since 2007 after Team Dimension Data omitted the sprinter from their squad…”

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/48838998

“Egan Bernal is poised to become the first Colombian to win the Tour de France after finishing Saturday's penultimate stage in the yellow jersey.

Race tradition dictates that the race leader is not challenged on Sunday's final stage to Paris.

Bernal, 22, will become the youngest Tour winner for 110 years, with Ineos team-mate Geraint Thomas in second.
……
Bernal, who will also collect the white jersey as the best young rider in the race [his first Tour], will put to an end a run of four successive British winners - Chris Froome winning three of his four titles from 2015 and Thomas triumphing last year.”

www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/49138827

I was gifted a quiet office with no appreciable work load this past week. This allowed the opportunity to live stream the last several day’s stages. The weather on Stage 19 was nuts!

Congrats to Bernal and Geraint. I wish Quintana had placed a little higher up in the GC.

This year's tour was very exciting. Loved it. We never knew who the winner would be until really after today's stage.

The only thing missing was Paul Sherwen who died suddenly last December at only 62. I will say though that Bob Roll did an excellent job replacing him in the announcer's booth next to Phil Liggett. I wouldn't have thought that to be the case, but they compliment each other nicely. Well done, Bob.

And congrats to Columbia. They had I think three riders in the top ten. As we now enter the age of Egan Bernal...

Agreed that it was much better this year, for the stages I got to watch, and the commentary was good as well.

Not sure where he finished, but there's a Colombian rider that I share a last name with & my family is part Colombian on my dad's side.

With the shortened Stage 19 and Stage 20, it should make for a fun day today on the Champs-Élysées. Sprinters might be a little better rested since they cut out so much climbing.

Congrats Egan Bernal and Columbia.