2008 Tour de France : Stage 3 Saint-Malo - Nantes 195 km Monday, July 7

TheDarkLord

Wegmann crashed. Didn't he crash yesterday as well?

Lim, the gap is beginning to come down now. 13:30 min.

TheDarkLord

Was it in this Tour that they were supposed to be scrapping race radios in some stages?

Runitout

Feillu must be the favourite to win the stage at this point. Can't see Columbia et al give them too much more rope before they have to bury themselves to drag it in.

Remember Stage 13 in 2005? Lotto absolutely killed themselves to get that break in. Luckily McEwen finished it off.

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jhuskey

As far as I know they are using the radios.

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Scotttri

Who else has a team mainly for sprinters? McEwen is on his own, alot of the others have dual aspirations

Drongo

Barloworld is a sprinter's team now, I guess...

Others?
Milram will be riding for Zabel, Quickstep for Steegmans, Garmin for Dean?, Gerolsteiner for Förster or Haussler. But in reality, I think Columbia, Rabobank, Credit Agricole have a better shot, even though they also have some GC aspirations later.

Columbia doing a lot of work in the peloton.

That Garmin outfit doesn't look nearly as hideous when the rider is actually on the bike, I reckon.

Anticyclone

The sprinters' teams can have a day off tomorrow though (time trial) before a likely chase again on stage 5. Stage 6 is a bit more complicated for some - they wont be worried about pulling it back for the sprinters (although the sprinters who can climb may well try and stay with the leaders in case the GC men dont really push on and there are some points up for grabs at the finish*) but those with GC men will want to look after them. If abreak goes on that day though with someone who could prove a threat for the overall if it gains a lot of time then Valverde's and Evans' teams will try and do the chasing i would have thought. Therefore i think the sprinters teams will try and pull back the break today. They look like they are cutting it a bit fine at the moment though.

EDIT: * Looking at the terrain for stage 7 maybe the sprinters who can climb a bit, eg Freire will want to focus on that stage instead.

Anticyclone

Be interesting to see if CSC try to lend a hand to the chase - Cancellara must fancy his chances of taking the yellow jersey after the time trial so would want it all to come back together - or at least for the gap to be only be a minute or two as the riders out front will be pooped tomorrow and lose more time than they would otherwise. CSC have three hopes for GC though so they wouldnt want to do much work at this moment.

TheDarkLord

One of Valverde's teammates is wearing yellow shoes that would have fit in very well with Valverde's yellow garb. OTOH, Valverde himself is wearing white shoes...

TheDarkLord

Some time back, there was a protest by the road that slowed down the breakaway significantly, although the officials ensured that the peloton passed through without any problems. CN's live report comments "We wonder if the group on the road was UCI, but their flyers seemed to be reading more something like IGR". LOL!

Drongo

30 km to go; 5'29" on the pack.

This looks interesting...

peterlip

Looks like the break away may stick...

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TheDarkLord

Angel Gomez may be the second casualty in this Tour. He looks very hurt.

A bit more than 20 km to go and the gap is still aroung 5 min. I think there is a good chance for the break to succeed.

Drongo

QS drilling it now.

Sorenson and a SD rider fell, and I think the peloton has split as a result. Nasty.