Tour de France - spoilers allowed

[emily_in_nc]

Thanks for starting the thread, AppleTree!

I agree with everything you said. Have really enjoyed the Tour so far, at least until today's stage, which was boring in comparison. The England stages were indeed beautiful and dramatic. I felt *so bad* for Froome; what a horrible thing to work so hard and have such a series of mishaps. I saw that he tweeted that it was his wrist as much as anything yesterday; he just couldn't control the bike in the wet conditions with it. I'm sure he's hurting both physically and mentally now.

I'm rooting for Talansky as well, though I'd never heard of him until this tour...I really don't keep up with the pros in between TdF time, and even less now than I used to, in the Lance years.

Love Jens too -- he is so funny! And glad Bobke is still there. We are in the Pacific time zone for the summer and do our rides in the morning, so catch the tour in the evening (Eastern time, which is 5-8pm PDT), so we always get to see/hear him. Great fun!

[Crankin]

We have the app on the I Pad to watch through our Apple TV device. Over the weekend, we saw it live, but really only watched the beginning and end. So far, this week, we've watched it at night, just the end, the highlights that the network puts on, and the interviews/commentary. I've enjoyed it, but, maybe it's me, it just seems like there's more crashes than 10 years ago.
I like Talansky, too. I read an article about him a few months ago, and basically, he started out just like my son, when he was racing as a teenager. I hope Talansky can take the mental aspect of it, although it seems like he is very level headed. This is what did Scott in (my son). He couldn't take the "mean boys," as he got higher and higher up. Things like the purposeful bumping and crashing, and being entitled and rude to others. One year, when Scott was at the National Junior Development Camp, the other riders were being so awful to the staff, he got in his car and drove home from NY! And, my exchange student, who was a pro and was the German national champion last year, spent a few years in counseling to deal with this. I guess it's like this in all sports, but it's sad that you have be like this.

[azfiddle]

My daughter is in grad school in the UK, and her boyfriend is in Cambridge. Neither could attend the race, but she got interested in watching. Even better, she had a friend visiting last week and send us a couple of items she bought for us- some cute cups and a yellow metal plaque that reads Le Tour in Cambridge Stage 3, in the same script as Tour logo.

I hate the crashes, and can't watch them. It was sad to see Froome have to abandon and I'm hoping that things settle down now.

We have the computer access and hook it up to our tv so I watch in the morning for a while before work and then after work for the end...

[ny biker]

I just got back from vacation, haven't seen much of the Tour so far. I know Cavendish and Froome are out, and Kittel has been doing well.

It would be nice to see Talansky do well. Mostly I'm rooting for Ted King and Ben King to have good tours. Most of my favorites these days are domestiques.

As for the British stages, I watched a few minutes when they were near Rippon. I wondered if any of the Crawleys were there.