133km to go: The riders will soon head into Grenoble, birthplace of Chelsea’s Olivier Giroud. Grenoble is twinned with Oxford.
135km to go: De Gendt is first over the top of the hill, collecting two points while Scully snaffles a single.
137km to go: The leaders are about to go over the day’s first climb, the category three Côte de Brié.
138km to go: “Nibali was very unlucky yesterday crashing as a result of an accident rather than malicious behaviour,” writes James Powers. “It always seems perverse that riders are often more injured from a slow speed incident than a high speed incident.
“Having said that it was a heart-in-the-mouth, febrile atmosphere yesterday and the New York Times was reporting that there were two attempted attacks on Froome yesterday including one caught on television [an aggressive back-slap]. French police also confiscated liquid meant to be thrown on riders. I don’t want to think what was the liquid to be thrown.
“In my opinion, as well as people throwing flares taking responsibility for their actions the media also have to hold their hands up for creating such a febrile atmosphere by the sensational reporting over the last few months.”
This is probably fair. Police, organisers, fans and media all share a bit of blame for Nibali’s broken backbone.
140km to go: Schar and Claeys have caught Scully and De Gent to form a four-man breakaway, about 3min 20sec ahead of the peloton.
148km to go: Back in the peloton, the GC favourites appear to mainly be chilling and chatting. Geraint Thomas is having a rum old chinwag with Matt Hayman.
150km to go: Scully and De Gent have a 40-odd second lead, with Michael Schar and Dimitri Claeys attempting to chase them down, and the peloton a further 30sec behind.
There is an early kind-of-almost breakaway, involving Toms Scully and De Gendt, with Sylvain Chavanel somewhere between them and the peloton, trying to catch up.
Here are some screengrabs of the Nibali crash. Looks like the camera was OK, but the strap snapped. Accidents happen, it’s all part of an event which covers thousands of miles and at which part of the appeal is how close fans can get to the competitors, but this is just so chuffing stupid.
So it looks like Vincenzo Nibali was taken out yesterday by a spectator’s camera strap, which dangled in his path and caught on his bike. You can see it happen (very briefly) in a video on Eurosport’s website here. Really, though, whoever set off the flares that blinded the riders immediately before the incident must share the blame. Nibali paid with a fractured veterbra, and is out of the Tour.
The roll-out has begun, with actual racing set to get under way in 10 minutes or so.
Cycling fans with retro bikes and jerseys gather before the start. Photograph: Benoit Tessier/Reuters
Hello world!
Well, wasn’t yesterday fun! We had hills, spills and thrills aplenty and at the end of it Geraint Thomas secured another stage win and became the first Briton and the first yellow jersey-wearer to win on the Alpe d’Huez.
Today’s stage is very different: 169.5km, with two smallish climbs, the category three Côte de Brié and the category four Côte de Sainte-Eulalie-en-Royans, a sprint in the middle and another at the finish, which after the withdrawals of Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel, André Greipel, Dylan Groenewegen and Fernando Gaviria will sadly happen with hardly any sprinters. Here’s what the stage looks like, and once again hello!
Elpénor ⭐⭐ (@CptFeeney)
