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Tour de France 2020

Marchbanks said:
Primož Roglič comes from Trbovlje, Slovenia. Of course, we all know Trbovlje is home to the EU’s tallest chimney (360m) which doesn’t help much. But it is also on the Sava River, which gives its name to the wine area of Posavje. And their speciality is Cviček which is apparently sour and low in alcohol. Yum! That’s my suggestion for today, OP. And I doubt if you will do any better than Sean’s suggestion of Absinthe for stage 1!
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I don't think there is much wine produced in Norway, it's mainly beer and vodka. Norway's duty free wine shops occasionally throw up bargains, similarly I remember about 10-15 years ago Majestic often buying in bargain parcels of claret from Swedish government shops.
 
Tigerjones said:
Got to agree with this. Not sure Sky/Ineos are as strong this year which could be a struggle for Bernal.
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I don't think we'll really know until stage 8 and then 17. If Bernal is ahead of Roglic we then have the relish of the TT up La Planche des Belle Filles.
 
Tigerjones said:
Got to agree with this. Not sure Sky/Ineos are as strong this year which could be a struggle for Bernal.
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That's exactly why the race is a lot more open. I hope Alaphillipe hasn't peaked too soon, the French would absolutely love a home win. Then they'd all die of covid caught in the celebrations, but hey-ho.

I'm really surprised that no rider has caught it yet, they must have in the crowd.
 
Team Sky have produced some of the dullest bike racing over the past ten years. Really great to see them being challenged.
 
2ManyBoxes said:
That's exactly why the race is a lot more open. I hope Alaphillipe hasn't peaked too soon, the French would absolutely love a home win. Then they'd all die of covid caught in the celebrations, but hey-ho.

I'm really surprised that no rider has caught it yet, they must have in the crowd.
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I don’t think Alaphilipe can TT as well as Roglic, makes it very difficult to win a grand tour.
 
Does anyone remember the first year Channel 4 showed the Tour? My guess is around 1983 but can't find anything online.
 
Tigerjones said:
Does anyone remember the first year Channel 4 showed the Tour? My guess is around 1983 but can't find anything online.
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That would have been about the time the channel was launched?

They did use quite a bit of ‘niche’ sport back in the day, NBA, Italian Football, NFL to get a foothold.
 
Do the team principals all have a meeting? Looks like something was cooked-up about today's stage, it only woke up in the last 10Km or so. Very stage managed.

I'm amazed there wasn't a crash in the huge bunch at the front, they must have been concentrating like hell. It would have been absolute carnage if someone had touched wheels.

Rather boring really :)
 
Tigerjones said:
Does anyone remember the first year Channel 4 showed the Tour? My guess is around 1983 but can't find anything online.
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I don't remember any serious coverage before 86, the Hinault/Lemond battle, but that doesn't mean to say it wasn't on C4. There was minor coverage on ITV in the early 80s and maybe C4 did for a while, but I think 86 was the first 'proper' coverage.
 
I’m reasonably confident that I watched the 84 Tour on channel 4 but it was some time ago. 86 was brilliant, Hinault not quite playing ball after Lemond let him win in 85.
 
Tigerjones said:
I’m reasonably confident that I watched the 84 Tour on channel 4 but it was some time ago. 86 was brilliant, Hinault not quite playing ball after Lemond let him win in 85.
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Richard Moore's book Slaying the Badger is great if you don't have it
 
Tigerjones said:
I’m reasonably confident that I watched the 84 Tour on channel 4 but it was some time ago. 86 was brilliant, Hinault not quite playing ball after Lemond let him win in 85.
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Hinault the 2nd best of all time, probably should have won in 86 but he overreached
 
For me Hinault was the best, simply because he was riding at a time when I was obsessed with pro cycling and I got to watch him.

Obviously, Merckx won more but then Hinault wasn’t as interested in winning every single race unlike the Belgium.

I’m not sure Hinault was stronger than Lemond in ‘86 and he definitely wasn’t as strong in ‘85 when he won.

Still, what cyclist - whilst trying to win a sprint he didn’t need to win - crashes head first with less than 1k to go, gets up, gets back on his bike and cycles to the line with a broken nose. They don’t make them like that anymore.
 
andrew d said:
Blimey! Thought his best chance was yesterday. He's from Bury, Greater Manchester, not sure that we'll be doing very well trying to match a local wine!
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Adam grew up on the Bury /Radcliffe border so Brightside is probably the nearest brewery, romantically located just behind the Asda in Radcliffe. The nearest vineyard would probably be Holmfirth but we do have a very decent wine merchant in Bury, Kwoff.
 
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