In his own words “After, I flew through the forest and I hit a big rock with my ass.” Taken from Cyclingnews, however I added the punctuation. Not so perfect, but he will fight on to Paris. It promised to be an eventful stage, and it was. The grid start was a bit silly as it changed nothing. The Sky riders went to the front and did what they normally do. Alaphilippe grabbed a bucket more points in the KOM jersey, he just has to survive Fridays brutal stage to take the jersey to Paris. The GC riders watched eeach other for the first 2 climbs and then the attacks started. Quintana finally got away with Danny Boy, but was too strong for him and went on to finish alone, with the Brummie in 2nd place. The top 4 then all had a crack at each other in the final few kilometers. First Roglic, marked by Froome, then Big Tom, marked by G. When Big Tom had his main crack at 1.7km to go G and Roglic followed but Froome cracked, tongue dangling. Then as the line approached Thomas jumped to get a few extra seconds on Dumoulin. Success is a science; if you have the conditions, you get the result but Thomas still has one day where he could crack, and anything could happen in the TT on Saturday, so this tour is not over yet.

Matt and Robbie have not given me a lot of material to slag them off over, but I can always rely on Tommo for some material. His main faux pas last night was saying that Arnaud Demare finished outside the time limit and was eliminated. I went scrambling to my tipping to update my abandons sheet. Just as the TV showed the Frenchman dropping off the back of the peloton last night.

A couple of nights ago Tommo was waxing lyrical about Sagan and how there has not been a rider of his class since Eddy Merckx.; Don’t get me wrong, I think he is a brilliant cyclist and a great character in the bunch. But let’s compare Peter Perfect to say Sean Kelly, a similar type of rider. Sagan has won 3 world championships, but has only won 2 monuments, along with 6 green jerseys, presuming he finishes this years tour. King Kelly came 3rd at the words twice I think, robbed by Greg Lemond and Stephen Roche (Dan Martins uncle incidentally), but has won 9 monuments, and 4 green jerseys. He also won Paris-Nice 7 times in a row, and finished top 5 in the Tour de France. I could go on. I am not saying Kelly is better than Sagan, I am just saying Tommo, check your facts. Plus I did not even mention Hinault…

Sam Green Machine takes out Sicknote 3 for the lead in the competition. She is looking good for the win now with G and Bardet in her team, but it is tight at the top with Chuck Charity 8 making a late charge to be on equal 3rd with Hearththrobs09. A lot of charity teams at the top this year. Big mover is another of my mate Steve’s teams, Cat Six 4 up 77 places. Two mentions in two days. It was close as my team O’Dirty was only just behind him up 69 places. Don’t often get to give myself a mention. Our new lantern rouge is Buskers 1, knocking Il Papa from the bottom. But my God Daughter, The Jazz Singer is in hot pursuit for last spot.