Tour de France

Stage 7 today. It's another rugged course over 197km's, from my favourate ferry port Saint-Malo to Mûr-de-Bretagne Guerlédan.

Watch out for some more breakaways today.

Tadej Pogacar won yesterday's stage to regain the overall lead with a trademark burst up the short, steep slope of the Mur de Bretagne.

Jonas Vingegaard finished second, after sticking with Pogacar's wheel to the line with Briton Oscar Onley third.

The tour moves away from Northern France as today's stage 8 is a flat 171.4km course from Saint-Méen-le-Grand to Laval Espace Mayenne

Milan is a MONSTER

Was there plans in place to avoid the fires near Marseille?

Italian rider Jonathan Milan won the stage in a mass bunch sprint on Saturday ahead of Wout van Aert and Kaden Groves.

On a day for pure sprinters and with no change at the top of the overall rankings, Lidl-Trek's Milan was the first Italian to win a stage on the Tour since Vincenzo Nibali in the Alps in 2019.

Stage 9 today is from Chinon to Châteauroux. It's 174.1 km over another flat course. Look out for another sprint finish.

(12-07-2025 17:28 )lovebabes56 Wrote:  Was there plans in place to avoid the fires near Marseille?

They rather cunningly planned for this over a year ago by selecting a route that doesn't get much closer than about 100 miles from Marseille.

Sneaky Buggers those damn Frenchies.

Châteauroux is famous having massed sprint finnishes, Mark Cavendish has won three times here.
Mathieu Van der Poel had joked that he was going for a breakaway on this stage and true to his word, he along with Jonas Rickaert were over a minute ahead with just 15kms to go.
But the peliton gradually pulled the time back, at great cost to the sprint lead off men, but they managed to pull Der Poel back with less that 1km left.

So it was just left to the sprinters without much team help to get across the finshing line.
Tim Merlier proved to be the stronger and beat Jonathan Milan in the last meters.

Tadej Pogačar has a problem, João Almeida, one of Pogačar's superdomestics pulled out of the tour today, having fallen two days earlier on the road to Mûr-de-Bretagne.

It's the big day tomorrow

The important 14th July race for Stage 10 is from Ennezat to Le Mont-Dore Puy de Sancy.

It's a 164.3km mountain stage.