Froome went for the KOM points and took the jersey off Porte

Martin getting the wrong information here.

Nibali dropped again.

Bristol County Caravans and 626 tipped Majka on the Comp thread, so hope they landed some good bets there.

Gallopin! Love it!

What a difference a year make Nibali looks a shadow of the Rider he was last year

At last years TdF, Majka won two stages and had a 2nd and a 3rd and he won the Polka Dot jersey.  He was the best climber at the race behind Nibali last year.  He was said to be in good form and part of a strong team to help Contador in the mountains this year.  I don't know if he qualifies as a big name to you but you wouldn't want to see him in your 6 man breakaway on a mountain stage that included the Tourmalet if you really wanted to win the stage.

Martin bridged a 4:30 minute gap to the break mostly on his own.  The break formed without Martin.

Precisely my point nugget -- what DS would permit their rider to put so much effort into bridging solo into a gap with Majka in it, if there are plenty of opportunites remaining to win stages later in the race, whilst being equipped with the data on Majka's previous results in this race. Are you suggesting Wegelius or Hunter were unaware of Majka's exploits? Of course they knew Majka was good, but it wasn't a certainty, and Martin was obviously feeling very good to have done what he did before closing on Majka toward the line. They backed their rider because Majka is not a destroyer, we've seen glimpses of it, and he has added to it, but I think riders of a certain level will think they are suited against him.

You do occasionally see those tactics CJ but absolutely 0% chance Contador was attacking today.  Why do you think they sent Majka in the break? To sit up and wait for a rejuvenated Contador who attacks the bunch and drops Froome and Sky.  No chance.  If Contador was feeling good Majka would of been riding with him. 

Majka has a higher strike rate than Sagan at the TdF last two years.  With the composition of that break prior to Martin bridging he wins that stage 10 out of 10 times.

You're missing the point sp. I'm talking about before the break even gets 20-30 secs.

I'm not missing the point at all -- that's the part of the race when the DS men are watching the coverage in the cars and saying yay or nay about their own breakaway-attempting riders being involved in a group by working out the break's composition.

You've essentially argued that upon realising that Majka was in the breakaway, the DS men of the other teams should have called their riders out of the break -- letting Majka go alone or preventing him going on alone. My point is not only did they not do that, Wegelius permitted Martin to hurt himself to get into a break with Majka, which illustrates the point -- how narrow he thought Majka's chances were against his own man Martin.

If you disagree with a team's tactics that's one thing, but you cannot argue that a team is not aware of Majka's previous results.

I know what you're arguing because you stated it earlier and it's still evident as of: July 15, 2015 4:08 PM "Yeah clearly the best climber, I'm surprised they bothered working with him.  Didn't they see last years tour?"

You're inferring that nobody knew what Majka did last year, moreover you seem to be inferring that you saw more than the DS men of the teams involved in the breakaway. The latter might actually be the case since you have proven to be an astute cycling analyst, however you seem to think that tactics and ignorance are one and the same thing, and clearly they're not. Everyone in that break and each DS would have seen Majka amongst themselves and in the break, and known he did amazing things last year, but not working with him would have been tantamount to putting up the white flag of surrender and no team wants such riders, and no team is going to restrain their riders against Majka at this point of his career.

In any case, I can see I am not going to convince you, so no worries but I'm withdrawing from this discussion with you.