Calmejane has this now!

37secs...

This race has had it all -- amazing race!

Attacks in the peloton!

Congrats to Calmejane -- he confirms that Vuelta win and makes a name for himself. Describes himself as a breakaway specialist, however I think he can underline that now.

Unlucky pal..was great fun.

Gutted with that tbh. Thought he was going to catch him with about 3km of the climb left. Putting it behind me and already looking at tomorrow. 3 names stand out as contenders for me but think they'll be well on the radar of the bookmakers.

Yes mate, totally, double my best this season when I tipped Kwiatkowski on this forum at 33/1 for MSR, although he did win. Had a very good classics season actually, x4 wins, x3 thirds, and Sagan for second in MSR, also. Also had Albasini in LFW at 33/1, but Book did not pay on five places.

Big day tomorrow, for sure, very difficult stage.

MC, you know that I don't brag, so I hope that you understand that the above was my attempt to indicate the heavy-lifting I have been doing here in your absence.

Please feel free to get us started for stage 9 with one of your distinctly colourful thread readers of this forum like so much.

Cheers padlock, glad you got on mate, and it sounds like you have your priorities sorted; I would enjoy playing golf also, but it's night time in Australia when the races are being run in Europe, and in any case I'd never surrender insights to an overworked t.v. editor who would be more interested in showing parts of the race which have no data for the next stage/s of the race. Watching highlights is like having an ice-cream with a bit of cream melting in drops out of the bottom of the largely-eaten cone.