*** Tour De France - Stage 4 Lorient - Mûr-de-Bretagne ***

I have watched the end of the first stage over and reckon that Voeckler needed it a bit steeper at the end if he was to beat Gilbert. This stage fits the bill and in my opinion Voeckler will win this stage.

Maybe Contador will use this stage to grab a few seconds back though,he unexpectedly won a similar stage in the Giro.

I reckon the positive of Contador taking say 8 or 10 seconds from some of the riders who will finish 5-20 in the GC will be greatly outweighed by the negatives of him showing his hand and his worry too early to Schleck et all.

I reckon Contador could take 10 seconds from a A. Schleck in this stage if he is in a mind to, the start of the cat three at the end of the stage is 10% for the first Kilometre. Contador could zip away and not get caught before the finish by Schleck who takes much longer to get into his stride.

One things for sure, this will be enertaining to watch.

Personally think this will be harder for Gilbert to win than stage 1 .
Steeper steep bit and longer flat bit to the finish.
Think that makes him vulnerable to attacks early , does he follow? If so could well go red too early. Does he sit and wait for last km , horse may already bolted. Don't think the rest of the peleton are gonna let him have an easy time
Hoping reine is the big story of the day
My famous 5 are
Chavanel 33s
Voeckler 50s
Kolobnev 160s
Millar 210s
Taaramae 330s

Gl all

Well....Contador might well use this to send a signal & grab some seconds....but it won't be a tactical surprise this time...so surely he will be heavily marked. ..albeit no-one can live with his acceleration if he decides to go on the steep long stuff...

is is long enough & steep enough is the question?

Gilbert seriously short...but would love to see that Belgian jersey flying up the Mur de Bretagne for the victory

Have gone for Voeckler & VDB at seriously long odds to place...VDB is purely a speculative thought that OPL might [perversely] consider sending him off at the bottom of the Cat 3.

Voeckler...well...he just will have a go...surely.

Anyway...Sooooo much more interesting than week one pancake stages of yesteryear..Also makes the sprinters more anxious & hungry when they do get the chance.

layed gibert, far to short. small win bets on gesink and van den broeck

Gilbert wins today, simple as. Finish is perfect for him, and he will just sit in the wheel of attacks for the last few kms. He won't be too worried if Voeckler or someone like that gets a few seconds lead, he will eat in to that in no time when he goes for it. Evans will give chase and finish second to move in to yellow.

AC will attack the main bunch as he is desperate to regain 10-20 seconds on some of the others and I dont think he is worried at all about showing his hand too early, in fact I think it would be a psychological marker for him today to say 'write me off at your peril, I can skip away from Schleck whenever I feel like it.'

Voeckler will be in the mix but I don't think he has the gears, expect Roche to be in the top ten but will lack the acceleration to go after the really explosive guys and I can see Schleck struggling a little today. Fuglsang at 200s, Paulhinho at 150s and Gadret at 80s are also interesting at big prices.

My other bet for today is Winning Margin between 1-10 seconds at 6/5 with BSQ. Will not be a sprint and whoever wins it will be followed closely by a few of the big boys..

I also see this as a more difficult finish for Gilbert than Saturday yet he's a much shorter price - no value in 1.8 especially since the weather forecast is bad and crashes look inevitable

The value might be with second and third tier GC riders. Some riders will be able to sit in Gilbert's wheel on the steep bit and then I would expect hesitation / regroup on the false flat before some attacks go. Watch out for the HTC riders in a finish like this - Martin, Velits and especially TJVG (who BF haven't listed for some reason)

Betfair's tour coverage in general is pretty poor.

I don't see why they can't just list every rider for every stage.

A TDF forum would be nice too.

They tried listing every rider a few years ago but the site couldn't cope with 190+ runners. Placing a bet without using the API took minutes rather than seconds

There was a TDF forum last year but only ever seems to be 4 or 5 people contributing.

Does look a miserable day out there today, but I wouldnt worry about Gilbert, will just feel like a wet day in April in the Ardennes...

is this ITV4 coverage live ?

If you want to find out where they are click the 'live' bit on here, it launches in a seperate window.

http://www.letour.fr/2011/TDF/LIVE/us/400/index.html

Cav beaten again. Farrar 3/3 in sprints

I'm with Gilbert today and for green, but I think Farrar is looking like a great punt for the points classification, Cav will be content with a few stage wins and respected pundits in L'Equipe don't even think Cav will finish the Tour this year. Opens up the Champs Elysees for Ale-Jet :)

Would love to see a couple more punters contribute to this cycling betting forum -

http://forum.liveoddsandscores.com/threads/11531-2011-Tour-De-France-2-24-July

(Sorry for the plug!) and have a great Tour.

I have laid Hoogerland for all my bank

That was an easy £58

he crash?

Evans caught up in a crash. Hoogerland still out in front.

Bertie kicks

Gilbert eats him up, no sign of A Schleck

evans :)

Evans wins, briliant finish, Contador looked immense.

contador mistimed his challenge, another 2 yards and he wins

JVDB top 3 gave me 30 seconds of value.

Starting to make a habit of measuring my betting success in terms of time rather than money...

[Nice from Cadel.]

Looked like Contador had given it up until around 20m from the line, decided to have a go and almost caught Cadel.

andy schleck only a few seconds down, not too sure does this short type of climb suit him. no real damage done.

Amazing performance from Hushovd

Schleck lost about 6 seconds, he will be perfectly happy with that.

Shortest price matched on Evans 7.4?

Thor Hushovd!

Sensational ride. Great honour to the yellow jersey and world champion's jersey