Very interesting Tour de France analysis on this website

suggests that A Scleck is a very bad price outright at 2.34. big lay imo. i also think tommy is a big price for a podium finish at around 9/4

Agree with both of those bets.

i've also laid the first 3 in the market for stage 19

why have you laid frank schleck for tomorrows stage sir denis?

i gotta say i still cant help thinking tommy is a v big price for the outright. he's got a 1.12 lead over evans and got bt by 2.12 in the Dauphine ITT over course and distance. sure thats enough to make evans a worthy fav overall but 32 v 2.44??!! hmmmmmm....

i would also have tommy as at least as good an ITTer as the schlecks and probably better so i think the massive price discrepancies on the outright market are very wrong.

re. frank lay. i just feel he's plenty short enuff. has he really shown anything to merit being a good fav? all the leading contenders had a very tough day today and at less than 3/1 to bt 150+ other guys when he's no more than a very decent climber?

no reason for their not being a successful breakaway of minor players tomorrow imo

i think you'd all be kicking yrself for not backing tommy at 32 now. the bottom line is he's in the lead, he's shown over the last week that he can climb with the best of them and as far as i know he's a pretty respectable time trialler, certainly on a par if not better than the schlecks and not a million miles behind evans.

never underestimate what an athlete can find in his home race with the support of a nation.

fair enough denis

thought it's it my opinion is that yes he has shown enough to warrant being a 3/1 favourite

he was the only rider today who didnt give everything he had today, for obvious reasons, he definitely had more in the tank....andy was on his max obviously, as was evans, as was contador and sanchez, voeckler and everyone else in the race, i dont believe frank was...

and hes won up here before, if it is andy and frank clear at the top i also believe andy will let frank take the stage

i think theres lots of good reasons for there not being a minor break as well

1) the schlecks have to put time into evans if either is going to win this, they know this, everyone does....they'll be going all out to do so, the stage is short with 3 hard climbs so i dont see how a break stays away, wasnt like any riders who will be breaking clear wont have tired legs tomorrow up the steepest climb there is

but i do think andy schleck is a lay tomorrow...not surprising to see him at 3.5 in places with the books and 6 on here

i think you'd be surprised how little 'extra' a guy who seems to be taking it 'easy' can actually find. i think if frank had bust a gut on the Galibier he may have beaten the others by a few more seconds but no more than that

Andy won by 2 mins because they gave him a soft lead over and after the 2nd climb. he basically took a gamble that paid off for him because the others let him get an easy lead, a tactical error. frank said after that the plan was for andy to go off and the others work hard to pull him back and then Frank attack on the Galibier!! turned out of course that the others let Andy go and he had enough of an advantage to hold on himself. There really is so little between these guys, any big time gaps that happen are either because of tactical error, crashes etc, or just having a bad day for whatever reason (illness, bad nights sleep, whatever)

Nothing was "given". Leopard blew the race away!
It might just happen tomorrow again you know...Leopard can reduce the bunch to 40 odd riders if they want to.
Then who's gonna ride? Morabito and Charteau?

well i think the chasing bunch couldve kept the gap to schleck to 2 mins instead of 4 before the galibier then they wouldve caught him just about

I disagree. They were very few domestiques left. They had to wait for some of them to come from the back.
The only one who could have been sacrificed was Rolland, but Europcar dont wan't to lose the white jersey for an unrealistic chance at the yellow.
Team Leopard is by far the strongest team in this Tour. That's why Cadel won't win it imo.

yep,same again today imo,with frank swapping roles with andy.evans and voeckler wont cope with 2 days of this on the trot imo.if they do fair play to them,hope tommy does,backed him at 150 sat morning.
Leopard trek want this tour,and will not be that bothered which bruv wins it.
evans has the TT on saturday,but can he have enough time on the brothers?after today i dont think so,but if he does he will have deserved it,cos he is one gutsy fecker for sure.
Been great this tour,hats off to them all.

Evans clawed back 31secs on andy in the final 1km yesterday!Evans is more than capable of putting 2 mins into andy on the TT.There will be plenty of attacks by them today,will evans hang on in there?

I agree with mvuemba.  There was no hard chase to catch Andy because they didn't have the legs nor the riders.  Andy pulled out 2mins in no time such was the level of his attack.

I disagree with both mvuemba+3duckeggs.The article in the OP was closer to the truth i reckon.
Chris boardman wasnt the only former rider that was speechless at the tactics from the chasing bunch.

schleck rode the last 20 km on his own i wouln't read too much in the last km . I didn't realise you were talking about cadel i thought you were talking about cancellara when you said 2 mins on andy in the tt

You could see though that Voeckler, Charteau, Basso, Schmidt et all just didn't have the fire power to make a real chase.  They had to wait for back up to come by slowing down.  Charteau has ridden brilliantly and done so much work if they had put a major effort into chasing they probably would have blown out completely.

Sorry I mean't Rolland.