Stage 21 Montgeron / Paris Champs-Élysées - It's a Wrap

Stage 21 and can you believe it, another Tour de France done for another year? Seems like we were in Düsseldorf only three weeks ago at the start of this four week, three week bike race.

Gabs was in his element in Paris, drinking champagne and dining out at cutting edge restaurants serving art on a plate. Well, it's good for some. The closest Gabs got to an apron was nosing about in other chef's kitchens and if it wasn’t for a supply of 2 Minute Noodles and the occasional largesse of the NBC catering crew the peloton would have died of starvation.

There was a change of format for the women’s race La Course by Le Tour de France this year. It wasn’t held on the Champs-Élysées and concluded in Marseille yesterday. Annemiek van Vleuten won and what a season she's had coming back from a horrible crash at last year's Olympic Games in Brazil.

In Montgeron 167 survivors of the original 198 riders followed the big red car and at the drop of the flag the Sunday morning coffee ride was on in earnest.

Tradition dictates that there is no challenge for yellow so it was a mere formality for Froome to get to the finish line in one piece and a fourth Tour de France victory would be assured.

The run to Paris is a chance for the riders to relax, have some bubbles and for Adam Hansen to drink beer from one of his hand made shoes.

A real highlight of the stage, and indeed the whole Tour, was Cyril Gautier’s proposal to his girlfriend on worldwide television with the words ‘Caroline, do you want to marry me?’ scrawled on a torn out page of the roadbook. Robbie McEwen later confirmed Caroline said "Oui". NAWWW!!!

The riders made there way by the Seine and I swear sail boats are going faster than the peloton. Apart from the numerous speed humps, this stage looked too easy. Perhaps Christian Prudhomme could spice it up with the riders battling a giant octopus next year?

This Tour has been a great story for Aussie riders. Sure GC favourite Richie Porte crashed out but out of the nine starters, six have come home with one in green. 

Thomas Voeckler and his tongue farewelled the Tour and we will truly miss him. We hear he wants to do more TV after he retires. What a surprise.

Christian Knees was spotted joking for the umpteenth time about getting on his knees praying for a win. After three weeks of listening to this the Skybots couldn't wait for the finish. 

The peloton arrived on the Champs-Élysées to a few drops of rain - not good on the cobbled surface of the famous boulevard - for an eight lap crit race.

Bit of a scare for Warren Barguil after experiencing a mechanical. As he paced to get back to the peloton he bumped into the back of the team car and you don't want to crash out on the final stage of the Tour.

In the final sprint to the line Dylan Groenewegen edged out Andre Greipel and Edvald Boasson Hagen and for the first time since anyone can remember the Gorilla went home without a stage win.

Chris Froome arrived safely to claim his fourth Tour de France and is on his way to match the all time greats.

For the record.

Golden Fleece: Chris Froome (again)

Green: Michael 'Bling' Matthews (you little ripper)

Polka: Warren 'Wazza' Barguil (Bling's roomie)

White: Simon Yates (Yates you can like your brother)

Team: Sky (Sunweb were better bagging Green, Polka and Super-combative)

Super-combative: Wazza

Buerremetric counter: DNF

This is the final Le Wrap. I’ve given the future of this blog a lot of thought these past three wonderful weeks. Little did I realise when I put up the first post in 2013 to celebrate the 100th edition of the Tour that I’d still be going five editions later. 

It’s always been terrific fun (if at times a little daunting) putting each post together, finding the perfect photo and composing a ridiculous headline.

But it’s time to move on finishing on a high note. I want to thank you, the couch peloton, for all the support and kind comments over the years – I couldn’t do this without you!

However, I'll continue to write about cycling, I occasionally pop up on The Roar under the pseudonym Kurt Decker and I'll be still be live tweeting cycling as enthusiastically as ever as @Tete_delacourse 

Who knows what projects await – a podcast that’ll give Lance a scare? Movie deals? An action figure? My own tonight show?

Au revoir!

Stage 20 Marseille / Marseille - Bodnar The Beast Bags Another For Bora

Stage 20 and the Tour has arrived for the penultimate stage, the 22.5km individual time trial in the famous port city of Marseille.

When I hear Marseille I hear Mediterranean which means seafood and Gabs made a beeline to the fish market to watch the ‘human spectackle’ of fishmongers and customers going about their business.

Then it was off to Le Mirimar restaurant and a demonstration of their not so secret bouillabaisse recipe. Some pastis as an aperitif and a big bowl of bouillabaisse and Gabs is in Mediterranean heaven.

The start/finish venue for the ITT was the Orange Velodrome, which started life as a velodrome and evolved into a fudball ground and is home to Olympique Marseille Fudball Club. Today, it’s been handed back to cycling and with the application of some brand new silky smooth arsefault, the Marseille stadium was transformed into the Thunderdrome.

Tommo and Macca were discussing pre-race favourites and giant chickens rolled in to the stadium behind the pair. What these chickens were doing behind the wheel of the publicity caravan is anyone’s guess.

Mattie and Robbie were warming up to call the first riders out of the start house of the penultimate stage of a “four week three week race”. Now we've heard it all, Mattie and Robbie will be a babbling mess by the time the peloton hits the Champs-Élysées.

Riders rolled out of the start house one by one and the Les Vaches Group’s darling, cow milker extraordinaire, Frederik Backaert put on a turn of pace. He’ll be keen to get back to the farm after the Tour is over, his cows must be busting for a milking by now.

It was time for the Movistars to take to the course and attention turned to the annoying plastic sleeve on the skin suit to hold the bib number. Christ, it's like watching the super sickeningly organised person in the office. Give me some rusty pins any day.

The stands were pretty full and honestly the atmosphere was so charged if a piece of paper blew into the stadium the crowd would’ve gone bananas.

Bling Matthews left the start house looking resplendent in green wearing Cadel Evans’s bib number 141. A sign from the cycling godz? Okay maybe not - it wasn’t lucky for Robbie when he wore it.

Michal Kwiatkowski put in a blistering time to finish only 1 second down on Polish compatriot Maciej Bodnar’s 28 minutes 15 seconds.

Have to hand it to Kwiatkowski, he’s left everything on the road for team mate Chris Froome this tour, a champion rider in a champion team.

Second placed in the GC Romain Bardet was hoping for a miracle to get into yellow and was spotted warming up on the trainer, wearing an ice vest, and my brain flopped out of my head at the logic of it.

Olympique Marseille had better rethink next year's range of time trial bikes.

A solid effort from Frenchman Sylvain Chavanel, although this time he wasn’t riding ahead of himself.

Alberto Contador was the only non-French rider to get a huge roar from the parochial crowd. Bertie hasn’t had a stellar Tour but found some of that El Pistolero spirit and Bertie won us over again.

A huge cheer went up for polka dot jersey wearer and Bling roomie Warren Barguil as he left the start house.

Meanwhile Rigoberto Uran was doing, "a little bit of Mick Jagger on the warm up", according to Robbie. Not sure what he meant by that, dancing? Whatever warm up music was coming out of the ear buds it sure wasn’t anything from ‘Peaceful Piano’.

Clearly there was a mad tribal fudball crowd turnout for AG2R, and as Bardet set to roll from the start house, Mattie let fly with, "Romain Bardet, the student of the sport, is about to go into the exam room". Hey, we know he’s young but not that young.

With a huge roar Bardet rolled out of the stadium and it wasn’t long before Bertie arrived to an even bigger roar.

Barguil arrived in the stadium home and did I hear a "WAAAAAARRRRREN" chant from the crowd?

Not the strongest of disciplines for Bardet, his time trial performance cost him second place and Rigoberto Uran, who has the nicest hair second to Marcel Kittel, moved up and with a handy top ten finish for the stage. Simon Yates breathed a sigh of relief and Yates you can stay in white.

Chris Froome was the final rider to go and looked like he’d been 'poured on his time trial bike' like custard. He rolled out of the stadium to some booing from the crowd. Sour grapes and disrespect toward the yellow? Nah, just some good old fashioned garden variety hostility - there'd be something terribly wrong if the French didn't boo the English.

Froome finished for a comfortable third increasingly his lead in the GC to 54 seconds over Uran. But it was Bodnar the Beast’s day and bagged a second stage win for Bora Hansgrohe.

The podium pressos got underway and what’s with La Marseillaise playing over the PA in Marseille? Did the Brisbane Lions win today?

Now that the podium positions and the jerseys are sorted there’s only the procession to Paris followed by a crit race on the Champs-Élysées to come.

And well done Bling, well done, we look forward to seeing you on the podium in Paris tomorrow.

Stage 19 Embrun / Salon-de-Provence - A Wonderful Win for Boasson Hagen

Stage 19 and welcome to the three final dead rubber stages of the Tour as the peloton settled in for an arse-numbing 222km day in the saddle from Embrun to Salon-de-Provence.

Gabs was in one of his old stomping grounds, Aix en Provence, to visit a waiynery that produces some of the delightful Provence rose. Ahhh summer, easy eating, easy drinking!

Out on the road, well you know, there was a bike race of sorts and not a lot going on really apart from Belgian cyclists attempting to shake things up on their national day. Belgian rider Thomas De Gendt Engine steaming through Banon collecting the intermediate sprint points.

Five time Tour winner and cycling legend Eddy Merckx celebrated Belgium’s national day not in Belgium but in France and not in the back of a Merc or a Volvo but a red Skoda.

The French airforce kept the couch peloton entertained with an aerobatic display and tricolore flyovers.

At the roadside there was an unusually large number of aerial bicycle displays and hypnotic spinning bicycle wheels and oh wow man! Hypnotic bike wheels, man! Could it be the Groovy Guru and the Sacred Cows, man?

No Sacred Cows doing Painters & Dockers covers (Kill,Kill,Kill), but a French Nirvana cover band was attempting ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’.

Wow man, dig those wheels!

I wonder how does Troll DJ feel about these roadside random musical incursions? The answer came quickly with ‘Never Going to Give You Up’. Yep, the couch peloton was Rickrolled by the Troll DJ.

The fun never stops in the Troll booth with a horsie montage - les chevaux were giving les vaches a run for their money...Hey, hang on? Did the Troll DJ just troll the Les Vaches group???

In the caravan of commentary Mattie and Robbie were shootin’ the breeze and Mattie said he’d been asked if there’s a French word for panache? That was meant to be tongue in cheek of course but that's something that Thomas Voeckler would never do.

Robert Wagner got some attention and don’t you think Wagner and Serge Pauwels would make great teammates or some sort of ‘Hart to Hart’ remake?

Another hot day and Mattie noted that Bahrain-Merida had gone through nearly 200 bidons, which seemed excessive for a team from a country that’s mostly sand.

Some words of wisdom from Mattie about drinking on the road - "Better to arrive with a few still in the esky in the back than with empties all over the place".

But after three weeks and a 222km day in the saddle all a rider wants is a Coke, a gel and a fresh pair of legs.

All the couch peloton wanted after three weeks was sleep and the abandonments came en masse and I got the feeling I'd be the last of the couch peloton standing, I mean sitting, by the time the riders got to Salon-de-Provence.

By the way how many choppers do they bring to the Tour? Is it like they do a little helicopty shift, knock off and then the next one goes? Helicopters these days - no Gatling guns or medevacs under fire, they’ve gone soft if you ask me.

Back to the race and Robbie could not guess who would take the stage because picking a winner was, "harder to pick than a broken nose". Oh Robbie, you do realise your commentary goes out to most of the English speaking world? If you keep dropping pearlers like that you’ll change the English language forever.

The riders passed through some pretty villages, some with rather narrow streets and was that a regular dude on a flat bar bike popped out of nowhere? Probably off to the épicerie for a bit of shopping.

Last drinks and riders were gearing up to the run to Salon-de-Provence. Things were really heating up in the front and Mattie saw Chavanel and then Chavanel in the lead and good grief, he's riding ahead of himself. Mattie called out, “the sun tan in the breakaway”, and after three weeks I think Keeno has finally cracked.

The riders headed to the line, Edvald Boasson Hagen looked like he’d just stepped into a Salon as he took the right-side of a roundabout that proved to be the right side as he raised his arms ahead of Nikias Arndt and Jens Keukeleire.

It was a wonderful win for Boasson Hagen who had a couple of near misses this Tour. We love EBH and can you believe at the age of 30 he’s a very seasoned Tour rider but still looks like he just finished high school.

Attention turned to tomorrow’s time trial in Marseille. Less than 30 seconds separate Chris Froome from his nearest rivals Romain Bardet and Rigoberto Uran but it will be a late start for Froome who will have some time on his hands for beach, shops and maybe even a movie.

Stage 18 Briançon / Izoard - Barguil the Brave King of the Col

Stage 18 and the peloton departed from Europe’s highest fortified town Briançon for the final day in the Alps and final mountain stage of the Tour to the top of the imposing Col d’Izoard.

Gabs sampled the finest farmhouse ewes chisses and delicious hams. He also tried a French lasagne made with spinach. French lasagne I hear you say? Well, he was only 20km from the border with the Italy. No waiyne this time but he did get to enjoy a tipple of the local liqueur.

After the fall of the flag the four man breakaway of Thomas De Gendt, Alessandro De Marchi, Lilian Calmejane and Elie Gesbert swelled to 54. Thomas De Gendt Engine was the first to pick up some KOM points on the category 3 Côte des Demoiselles Coiffées.

In the caravan of commentary Robbie was rustling through his mail bag and slapped his forehead with a ‘not another nature break question’ which seems to be an obsession of the hubbard Tour de France watchers.

For the umpteenth time Robbie explained the principle of the rolling nature break which begged the question ‘why not just take a nature break in your pants?’ Come on, this is not surfing you know.

Troll DJ busted out the Alps stage standard ‘River Deep Mountain High’ by Ike and Tina Turner. 

It was a little stretch but Troll DJ ran with A Flock of Seagulls’s ‘I Ran’ for Rigoberto Uran. Since no song rhymes with Uran, the next best thing might have been Duran Duran (Rigoberto’s full surname is Uran Uran). I still think I Ran would have been totes appropriate for when Chris Froome went for a run up Mont Ventoux last year.

In anticipation of the big climbs ahead, Troll DJ trotted out the AC/DC classic ‘Long Way to the Top’ but with a lack of a town or any other permanent infrastructure at the finish, are there any sausage rolls at the top of the Col d’Izoard?

Field art has been few and far between on these mountainous stages but what’s the bet if the Tour went into Switzerland we'd have seen a cuckoo clock by now?

Robbie was occupied with pointing out some of the unique geological features of the region. One interesting rock formation drew comparisons to the Apostles due to the erosion. Apostles or sisters Robbie? Be careful with your comparisons, Phil had a habit of mixing up the two.

On the ascent of the category 1 Col de Vars Alexey Lutsenko was first over the summit taking Romain Sicard, Tony Gallopin and Darwin Atapuma with him.

Gallopin, Dani Navarro, Lutsenko, Nicolas Edet and Atapuma commenced the monster climb of the Col d'Izoard. Just a thought but has Eddie Izzard ever driven up the Izoard with Eddy Merckx in a Merc?

I guess this answers the question.

Lutsenko wasn't driving a Merc, a Volvo or anything else on four wheels but went out alone up the Izoard with Gallopin and Atapuma on the hunt. Atapuma caught and mauled Gallopin and was now going after Lutsenko.

Atapuma caught Lutsenko and further back down the road Bugalugs was doing a job for Bardet.

Warren Barguil and Bertie launched from the yellow group and a determined Barguil the Brave was now chasing Atapuma, according to Mattie, "like a carrot to a greyhound". This left Barguil, "flirting with the red zone but he's not taking it out to dinner".

But this climb is survival of the fittest and Barguil dropped Darwin Atapuma and Mattie was on fire in the caravan of commentary today.

Barguil the Brave had the king of the mountains jersey and he wanted to be the king of Col d'Izoard and crossed the line for his second stage win of the Tour.

Froome hung on to yellow, Romain Bardet moved to second, Uran third, Mikel Landa up to fourth and Fabio Aru slipped further into fifth position nearly 2 minutes behind Froome.

Team Sky has dominated the Tour, again, but how good are Sunweb? It's not over but they've got four stage wins and have staked their claim on half the jerseys on offer with Aussie Michael Matthews in green and Barguil in polka dots.

Stage 17 La Mure / Serre-Chevalier - Aero is Everything

Stage 17 and the Tour headed back to the stunning French Alps for a gruelling 183km from La Mure to Serre-Chevalier.

Gabs was in one of his favourite parts of France, the Savoie region to taste the finest of goat and sheep chiises. He visited the Aussie run alpine retreat and cookery school ‘Chalet Savoie Faire’ so I can strike that off my shortlist of quirky hipster cafe names.

When it comes to chiisses waiyne is never too far away and I’m not talking the uni politics club gathering with cubes of cheddar and Chateau de Cardboard served in a plastic cup.

The race got under way and the forecast was cloudy with a chance of macarons. At the 20km mark a crash brought down the polka dot and green jersey wearers Warren Barguil and Marcel Kittel before a sizable breakaway headed for the first big climb of the day the hors categorie Col de la Croix de Fer.

As the riders descended the Col de la Croix de Fer, Troll DJ rocked out to Jane’s Addiction’s ‘Mountain Song’ and so did the couch peloton whipping out their air guitars from their air guitar cases.

News crackled over race radio that Marcel Kittel’s injuries from the earlier crash were too much, forcing him to abandon the Tour. A real shame after an outstanding five stage wins at this Tour and just as the points competition was really starting to heat up with Michael Matthews narrowing Kittel’s lead to just nine points.

However, Kittel’s loss is Matthews's gain and so long as Bling can stay upright all the way to Paris the green jersey is his. I just think it’s an unfortunate way to get it, but as Mattie and Robbie point out that’s bike racing.

Rumour Mill: A story emerged in the Colombian news that Nairo Quintana was looking at a move to Team Sky or Astana. Got to admit Nairo Quinstana has a certain ring to it but Movistar dismissed the rumour.

Kittel ponders what might have been.

New French President Emmanuel Macron got a box seat in the big red car to watch the Tour and as is tradition the French head of state gets to meet the heads of state – of the Tour that is.

Macron was looking, well, very presidential but don’t you think there’s a side to him where he’d love nothing more than suiting up as a colourful vanilla buttercream filled biscuit and jump up and down at the roadside?

The riders hit the cat 1 Col du Telegraphe and you know why it's called that? It’s called the Col du Telegraphe because by the time you reach the top the legs are sending a message to the brain to FUCKING STOP STOP.

The 12km climb up the Telegraphe was beginning to hurt and Robbie observed a lot of ‘goldfish style breathing’ as the air became thinner and there was still the 2,642 m Col du Galibier to go.

This stage was do or die for the GC contenders who, according to Robbie,"give you nothing, take you nowhere".

Former Tour champion Alberto Contador searched and found some of his old form and hope sprang eternal for Bertie as he sniffed out a possible stage win.

Following the short descent of the Telegraphe, the road headed skyward for another 18 km up the hors categorie Col du Galibier, the highest point of this year’s Tour.

One by one riders and the peloton began cracking and I always wonder if that coloured smoke you see from the roadside is from a flare or a rider blowing up.

Robbie saw some riders had their shoulders almost up to the ears. Wrist bone connected to the shoulder, shoulders almost up to the ears - the Tour is absolutely brutal on the body!

Primoz Roglic was first over the top of the Galibier and with a fast downhill run all the way to the finish in Serre-Chevalier Mattie said, "the former ski jump champion now has to float to the bottom".

Back in the yellow group and Romain Bardet was off with Chris Froome reacting to every move. ‘Barguil the Brave of Brittany’ fought on with the a bloodied knee.

'Fallible Fabio Aru' struggled with the Galibier climb and saw his position slipping from second in the GC.

Roglic's ski jumping nerves of steel and top tube were put to good use knowing the value of 'aero is everything' to solo across the line for his and Slovenia's first Tour victory.

Bertie deservedly earned the most combative award and the now highly visible Rigoberto Uran moved to second behind Froome and Aru slipped into fourth overall.

Stage 16 Le Puy-en-Velay / Romans-sur-Isère - Ride Like the Bling

Stage 16 resumed after the second and final rest day in picturesque Le Puy-en-Velay as the Tour heads towards the Alps for two massive stages in the coming days.

Gabs bobbed up in the gorgeous Rhône Valley drinking the famous local waiyne with a bunch of Aussie tourists and you know if you’re drinking with Aussies things are about to get messy.

Earlier in the day Gabs visited the Valrhona Chocolate headquarters for all things chocolate. Gabs seems to have developed a sweet tooth this Tour, or maybe it’s because he has a cookbook to flog ‘So French So Sweet’?

The riders set off on a hot and windy flat stage that looked anything but flat for a fair bit of the way. Conditions made it difficult for a breakaway to properly form – that and Sunweb throwing down the hammer which made life difficult for Marcel Kittel with Sunweb sniffing an opportunity to get some more sprint points for Bling Matthews.

By the way, I’ve had the feeling there's been too many flat stages this Tour, if you can call stage 16 flat. So far I’ve really loved the punchy, hilly stages like Blagnac to Rodez, incidentally won by Matthews.

Back to the racing and Mattie and Robbie were curious about the whereabouts of George Bennett. He appeared to have popped off the back indicating some kind of trouble. The Kiwi abandoned with a “serious case of man flu” and we all know how devastating man flu is and we wish he gets well soon for a crack at the Vuelta.

With temperatures hovering at 35 degrees the heat was beginning to soften up the road.  Tyres can lose traction on a corner during a fast descent and Robbie warned you want to stick to the firmer, lighter tarmac whilst avoiding the dark bits. Come on Robbie, we know you really wanted to say ‘avoid the dark arsefault’. Then again, after more than two weeks of commentary we forgive Robbie for dropping the ball – NOT!

Troll DJ couldn’t help but drag out Christopher Cross’s ‘Ride Like the Wind’ for a wind montage (yes, you read right, even the wind gets a montage) although ‘Fly Like the Wind’ by the Meat Puppets would have worked equally well.

‘Country House’ was a no brainer for a chateaux montage which just whizzed by in a blur.

Podium prize for the stage win. Can we make this a thing?

At 34km to go Alberto Contador launched a surprise attack forcing Skybot Michal Kwiatkowski to drop his lunch as three musettes were discarded so he could chase Bertie and the hay-makers. The attack was short lived and whilst Kwiatkowski missed out on a feed of Bertie Beetles, Bertie blew his biscuits which cost him a spot at the table for the run in to Romans-sur-Isère.

Mattie and Robbie fell silent a number of times in the caravan of commentary. The couch peloton speculated if they taking nature breaks. Mattie returned to apologise for technical issues. Was the heat causing havoc? No, turns out Tommo kept tripping over the cord unplugging the audio equipment. French OH&S better have a look at that.

The peloton hit the flatter more open countryside as it approached the finish line. After battling cross and head winds that were almost, according to Mattie, ‘blowing the petals off the sunflowers’, the tail wind had the riders pick up the pace to a blistering 65 km/h.

Time for teams to get their best riders forward and Robbie explained the principle of ‘surfing the peloton’, or the art of smoothly navigating your way up to the front. However, if you’re surfing the peloton you’d better be on the lookout for Nibali...

With Kittel nowhere to be seen the final run to the line came down to a sprint with Aussie Michael Matthews across the line ahead of the wonderful Edvald Boasson Hagen and John Degenkolb.

Degenkolb's protest against Matthews was quickly dismissed and Bling collected his second stage win of the Tour.

A week ago Marcel Kittel looked to have an unassailable lead in the points competition. Bling has narrowed the margin to just 29 points. Could it be we’ll see an Aussie in green in Paris?

Chris Froome finished the day in yellow still only 18 seconds ahead of Fabio Aru. With Romain Bardet and Rigoberto Uran also within 30 seconds of Froome and some huge mountain stages ahead, the battle for yellow is very much alive.

Stage 15 Laissac-Sévérac l'Église / Le Puy-en-Velay - Mollema Writes a New Chapter

Stage 15, rest day tomorrow and the riders set out on a lumpy course from Laissac-Sévérac l'Église to Le Puy-en-Velay in the upper most reaches of the Loire Valley.

Prior to the race Chris Froome was interviewed about the preceding day’s stage that saw him back in yellow. He described the run through Rodez prior to the uphill finish as full of, "technical road furniture", which has got to be at least a double shot in the couch peloton drinking game.

Gabs (yes, we haven’t seen much of him lately) was up to the usual sampling waiyne and chiiises and also the green Le Puy lentils which, it was pointed out, are gluten free. Don't tell me the French are in on the ridiculous gluten free fad too? They’ll be off the butter next.

Phil and Paul stopped by for a chat with SBS. Phil noted that,"French people have fallen in love with the Tour". Well you know, it is held in France and it's only taken what, 104 editions?

Out on the road and looked like breakies too numerous to mention might have a chance. Michael Gogl was spotted and I wonder does he ever watch Gogl Box?

Tommo was bemoaning the lack of facilities and resources other TV networks enjoy including catering. SBS does a fine job because as Tommo says they do their job out of love but surely the NBC caterers invite everyone over on cassoulet night?

Field art standards had slipped somewhat with an attitude of ‘let's just hang some nice words from that stack of hay bales over there’. 3/10 for effort, lift your game!

Robbie explained as the peloton headed across the ’barren’ Aubrac Plateau that the lack of agriculture explained the lack of field art. Excusez-moi? Lack of agriculture? What do you call all the vaches and moutons?

Robbie spotted a mixed herd or have I miss heard? And wasn’t just vaches to keep things interesting, there were drystone walls too. If only to be a fly on the NBC commentary box wall...

Back to the race and Robbie watched riders working together and said there’s, "no two without three". Oh geez, Robbie, don’t even go there!

Mattie was concerned with not getting a good reading of wind direction with a lack of trees and flags. Well, you don’t need a wind sock when there's always the highly scientific lick the finger and it stick in the air method to fall back on.

It was Simon Geschke’s turn to step in front of the cameras as the man with the most lush beard in the peloton. The fashion hasn’t completely caught on in the peloton but you’ve got admire the work he puts in with careful trimming and the correct application of bespoke beard oils. Or maybe he's still getting through all the leftover boxes of (former team sponsor) Alpecin caffeine shampoo?

Jan Bugalugs took a turn in front of the camera and I must he's been quiet for a few days.

Troll DJ had the colour green on its mind inspired by a green river that flows through the area. Creedence Green Water Revival? Oh how clever! Later Troll DJ trotted out ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’ in tribute to Marcel Kittel. Yeah, it's not easy being green, just ask Lee Rhiannon and Scott Ludlam.

Troll DJ turned it’s attention to yellow and we’re not sure if Donovan's 'Mellow Yellow' was a tribute to Froome back in yellow or the nature breaks.

Stock photo

Mattie spotted the chateau with the highest elevation in France. A chateau at altitude! That’s got be triple word score on the McKeeno bingo card. However, Primoz Roglic was mentioned without the ski jumper reference. Points deducted.

The riders went through the feedzone, no silly crashes but plenty of musettes stuffed as full as a show bag when I was a kid. Just hope the soigniers remembered to slip a couple of Bertie Beetles in there.

Word from the Skybots that there’s no tension between Mikel Landa and Chris Froome in the Death Star. Landa is reportedly in total support of Chris Froome. Yeah right, like when the coach or the CEO has full support of the board.

There was the usual assortment of roadside randoms and the Citroen 2CVs were back racing the peloton over the plateau. They've been chasing the Tour all over France.

Just as sections of the couch peloton started to abandon, the race got interesting with Panzerwagen Tony Martin attempting a solo time trial from 66 km to go. Martin went at it perhaps a little too hard and looked, according to Robbie, like a ‘goldfish out of water’.

The tongue was out on more than one occasion so do we start calling him Tony Voeckler now?

Just as we thought the field art competition was wrapping up for the day an hourglass with sheep dogs and sheep was spotted. Not quite tractors dripping through the hourglass but hats off nonetheless.

Tony Martin ploughed on and on one of the descents car tyres were squealing in pursuit of Martin. Are we watching the Tour or that movie ‘Hell Drivers’?

Good to see Henk Vogels joining the commentary team for the week and presented his findings after careful analysis of the climbs - nasty but not quite filthy enough for Henk.

At 40 km to go Froome had a mechanical and no one was stopping this time. Skybot Michal Kwiatkowski gave Froome his back wheel and AG2R threw the unwritten rules out the unwritten window and lit the afterburners.

Froome had a lot of work to do to catch his rivals and limit the damage to his lead. Amazingly Landa actually started working for Froome - must have had a really stern talking too in the Death Star.

Bauke Mollema soloed away to cross the line and, in the words of Mattie, "Mollema the Dutch book week ambassador has written another chapter".

Another chapter indeed with the title 'My first Tour win'. Chris Froome takes the yellow jersey into the rest day with an 18 second lead over Fabio Aru.