[ritchiebaby]

Another rider needing the rest day will be Pinot - 1st yesterday and 2nd today in big mountain territory. He's probably the best climber in GC contention and I'm sure will pick his stages to gain even more time - pity about his loss of 1m40s on Stage 10. Alaphillippe was 1m26s ahead of Thomas before the 2 mountain stages and is still 1m35s ahead after a tough day today. Pinot, Kruijswijk and Buchmann were the main threats over the last 2 days.

Tuesday will be a day for the sprinters on a relatively flat stage. The early part of the route takes in the Roman aqueduct of the Pont du Gard, although I'm sure that the riders will be using the pedestrian bridge next to it - think of the insurance premium! Sagan will probably be very interested in the intermediate sprint to keep his points total rolling along nicely. He should be in the mix at the finish, possibly along with Viviani and Matthews and at least a dozen others, who will be running out of winnable stages, with only 1 more sprinters stage to come in Paris on Sunday.

[themaclad]

Thomas clips pavement early fall

[themaclad]

Ewan wins sprint no change in classification

[ritchiebaby]

Yet another fairly stress-free day for the main GC contenders (except for Geraint Thomas's fetish for tarmac with another early crash - I can exclusively reveal that his nickname of 'G' doesn't refer to his first name, but stands for Groundhugger!), but that could all change tomorrow. As predicted, it turned out to be a sprinters' stage with the new kid on the block finishing fastest of all. He's taking a leaf out of Peter Sagan's book by not needing a lead-out team, but latching on to other teams to find a late run. Sagan is still an easy leader of the Points Competition, but his pure sprint form is on the wane.

Hopefully the race will take on a new twist tomorrow with a 200 km long hilly stage, which might lead to a large breakaway with some of the GC contenders' teams having a man (or men) in there to cause a wee bit of havoc among the peleton. Personally, I'd like to see the likes of Greg van Avermaet, Thomas de Gendt and Lilian Calmejane in the initial breakaway to give a bit of beef to it. Movistar are looking strong, with Mikel Landa (7th), Alejandro Valverde (8th) and Nairo Quintana (12th), so I expect them to make a decisive attack on the final Category 3 climb before a long downhill finish into Gap. This type of terrain should also suit Julian Alaphillippe who might feel confident enough to try to stretch his lead before the mountain stages on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Peter Sagan is a sprinter who can climb and might also feel brave enough to mount a challenge. Plenty of things to ponder over and it should lead to one of the most interesting stages on Le Tour - a lot to lose or a lot to gain.

The rest of the racing takes place in the mountains over 3 days, which should suit Thomas and Pinot, but it's far too much to expect them to give their all on successive days, so they will need to make decisions on when to give everything and when to keep something in reserve. Just like the Tour, there's a lot of twists and turns and ups and downs still to come.

[themaclad]

Trentin wins with a solo break another great ride by Asgreen and a bit of argy Bargy between two riders. No change in classification

[ritchiebaby]

Excellent ride from Matteo Trentin for a convincing win. As themaclad says, there's no change in the top GC rankings, with only 8 riders within 5 minutes of Alaphillippe and 12 within 11 minutes. Included in the large breakaway group of 33 riders, Van Avermaet finished 4th with De Gendt in 27th. Calmejane and Sagan were conspicuous by their absence, by doing virtually nothing all day, even finishing behind a lethargic peleton. About the most exciting thing to happen to them was a bit of a mid-race naughty schoolboy spat between Luke Rowe and Tony Martin which resulted in both riders being disqualified.

I can only assume that the GC contenders have kept their powder dry for the next 3 days, because this race definitely needs a bit of a kick up the backside. Xandro Meurisse made the biggest gain today of over 17 minutes, but is still 11m8s behind in 13th place.

Tomorrow's route takes in 2 HC climbs of Izoard and Colibier, the latter being 23km long, with a long 18km downhill dash before an uphill finish inside the last km. This could break the chances of some of the hopefuls, most probably Nairo Quintana who's never been on his best form in this race. It's a long day tomorrow and surely someone will make a decisive move to shake up the GC top ten.

[ritchiebaby]

Well, that was much better with attacks coming from all over. And we've found out why I'm hopeless at predictions.

The rider I virtually wrote off stamped his authority all over this stage, being instrumental in a large breakaway and then doing his own stunning breakaway with 26km to go. He won from Romain Bardet, another of my "failures", by 1m35s with Alexey Lutsenko a further minute behind. Alaphillippe, thanks to a brilliant descent from Colibier, still holds a 1m30s lead over Egan Bernal and 1m35s over Geraint Thomas.Steven Kruikswijk and Thibault Pinot are close behind with Emmanuel Buchmann in 6th, only 2m14s behind the leader. The big winner today was Quintana, who is 3m54s off the lead. Another performance like today's might be enough to triumph, much against my expectations. One great advantage that Alaphillippe has is that the chasing pack are so busy fighting each other that he just has to keep aware of the moves and keep his cool. The fact there are no downhill finishes left will go aginst him though, but it's really too tight to call in the race to wrest the Yellow Jersey from him, a jersey that he's worn since 13 July.

Peter Sagan has an 85 point lead in the Green Jersey and just has to reach Paris to win. Romain Bardet has jumped into the lead for the Polka Dot Jersey by 12 points ahead of Tim Wellens and should stay there if he can repeat his performance on 1 of the next 2 days. Egan Bernal has extended his lead in the White Jersey to over 20 minutes over David Gaudu, but will be looking to mounting a serious challenge for the Yellow Jersey. Movistar consolidated their leading position over Trek-Segafredo in the Team competition.

Tomorrow the fun will really start in a shorter 126.5km stage with 5 mountains, nothing too difficult but a long hard slog, where fatigue might play it's part. Nobody in GC contention will want to give too much away, but will also be too scared to pass up a chance to make gains.

[themaclad]

Here's the Beebs report

Britain's Geraint Thomas dropped to third overall at the Tour de France but remained 95 seconds behind leader Julian Alaphilippe after Nairo Quintana won a mountainous stage 18 to Valloire.

Colombian Quintana attacked from a leading bunch, 7km from the summit of the Galibier, for a fine solo victory.

Defending champion Thomas rode away from Alaphilippe on the final climb but the Frenchman caught up on the descent.

Thomas' team-mate Egan Bernal is second after the Colombian attacked late on.

"We wanted a hard pace and unfortunately we ran out of guys," said Welshman Thomas.

"The call was made for Egan [Bernal] to go and that kicked it off. I couldn't do much then other than follow.

"I had a little dig just to see if anything was going to happen and the guys followed me over the top. It was a good day for Egan gaining some time.

"We knew it would be hard to drop Alaphilippe, but there are two more big days to come."

The 208km race from Embrun took in three Alpine mountain passes of more than 2,000m each in altitude and most of the action came on the final one of those, the 23km ascent of the 2,642m Galibier.

Quintana, who started the day almost 10 minutes adrift of the overall race lead, sprinted away from a bunch that had gone clear early on in the stage. He reached the summit around 90 seconds ahead of France's Romain Bardet, and he maintained that advantage on the 19km descent to the finish.

Team Ineos' Bernal also attacked on the Galibier, riding clear of fellow general classification favourites, including Thomas, Alaphilippe, Thibaut Pinot and Steven Kruijswijk.

Bernal managed to keep clear on the descent to Valloire, picking up 32 seconds to move up to second overall, 90 seconds behind Alaphilippe and five ahead of Thomas to leave Ineos second and third overall.

Alaphilippe is bidding to become the first French winner of Le Tour since Bernard Hinault won the last of his joint record five titles in 1985. He took the race lead on stage three, lost it on stage six and reclaimed it on stage eight. Since then, he surprisingly won stage 13's individual time trial and has repelled attacks in the mountains, where he was expected to falter.

Thursday's stage, the first of three big days in the Alps, was expected to test the Deceuninck Quick-Step rider and although he clearly struggled towards the top of the Galibier, losing 20 seconds to his rivals, his superior descending speed allowed him to quickly catch up.

However, stages 19 and 20 are both summit finishes, with Friday's stage also featuring the highest point in the race at 2,770m.

The rider leading at the end of stage 20 will win the Tour, with Sunday's finale into Paris a largely processional ride with tradition dictating that the race leader is not challenged.

Britain's Adam Yates, who was part of Wedenesday's initial break, fell away 10km from the summit of the Galibier. In his BBC Sport stage-by-stage guide, the Mitchelton-Scott rider has picked Quintana as his rider to watch on Friday.

Stage 18 result:

1. Nairo Quintana (Col/Movistar) 5hrs 34mins 15secs

2. Romain Bardet (Fra/AG2R La Mondiale) 1mins 35secs

3. Alexey Lutsenko (Kaz/Astana) 2mins 28secs

4. Lennard Kamna (Ger/Sunweb) 2mins 58secs

5. Damiano Caruso (Ita/Bahrain-Merida) 3mins 00secs

6. Tiesj Benoot (Bel/Lotto-Soudal) 4mins 46secs

7. Michael Woods (Can/Education First) Same time

8. Egan Bernal (Col/Ineos)

9. Serge Pauwels (Bel/CCC)

10. Steven Kruijswijk (Ned/Jumbo-Visma) 5mins 18secs

General classification after stage 18:

1. Julian Alaphilippe (Fra/Deceuninck-Quick Step) 75hrs 18mins 49secs

2. Egan Bernal (Col/Ineos) 1mins 30secs

3. Geraint Thomas (GB/Ineos) 1mins 35secs

4. Steven Kruijswijk (Ned/Jumbo-Visma) 1mins 47secs

5. Thibaut Pinot (Fra/Groupama-FDJ) 1mins 50secs

6. Emanuel Buchmann (Ger/Bora-Hansgrohe) 2mins 14secs

7. Nairo Quintana (Col/Movistar) 3mins 54secs

8. Mikel Landa (Spa/Movistar) 4mins 54secs

9. Rigoberto Uran (Col/EF Education First) 5mins 33secs

10. Alejandro Valverde (Spa/Movistar) 5mins 58secs



My view great ride by Quintana, but all credit to Alaphilipe dumped on the last claim wizzed passed them on the way down, deserves the yellow jersey for his guts in race alone, sadly miss last two stages live due to prior events but Sky Plus baby

[themaclad]

Well that was a kick in the goolies for Alaphilipe as the stage is abandoned due to global freezing on the last climb, Bernal cruised up the big hill but would the Frenchman had pulled time back on the decent we wlll never know, and to compound the misery for La Belle France Pinot had to withdraw due to injury.

---

Having seen the pictures right decision flooded roads and landslides apparently the temperature in that area went from 40 degrees C during the day to 9 degrees C at night

[ritchiebaby]

Missed all the action today, but the right decision was made - after my comments of 2 years ago, the organisers finally got the message and used a snowplough to clear the route, but it still wasn't enough. I feel sorry for the riders who were planning a strong attack on the final climb, but you can't beat Mother Nature. All credit to Egan Bernal though for a spirited attack for the second day in a row and he will surely have benefitted from the race decision, by not having to exert extra energy on the final climb to stave off any late attacks. Julian Alaphillippe lost a lot of time on the supposed penultimate climb and to compound a bad day for the home nation, Thibault Pinot had to abandon early because of injury.

According to the TdF website, Bernal leads Alaphillippe by 48 seconds with Geraint Thomas a further28 seconds behind. Steven Kruikswijk is another 12 seconds adrift and Emmanuel Buchmann yet another 27 seconds behind. There's still a lot to ride for as any one of these could win the TdF, although Bernal must be a strong favourite.

Tomorrow's stage has been slashed to a mere 59.5km, still finishing at Val Thorens, by a different route, due to predicted bad weather and possible landslides. This should make life much easier for Bernal, as there will not be much chance of the chasing pack getting enough time back.