Tour Tweets of the Week: Running hot and cold

Our third Tour Tweets of the Week and it’s just as eventful as last week. We have animals – chickens and cows, to be exact. We have some great stage wins from Steve Cummings, Andre Greipel, Purito; we have #FlechaWatch and #LauraWatch; Sagan on the descent, Contador in the rain and much much more.

#HellYeah

Let’s look at some of the wins from last week. First up, Purito. The rain didn’t extinguish his spark although I’m sure he’s wondering about the bewigged fan next to him.

Nothing’s better than a Gruber action image. So much stuff going on in this picture.

But the burning question is – what is the head to shoulders proportion?

Next up, Steve Cummings with a ripping ride that had a lot of people in tears, including the rider himself.

How wonderful to see My Beloved Cancellara back on Twitter and waxing philosophical.

And it’s a hat-trick for Andre Greipel.

I love this series of photographs, as it really shows the emotions of a bunch sprint. Greipel’s expression doesn’t change in the first three photographs but you can see the defeat dawning on the face of Degs.

Fire and rain

It was so unbelievably hot during the week – the riders were cooked in more ways than one by the end of these stages.

Is it just me or does Degs look like some sort of spent gladiator?

Um, he doesn’t look like one now.

And when the riders weren’t being boiled on the road, they were soaked to the skin by torrential rains with some hailstones thrown in.

None of them look comfortable but Tibbles looks like he just ate a bug.

Poor Jean-Christophe Peraud had his private parts paraded all over global television when he took a very nasty tumble and pretty much took the front of his bibs off. But he rode on. And the cameras stayed with him, much to the chagrin of the viewing public. Save the man’s dignity!

That said, he might have been battered, bloodied and bruised but he still filled what was left of his jersey with bidons for his team as he caught back up to the peloton. Smells like team spirit.

Sqwauk-a-doodle-doo

NYVelocity has gone from demanding tractor art to keeping a close eye on the coqs by the side of the road.

Vache-tastic

The coqs might be at the side of the road, but the cows rebelled and took over the tarmac – in front of Warren Barguil.

I’m particularly fond of this action shot of the cows invading the Tour route. They are a law unto themselves.

Um, what’s Juan Antonio doing here?

#FlechaWatch

Seems like a pretty good segue into our semi-permanent section of Tweets. Our hero has been busy, befriending not just cows, but actual people on his recons of the stages.

Oh and he also does yoga (of course!). We’re still waiting for his 1st and 2nd fav yoga pose. Although why he’s sending them to Velocast is anyone’s guess. I have a theory though: he wants to send those yoga pictures to me, but maybe is a little shy. Knowing that I know Velocast, he’s using Scott as a bridge. Yep. That sounds absolutely plausible!

(We were told that he wasn’t completely naked when he did this move, even though it looks like it.)

#LauraWatch

There was a move to start a #LauraWatch on Eurosport as a balance to #FlechaWatch. So here it is.

Why do we love those two? Easy. Yes, they are good-looking people with fabulous accents, but their charm and popularity comes from the fact that they get the riders to let their guard down during their interviews. Brilliant.

Rider of the Tour

Okay, I’ve already called it. Peter Sagan is the rider of the Tour. Even with all his near-misses on the stages, the Velvet Samurai stayed bright and breezy – even when getting photobombed by Baby Blackbird. And he rides like he means it.

His descending skills were on full display yesterday’s on the run into Gap.

But for all those risks, he came second again. Lampre’s Ruben Plaza descended like a stone and took a fantastic win. Unfortunately his win was overshadowed by both Sagan’s chest thumps and Geraint Thomas‘s horrific-looking crash.

Let’s take a picture round!

Not unlike Timm Kolln’s The Peloton from a few years ago, where he took portraits of riders seconds after they came over the finish line and they all looked like crazed psychopaths, Jeroen Halverstad gave us a compare and contrast of BMC riders after the cobbles. Does Manuel Quinziato look totally spooky or what?