Surprised there haven't been angry comments from Jumbo-Visma and Ineos managers about how they needed these guys for the long, early pulls in the next three days.  Their expulsions could negatively impact their GC riders chances to take yellow.
But, at the same time, could make for a better race to watch.  

It will depend on which team needs to defend yellow first...

worth mention, but Luke Rowe and Tony Martin were in my fantasy team, explains why I'm in last place

Headline: "Super domestiques have a domestic"

RobertMullen said:

This is pretty strange. Neither rider seemed too sore about it after the stage, particularly Rowe who was the one pushed off the side of the road. Is this a French conspiracy? 🤔
https://cyclingtips.com/2019/07/luke-rowe-and-tony-martin-expelled-from-tour-de-france/

Rob
Whats your Mum's take on this ?

Wow. I wish we could bottle what those guys have and spray it over all of humanity - lose your cool and then come together to be over it so convincingly.

@Mark Taylor we had the same initial thought, but i didn’t see the press release video suggesting they might actually be over it. 

Update: it’s like we’re related or something 

Enough of that french conspiracy, the UCI commissaire who came to that decision of expelling those 2 is an Italian national.

They released the onboard camera of the action.  About 57 seconds into the video.  (This is my favorite part of watching recaps in the evening).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3BrJ8bMous

I was just teasing about the conspiracy theories.

Although I am 100% confident that this is an elaborate ploy to distract us from the GC leaders’ dubious sock heights. 

Since I want to see someone break the Sky/Ineos grip on the Tour, I'm hoping that Bernal had to dig really deep today, while his rivals were able to take it easier in the final kilometers.  

I’d livid love to see JA win at this point. I feel like I’ve seen 20 predictable grand tours.

How Alaphilippe rode thru everyone is the descend was something. Dude looks full on sharp panache.

He also had better support on the Galibier than expected. Ultimately, it did look like the GC crew should be able to drop him up Tignes and/or Val Thorens.

Obvious strategy for both Nairo and Bernal, kinda awesome to see these moves play out in the long term. The next two days will be fun.

What were Movistar doing?

Movistar is racing for Landa. Nairo was racing on his own for the stage, an unintended consequence is that now Nairo is ahead of Landa. If they were smart, altho I don't expect it, they could play with this tomorrow to put pressure on Alaphilippe.

What Nairo (non-intentded) and Bernal (intended) did today is the oldest trick in team road racing

-- team A rider attacks (Bernal/Nairo), and now team B rider (Jumbo-Visma/Deceuninck) has to choose to use energy to chase and bring another team A rider (Thomas/Landa) with them, or risk the first team A rider win. 

Mark Taylor said:

What were Movistar doing?

Eating their young, apparently. 

eloy said:

Movistar is racing for Landa. Nairo was racing on his own for the stage, an unintended consequence is that now Nairo is ahead of Landa. If they were smart, altho I don't expect it, they could play with this tomorrow to put pressure on Alaphilippe.

What Nairo (non-intentded) and Bernal (intended) did today is the oldest trick in team road racing

-- team A rider attacks (Bernal/Nairo), and now team B rider (Jumbo-Visma/Deceuninck) has to choose to use energy to chase and bring another team A rider (Thomas/Landa) with them, or risk the first team A rider win. 

Yes ,except they were the team that seemed to work the hardest , when Nairo , was "virtual yellow "

haha, maybe they were blocking? 

yeah, 100%, Landa vs Quintana vs Movistar are mega dysfunctional. Gotta love the drama!!

Still, there was some nuance to it all, once Quintana attacked and was on his own, I think only Deceuninck and Ineos chased from the GC crew.

Thomas arguably chased Bernal too, btw, because for GC they wanted pressure and distance on Alaphilippe before the top of the Galibier (a sort of finish before the finish) -- without that move, Bernal would likely gotten a bigger gap by the end

eloy said:

haha, maybe they were blocking? 

yeah, 100%, Landa vs Quintana vs Movistar are mega dysfunctional. Gotta love the drama!!

Thomas arguably chased Bernal too, btw, because for GC they wanted pressure and distance on Alaphilippe before the top of the Galibier (a sort of finish before the finish) -- without that move, Bernal would likely gotten a bigger gap by the end

The dysfunctional Movistar to me seems less so.  For at least a few TdF's Valverde was the lesser rider, but still wasn't all-in for Quintana in the mountains.  I don't think Quintana could have dislodged Froome, but his efforts were, in my opinion, hampered by Valverde looking to save his own place, or maybe go for glory on his own. (OTOH, Quintana's efforts put them in the lead on team GC, which is something Movistar seems to put some effort into leading over the years)

Yes, on Thomas.  I don't think it was a smart move for Thomas to attack, though I don't know if Bernal would have ended with a bigger gap. The 'problem' was if they wanted to actually drop Alaphilippe, they would have needed someone to ride a harder tempo for a while before throwing down the two attacks, which would have put JA on the ropes first.  He was comfortable enough when Bernal and Thomas attacked that the final k wasn't crushing.

The side of the Galibier they went up is the easier ascent.  It's only steep for the final kilometer or so.  And the side they descended, there are several kilometers riding straight in a valley before the finish.  While I was surprised Pinot didn't try to go with Bernal, I was also thinking that drafting played a part.  The riders could draft much of the remaining kilometers and save themselves for tomorrow while Bernal was going all-out for a long time.  He could well pay for his efforts tomorrow.

I am also surprised by the commentators (Keenan and McEwen) slagging Pinot's descending abilities.  He's no Alaphilippe, but he was arguably the best of the rest.  He didn't make up time on Bernal, but he didn't lose any, either.  

My only surprise was that the Alaphilippe chase didn't take back 10-20 seconds on Bernal once they hit the valley.  

I'm thinking Pinot was riding sort of conservatively today because of the relative ease of the finale.  Looking forward to see what he's going to show tomorrow.

💥💥💥💥

ICE AND SNOW AND FIRAH! 

this is just like a NYC park race where a car got into the course.

WOW. 

looks even worse than just ice and snow


looking at the images on TV, it was 100% the right decision to stop the race, you can argue the decision on when to count the times, I am guessing there's an official counter at the top of the hill, so that's the only place where you can make it "official"

give them cross bikes!

should be pointed out that yesterday was the hottest day ever recorded in France, today a flash snow storm stopped the race

(unrelated to the stop of the stage, I thought it was beautiful to see the soigneurs from other teams cheering for Alaphilippe and even handing him a bottle at the top of de l'iseran) 

@eloy. According to UCI rule 12.1.040.
Section 8 - Assistance to a rider of another team.
Sub-section - 8.2 Stage Race : 200 CHF per offence & 2', 5', 10'. Elimination from race at 4th offence.

If they apply the rules as strictly as they did to Richie Porte in the 2015 Giro then that would be a 2 min penalty.

I am betting they do NOTHING