So who do you think is winning this year?

I'd bet the house on Kittel winning stage 1 barring accidents even with Cav being super determined to take the stage. Stage 2 I'm less sure of but thinking of a Valverde/Sagan/Kwiatkoski/Gerrans type rider.

I'll go for Sagan in the green jersey.

Polka I'll go for Rolland.

White Kwiatkowski although I'd love to think Simon Yates could do it.

And as for yellow.......I think it'll be Contador. Sky and Froome are not in good shape this year as a result of injuries and illness. It's like 2010 all over again.

However - what the Dauphine showed is that the other teams are willing to do their own thing and not follow their wheels. I have a sneaky suspicion we may see a good 'young un' get in a break and get enough time to make it interesting.

It'll be last man standing at this rate. If Nibbles stays upright, he's got this. Hugely impressive ride up the Plank of the Beautiful Girls. Nobody has an answer to him right now.

I just hope that with what we have left that this race will continue to be a spectacle. When we start getting to some proper alpine climbs I'm hoping that the likes of Costa, Valverde, Pinot, Porte etc can attack and get some time back on Nibali.

This years Vuelta is going to be a cracker. Do we think Team Sky will accomodate Froome and Wiggo for that?

Biggest tragedy of this year's race is we'll never know how good a race it could have been. Nibbles has been hugely impressive & may well have had more than enough to beat Contador/Froome but as it is he's just looked in a different league to everyone else on the road.

I get the feeling that if somebody was able to put pressure on him he's still got more in the tank but once again, sadly, we'll never know.

Gutted for Jack Bauer yesterday, although he spent too much time in the final 500m looking over his shoulder. Shades of Don Fox at the end, the poor lad.

My feelings precisely. The Dauphine set some very interesting questions which I was looking forward to being answered during the Tour.

It would appear that we would have had a pretty good 2 or 3 way ding dong battle for the title this year between Nibbles, Contador and maybe Froome. I only say maybe Froome as I don't believe he was anywhere near his best.

What we're seeing now so far is Nibbles able to add more time to his lead whenever he feels like it. Valverde doesn't look like he has it.

What is interesting now though is whether there can be a Frenchman on the podium. That would be a great result for racing in France.

I was gutted for Jack Bauer yesterday but if he hadn't sat on the wheel the towards the end then I think they'd have made it. I've been a big fan of Garmin but I've gone off them a little this time round for dropping Millar in the belief that Talansky was a serious GC threat (even I could have told them that the only reason he won the Dauphine was because Contador sat looking at Froome for too long).