There's more than a hint of déjà vu with how the race has panned out in the opening mountains stages. The Sky way of doing things has been to hit them hard straight away and then control that situation, and that's what we've got.
The surprise isn't that this has happened again, it's more that everyone seems to be astonished they can do it all over again. The other GC teams obviously believed they had caught up in recent times but I think we've seen from the first skirmishes that in some points many have but in terms of overall strength they aren't matching what the British squad is capable of.
Well for some people the Froome data saga proves nothing at all. It’s just another conspiracy theory on YouTube, concocted by someone with too much time on their hands and a hidden agenda.
Squabbles over parking spaces just show how much pressure the teams are under. A stage win might help but, with Team Sky getting the race tactics right, this data story will probably rumble on for a while yet.
Is climbing a mountain with an average of 400w that remarkable? One expert says it is, another says it isn't and now there's even an argument over what type of tests would give an answer.
I think it's important to remember that there are usually five or six riders at the start of the Tour that might be able to win and there are seven billion people on the planet. That makes for odds that aren't in any way ordinary so therefore none of them are normal.
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Robert Millar was one of the last pure climbers of the Tour de France, winning several stages in the mountain stages and finishing fourth overall in 1984. He is also the only English speaker to have ever won the prestigious polka-dot jersey climber's competition jersey.
Millar retired in 1995 but has continued to follow the sport closely. He was often critical of the media and quickly cuts through the excuses and spin to understand why and how riders win and lose.
