NorthGeek

Inside view of the Tour de France on Twitter

Today, the affable and longtime pro and facilitator in Lance’s 7 victories George Hincapie almost took home his second Yellow Jersey, as leader in the Tour.

But some shenanigans on the part of some competing teams resulted in him missing it by 5 seconds. The viewers were full of uncertainty and disbelief as the results came in. It came upon Twitter and some Twittering riders to clear things up. Thanks be to Twitter! Here are some of the comments. Apparently, thankfully, they don’t seem to hold back opinion on Twitter:

dutoit08: @johanbruyneel What did Garmin respond when everyone asked them why they were riding so hard?
johanbruyneel: @dutoit08 – they said they wanted to avoid a split in the group like the other day when Bradley Wiggins lost 15 seconds… Huh?

johanbruyneel: Bummed, really bummed about George Hincapie not getting yellow. Won’t elaborate on the strategies but what Garmin did was just BS. Sorry!

lancearmstrong: St14 done. Sounds like there’s quite a bit of confusion over this one… Noone, and I mean noone, wanted George in yellow more than me.
lancearmstrong: Our team rode a moderate tempo to put him in the jersey by at least 2 mins. Ag2r said they would not defend then they started to ride.
lancearmstrong: Until 10km to go he was solidly in yellow until GARMIN put on the gas and made sure it didn’t happen.
lancearmstrong: And I reiterate. @ghincapie deserves to be yellow tonight. He deserves more than that. Look to who pulled the last 50k to see who to blame..

billmackiernan: @lancearmstrong it’s ok for garmin to chase he didn’t help anyone at garmin win 7 tours
lancearmstrong: @billmackiernan exactly, that’s why we were riding medium to let the gap get as big as possible…

bfogelstrom: @lancearmstrong There was a lot of confusion on TV for sure. Thanks for setting the record straight. George was pissed!
lancearmstrong: @bfogelstrom And george should be pissed. Very pissed. He can talk to his teammates who were n the bunch w/ us then perhaps it will be clear

dzabriskie: Pawns in their game…

BritneyGears: @lancearmstrong Don’t add insult to injury by blaming Garmin. Astana set the pace. That was heartbreaking to watch.
lancearmstrong: @BritneyGears you’re clueless

bbelshaw: Phil reported that you told the team to chase the break…i guess he was just making shit up, huh
lancearmstrong: @bbelshaw told astana 2 chase? Not true @ all. My vision was george would have YJ by 2 mins. Was reality til ag2r and garmin started 2 pull.

lancearmstrong: Last thing. There were 13 guys in the breakaway. We had 2 guys riding “tempo”. That is not chasing by any stretch of the imagination.

matkearns: @lancearmstrong. Not sure why you guys pulled so hard today?
lancearmstrong: @matkearns why we pulled so hard? When we started it was 6:00. When we stopped it was 8:40. Those are the facts…

Garmin Slipstream director Jonathan Vaughters responded on Twitter:
Vaughters: That had nothing to do with George or Columbia. Wiggo almost lost 15 seconds the other day due to a split. We can’t have that happen again.