Fantastic result for the Lib Dems! And it wasn't even close. A new majority of 11000. This has got to give so much confidence going into next year that they can pick up lots of seats.

Wout's gone home, Yellow jersey only needs to be shepherded to Paris, so what will Jumbo-Visma be doing? Breakaway? Laporte to sprint? Or just chilling?

Philipsen has got over the mountains well and won all the flat sprints to date so looks strong favourite for today, but these flat stages late in Grand Tours can spring surprise breakaway wins.

Henri Desgranges would disagree. "In the ideal bicycle race there would be only one finisher." I'm not sure what he thought of swagger.

Seriously though, it is fair not to like it, but to me a stage like that is what the Tour is all about. Absolute limit of endurance stuff, everyone struggling.

Now it is over, barring force majeur.

But this stage proved exactly why it was ridiculous to declare it over yesterday. 1:40 was not a remotely unbreachable gap.

Absolutely, it is both ridiculous to declare the race over after yesterday, but equally Jonas is strong favourite.

If he can keep that form through today then he will win, probably with a bigger gap. But that is a sizable 'if'.

The underappreciated Teams competition is unusually competitive. The time gap between the top 4 teams at this stage in the race over the last 10 races is as follows:

2014 - 47:44

2015 - 36:07

2016 - 38:59

2017 - 70:50

2018 - 47:43

2019 - 36:22

2020 - 37:43

2021 - 32:02

2022 - 64:39

2023 - 10:22

Jumbo-Visma, Ineos, UAE and Bahrain are in a battle for the ages. And no-one cares.

Not sure I agree that Pogacar needs time here, though I can very well imagine him taking some. I don't think the race will come down to ~4 seconds so I think the bonuses are a bit irrelevant.

I'm expecting Tadej and Jonas to take 1st and 2nd, but I don't think Jumbo Visma will chase a break today so there could easily be a surprise winner.

I'm going to go for Van de Poel or Bilbao. But it could be anyone!

SECOND WEEK AS IT STANDS

GC is a completely split race. Pogacar and Vingegaard are so close it is hard to pick a favourite. All to play for. There are then another 15 riders probably in contenion for a top-5/top-10. One good breakaway could move any of them up and they are all far enough back that JV and UAE won't chase them.

Points Classification looks wrapped up. Without something dramatic happening it is hard to see anyone closing the >100pt lead that Philipsen has. He obviously needs to get to Paris though.

The KOM competion has barely begun. Powless's points tally so far is insignificant compared to the points available in the Alpine stages to come. It is perfectly possible that it comes down to a battle between riders who are still on zero. Probably the bigger question is whether the breakaway taking the Puy de Dome sets a precedent or whether the Alpine mountain finishes are taken by the GC contenders. If the latter, then another year of the GC winner 'accidentally' winning the Polka dots too is certainly on the cards.

That's a good idea. Would you or anyone else like to be a mod and help with this. I've not much idea what can be done!

Smoked salmon looks "raw" largely because it is raw. It has never been heated.

Smoking the fish does indeed give a very different flavour to non-smoked fillet. That shouldn't be any great surprise.

Why is it safe? Well good quality raw salmon is also safe (see sushi). But the smoking does have an effect of preserving the fish and making it less of an environment where bacteria would thrive.

Why do you want to create a user there? I imagine it will reopen eventually, but you are likely much better off creating a user elsewhere.