Tour de France 2018 | Stage 2 | Mouilleron-Saint-Germain – La Roche-sur-Yon

Crashes were again a feature of the Tour de France as a reduced group contested the sprint finish in La Roche-sur-Yon following a pile-up just inside the final couple of kilometres ruled out most of the main contenders.

Richard Moore, Lionel Birnie and François Thomazeau discuss the stage and Peter Sagan’s first Tour stage win since his disqualification from last year’s race. The world champion held off a strong challenge from Italian Sonny Colbrelli to clinch the stage and take the yellow jersey from Fernando Gaviria, who was one of the late crash victims.

We hear from Sagan’s Bora-Hansgrohe sports director Enrico Poitschke about the team’s victory and from Marcel Kittel, who was third yesterday but also lost the chance to contest the sprint.

Plus we ask why there are still so many crashes, despite the reduction in the size of the peloton – with teams now consisting of eight riders instead of nine, making the bunch 176 in all.

The Cycling Podcast is supported by Rapha and Science In Sport.