The incident raised immediate questions about who was at
fault. Biniam Girmay’s teammate and Bryan Coquard were both involved in the
incident that sent Philipsen crashing. But after reviewing the footage, the
crew wasn’t quick to assign blame.

“You have to look at where this started. I don’t think
anyone’s to blame,” Armstrong said. “It’s an occupational hazard of what those
guys are doing.”

Tim Merlier came away with the win, but not without some
late-stage improvisation. According to Hincapie, it was one of the more
impressive finishes he’s seen.

“He essentially came up on the side of the peloton on his
own and seemed to be going 10k an hour faster than the lead-out train,”
Hincapie said. “He didn’t even need his teammates there.”

Armstrong added: “He was right there. He knew. It was tight,
but he knew.”

While Merlier won, and now leads the green jersey
competition, the conversation turned to Jonathan Milan, whose raw power and
unusual sprinting form have made him a talking point, “He looks like he’s all
over the bike… head all over the place, sitting up high, a big guy,”
Armstrong noted.

Wiggins added context to Milan’s pedigree: “This is a guy
who is the world record holder for the 4,000 meter individual pursuit which is
sub four minutes for four kilometers.”

Crashes weren’t confined to Philipsen. Several riders went
down, sparking concern over the finish layout and safety measures. Wiggins
questioned the route design, “I thought we were making the sport safer… That
finish straight today was something I haven’t seen for a while,” he said.

Wiggins recalled when the Tour organizers used to take more
proactive steps, “There was a time when ASO would remove road furniture in the
last five or six km… We seem to have got away from that.”

Another incident involved Remco Evenepoel, who went down in
a crash just two days before the time trial after having already having a mixed
start to the Tour. The team’s day was mixed, a stage win from Merlier, but bad
luck for their GC contender. Hincapie speculated on the team mood, “The morale
is going to be a lot higher at the dinner table tonight.”

Wiggins wasn’t so sure. “Their man for the GC is lying on
the floor… There’s no cohesion from the sort of split in terms of their
objectives.”

He drew comparisons to Team Sky’s 2012 Tour, where internal
friction boiled over, “That caused a lot of friction within the team… Cav
wanting to win stages and green,” Wiggins recalled. “At some point, riders like
me, I intervened and said I do the lead-outs… acting as mediator.”

That led into a detailed breakdown of Mark Cavendish’s
sprint setup, a rare insight into the mechanics of the dramatic sprints we see
at the Tour: “Cav would always say to us, ‘You do your job. I’ll find you. Do
not look back for me,’” Wiggins said. “He would be calculating all the time,
but he would somehow always find you.”