UKH

Surely the best addition to the TdF in recent years, in terms of adding some excitement in the early stages?

It was carnage; I bet Christian Prudhomme was hugging himself with glee and feeling guilty at the same time.  

They should introduce cobbles to Formula One tracks too.

You'd think anyone that suffers badly from asthma would keep well away from all that dust. But the 'Kenyan' didn't seem to have any problems apart from a bit of a tumble at one point.

Good to watch though after the previous weeks boring processions 

I felt like a bit of a sadist watching this.

Its certainly a great spectacle.  I don't think its a recent innovation, I thought that cobbles had featured in the tour quite a lot in the past ?

Maybe - I have been watching it on and off since the days of Delgado and don't remember them, but I wouldn't consider my an expert in the history.

They have indeed, not every year obviously, but they used to be fairly regular... the last time I think was the year Bertie won... in fact it's how I learned about this weird hell of the North Race in the first place

Fairly key to Nibali's win in 2014. He may well have won anyway, with Froome crashing before he got there and Bertie a couple of days later, but Nibbles was pretty impressive in pretty poor weather

Maybe as early as 1896!

There was one stage with several sections of pavé in 2015 as well.