Tour de Farce: It’s raining, men!

Still, the Dutch are a hardy race, and the elements didn’t prevent this epic attention-seeker from making a show of himself.

Or these guys. Goldmember just out of shot.

And if the weather looked OK at that stage, sprinter-turned-meteorologist Robbie McEwen confirmed what lay ahead for the peloton.

One kilometre after the intermediate sprint, we saw the first big crash of the day as Geraint Thomas et al suffered as the rain kicked up a notch.

Not content with that, Lotto Soudal's Adam Hansen hit the tarmac and came up sporting a natty new line of cycling wear covered in mud.

By this time, Froome and Contador had got the jump on Quintana and Nibali who punctured.

The reigning champ was in dire trouble and proceeded to draw upon his own unique form of an RAC call out to help bridge the gap to his fierce rivals.

As if there wasn't enough drama already for the day, the Movistar team decided to slide out of a roundabout en masse with Joaquin Rodriguez getting in on the action too.

It was the big man Andre Greipel, though, who claimed the last headline of the day. After being overshadowed somewhat by Kittel, Cav and Sagan in recent years, the Gorilla looked every inch his nickname as he smashed past the Manx Missile to take the top spot on the podium for the day.

Cav normally only gets this view of Marcel Kittel...