2011 Tour de France, Stage 6

Today, the bunch will leave Brittany and travel 226km to Normandy. This is the longest stage in this year's Tour de France. Today includes two category 3 climbs and one category 4 climbs before a final climb 1.5kms from the finish line. Three kilometers from the finish, there is a 1.3km long climb at 6.3 percent, a perfect place for a late attack. Then there are 1.4 km of a false uphill flat and the 400m finishing straight which is flat.

An update on the two abondons from yesterday: Brajkovic broke his collarbone due to his crash yesterday and Kern hs been dealing with ongoing knee pain and pulled out of the race.

There was another abandon today: Velasco. He has a fractured collarbone due to his crash yesterday.

Westra was the first rider today to attack. He was followed by Roux. Hoogerland, Duque, and Malori soon caught up with the breakaway. Roux is the best place man, only 2.25 minutes back on the Yellow. The maximum lead of the attack was at almost 12 minutes. However, the first hour of the race was very fast: at about 50 km/h for the first 30 km even though the weather was much less than stellar:

Hoogerland takes the first KOM points of the day: Hoogerland - 2, Roux - 1. The intermediate sprint has the following results: Roux- 20, Duque - 17, Westra - 15, Malori - 13, Hoogerland - 11, Cavendish - 10, Rojas - 9, Farrar - 8, Renshaw - 7, Gilbert - 6, Petacchi - 5, Delage - 4, Ventoso - 3, Eisel - 2, Moinard - 1. The second climb gave the following KOM points: Roux - 2, Hoogerland - 1

With 56km remaining,  Westra attacked the rest of the breakawy. Malori followed. Sixteen kilometers late the three remaining are caught by the peloton. The next set of KOM points went to Westra (2) and Malori (1).

As soon as the gap hit 30 seconds, Malori took off on his own with 17km left. With a six seconds, Malori started the last climb, but was caught soon after that.

Then Vandendert opened a gap, followed by Voeckler. But that didn't amount to anything as they were both caught before the end with Hagen taking the win!

Stage 6 Results:
1 Edvald Boasson Hagen
2 Matthew Harley Goss
3 Thor Hushovd
4 Romain Feillu
5 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil
6 Arthur Vichot
7 Philippe Gilbert
8 Gerald Ciolek
9 Marco Marcato
10 Arnold Jeannesson

Favorite Picture of the Day:

Frank Schleck before the stage began

Note: I will not be able to post tomorrow or Saturday because I am going on vacation this weekend. I'll hopefully have time to catch back up on Sunday night with recaps of all missed stages. If not, Monday is a rest day so instead of posting another blog, I'll do recaps.