2011 Tour de France, Stage 18

Today’s stage was 200.5km, starting in Pinerolo and taking the riders to Galibier-Serre Chevalier. There were 3 HC climbs today.

An early breakaway of 20 didn’t last long. Then there was an attack by Meersman and Marcato, which again didn’t last. However, right before the intermediate sprint, a group of 16 fled and got the points: Duque, Posthuma, Delaplace, Devenyns, Tjallingii, Bookwalter, Irizar, Erviti, Hondo, Navardauskas, Perez, Urtasun, Ignlinsky,  Monfort, and Roche. Hoogerland is the 16th man. Burghardt, Delage, and Silin were able to bridge to the breakaway.

With 115km left, the breakaway has almost 9 minutes.

With 99 to go, Zeits and Gilbert have attacked the peloton. They were soon joined by Barredo, Leipheimer, Riblon, Di Gregorio, and Koren. Meanwhile, Hondo have dropped from the lead group. Cavendish and Petacchi are being dropped from the high-paced peloton.

Leipheimer, Di Gregorio, and Westra have attacked the chasing group. They get 30” clear of the peloton and are joined by Gesink and Moncoutie. The rest of their groupare back to the peloton.
Duque, Delage, Erviti, Irizar and Bookwalter are all being dropped by the leaders.

Ignlinsky is the first man over the summit of the first climb. Hoogerland, Devenyns, and Monfort follow, but Ignlinsky continues solo.

Gilbert, Voeckler, and Vanendert bridge to the Leipheimer, but the peloton is closing in. A lot of the riders in the lead group are also falling back.

With 60km left, A. Schleck attacks and opens up a good gap. Rolland tried to follow, but couldn’t. With 58km remaining, he has a 45” lead over the group with the Yellow Jersey. Schleck was able to make it to Posthuma, who fell back from the leaders. Posthuma is working hard for his team leader. Three kilometers later, Schleck takes off on his own. He now has a 2 minute advantage over the other GC contenders who are working hard to chase him down.

No surprise, Ignlinaky is first over the 2nd summit. As the peloton continues the climb, Uran is dropped off the back.

Monfort waits on the descent for Schleck. The two soon join forces with Devenyns and Silin. Only Roche is between them and Ignlinsky. And soon, they are with Roche. Only Monfort seems willing to work with Schleck.

With 30km remaining, the Schleck group catches Ignlinsky. With 20km remaining, they have almost 4 minutes over the Contador group. But then there were 3, as only Ignlinsky and Roche can hold Schleck’s wheel.

The Yellow jersey group can not seem to work together. The leaders are gaining more and more of a gap. Schleck is soon up to 4’15” with 11km left.

With about 9km left, Evans attacks the Yellow Jersey group. Soon the others are back with him, but they are chasing A. Schleck harder.

With 2km from the finish, Contador is dropped!

In the final kilometer, F. Schelck attacked the Yellow Jersey group to make it a Schleck-Schleck 1-2. Voeckler keep the Yellow by just 16 seconds!!

Stage 18 Results:
1 Andy Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek 6:07:56
2 Fränk Schleck (Lux) Leopard Trek 0:02:07
3 Cadel Evans (Aus) BMC Racing Team 0:02:15
4 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas-Cannondale 0:02:18
5 Thomas Voeckler (Fra) Team Europcar 0:02:21
6 Pierre Rolland (Fra) Team Europcar 0:02:27
7 Damiano Cunego (Ita) Lampre - ISD 0:02:33
8 Rein Taaramae (Est) Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne 0:03:22
9 Thomas Danielson (USA) Team Garmin-Cervelo 0:03:25

Cavendish and others come in over 35 minutes later. They were not disqualified but they did loose points.

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.