2011 Tour de France, Stage 7

I'm back!!! Let's see how long it'll take me to catch up.

Friday's stage went from Le Mans to Châteauroux: a 215km ride. This was the last flat stage before the riders would enter the Pyrenees on Saturday. The day's intermediate sprint is only 25.5km from the finish, so it may be interesting to see who is willing to fight for it.

Within the first kilometer of the stage, three riders formed a breakaway: Talabardon, Meersman,  and Delage. Soon after, Urtasun bridges to them. Their maximum advantage was at 43km into the stage, with a 7’20” lead. Meersman was the best-placed rider, only 3:22 down from the Yellow Jersey, sitting in 56th place.

Although Gilbert is wearing the green jersey today, he says that team orders mean that he will lose his jersey because he is supposed to be helping the better sprinter of the team, Greipel.

With 39km remaining, the is a crash toward the front of the peloton. Donzens of riders went down, big names included. Although he was able to get back on his feet, Wiggins was clutching his left elbow and had to be taken away by ambulance. Horner was also injured in this crash. He did get up and finish, but he was very disoriented as he crossed the finish line, not understanding why he was 12 minutes down.

Intermediate Sprint Results: Delage, Meersman, Talabardon, Urtasun, Cavendish, Rojas, Renshaw, Gilbert, Montfort, Gerdemann, Martin, F. Schleck, Burghardt, Gutierrez, and Cancellara.

Right before the peloton catches up to the breakaway, at about 13km out, the leading men start to attack each other: Meersman goes, but Urtasun follows. Then Meerman tries one more time, but after 206km in the lead, the breakaway is over.

Cavendish won the final sprint, just as he had won his first sprint in his first Tour de France three years ago. Even in the same town.

Stage 7 Results:
1 Cavendish
2 Petacchi
3 Greipel
4 Feillu
5 Galimzyanov
6 Bonnet
7 Hushovd
8 Turgot
9 Rojas

10 Hinault

Favorite Pictures of the Day:

Cavendish riding in the peloton

Hushovd and Voeckler talking in the peloton

El Diablo cheering on the riders. This man is here every year in multiple stages.

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.

2011 Tour de France, Stage 4

The fourth stage started in Lorient and ended  172.5 kilometers later in Mur-de-Bretagne, with a category 3 climb at the finish. This is considered a "lumpy" stage with one other climb, a category 4, just under the halfway point.

After just 9 kilometers, the breakaway happened. Roy attacked first and was followed by Kadri, Erviti, Hoogerland, and Izagirre. With 25km into the stage the leaders hit thier max advantage of 4:35. Erviti is the best-placed rider overall. He lies in 111th place overall,  but only 2:58 down on the Yellow Jersey.

We also had our first abandon today with Van de Walle. He crashed in the 1st stage first stage of the race and had to finally give in to his injuries. We are left with 197 riders.

After three days of beautiful weather and sunshine, today's stage started out under cloudy skies and heavy rain. Most of the riders were in race capes and jackets because of the wet conditions. However, Hoogerland and Roy, leading the break, aren't even wearing arm warmers. Below is Vinokourov with his rain gear on:

As the break reached the top of the first climb, Cote de Laz, Hoogerland attacked to gain the one KOM point. After he crossed the line, he waited for his companions to catch up.

By now, the peloton has begun a cat-and-mouse game with the attackers as they are reeling them in. When there is less than 2'30" of an advantage left, the peloton slows down to allow the attackers more freedom. When it gets above 2'30", the peloton speeds up.

The intermediate sprint results: Hoogerland, Roy, Kadri, Erviti, Izagirre, Farrar, Rojas, Bozic, Cavendish, Galimzyanov, Goss, Engoulvent, Gilbert, Greipel, and Oss.

The final climb to Mur-de-Bretagne is 2km long with an average gradient of 6.9%, however the first kilometer is the killer. Its gradient is an average of 10%! Yet, the steepest part comes midway up, with a section that reaches 12-13%, but then it flattens out considerably in the final kilometer.

With only 3.8km remaining, the break gets caught. And even with BMC controlling the peloton, Contador attacks with 1.3km to go. However, it was Evans that pulled off the win with just millimeters to spare...if that! Take a look at these two photos and see how close the finish was (Contador in White, Evans in Red):



So close infact, that Contador thought that he won! However, not only did the first 15 across get sprint points, but Evans earned 2 KOM points with Contador earning 1.

Stage 4 Results:
1 Evans

2 Contador

3 Vinokourov

4 Uran

5 Gilbert

6 Hushovd

7 F. Schleck

8 Sanchez

9 Van Den Broeck

10 Klöden

Favorite Pictures of the Day:

Voeckler at the beginning in the rain

A. Schleck drinking water while riding



2011 Tour de France, Stage 3

Stage 3 is classified as a flat stage, although it does have one category 4 climb in it. It starts in Olonne-sur-Mer and ends 198km later in Redon.

Within the first kilometers a 5-man breakaway formed. Niki Terpstra (Quick Step), José Ivan Gutierrez (Movistar), Maxime Bouet (Ag2r-La Mondiale), Mickael Delage (FDJ) and Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskatel-Euskadi) already had 45 seconds at the 3km mark. The breakaway had a maximum advantage of 8 minutes at 84km. The best-placed rider in the attack was Jose Ivan Gutierrez; as of this morning he was in 59th place with only 1:09 down on the Yellow Jersey.

During the race, Charteau was allowed to leave the peloton and greet his family at the roadside



The intermediate sprint had the following results: Delage (20 points), Gutierrez (17), Terpstra (15), Moreno (13), and Bouet (11). When the peloton crossed it minutes later, more points were handed out: Cavendish (10), Galimzyanov (9), Rojas (8), Boonen (7), Gilbert (6), Duque (5), Hushovd (4), Steegmans (3), Bozic (2), Feillu (1).  Note: Cavendish and Hushovd ended up being disqualified from the points in the intermediate sprint. Hushovd lost his line and Cavendish used his head to push Hushovd.

The 1 KOM point today was taken by Delage without a contest by the rest of the breakway.

Three of the 5-man breakaway, Terpstra, Moreno and Bouet, were caught about 13km from the finish when HTC-Highroad really chasing them down. Delage and Gutierrez held on for 4 more kilometers before finally being caught. At 7.5km out, the pace of the peloton was reaching 70kph (43.5mph!!!).

However on America's Day of Independence, it is in fact an American who won. Tyler Farrar of Garmin-Cervelo pulled off a win by millimeters. As he crossed the finish line, he made a 'W' with his fingers to honor his friend and teammate Woulter Weylandt, the cyclist who died in the Giro d'Italia this year. This is the 2nd day in a row that Garmin-Cervelo won a stage.

Results of Stage 3:

1 Tyler Farrar 4:40:21
2 Romain Feillu
3 Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil
4 Sébastien Hinault
5 Mark Cavendish
6 Thor Hushovd
7 Julian Dean
8 Borut Bozic
9 André Greipel
10 Jimmy Engoulvent

Fun Fact of the Day: Tyler Farrar is the only American to have won a stage in the Tour de France on the Fourth of July.

Favorite Pictures of the Day:

Thomas Voeckler signing in with his son

Ivan Basso after signing in

Brothers Andy (L) and Frank (R) Schleck riding in the Peloton