It feels like we're finally settling into the Tour de France rhythm - today's stage was a fairly tame one without any major disruptions, insofar as the TdF ever has no disruptions.
Stage 3 was pretty flat, the only excitement being the intermediate sprint and a category 4 climb on top of a lovely bridge over the Loire (which rather resembled Melbourne's Westgate Bridge, by the way). As expected a breakaway went off the front and happily sat out there for most of the day. Some of the five started sprinting for the green jersey points, which were taken out by Frenchman Mickael Delage (FDJ), before settling back into their pace ahead of the pack. The peloton also chased for the remainder of the sprint points, Cavendish and Hushovd taking out the next highest points, but both having those points stripped after a headbutting incident similar to that of Mark Renshaw and Julian Dean in last year's tour.
The next bit of fun was the climb for KOM points, 40 kilometres on from the sprint. The wind on top of the bridge wasn't an obstacle for the breakaway, ever so slowly being drawn back in by the main field, but the peloton found themselves abruptly cut in half by the crosswinds as they made their way to the top of the bridge. Consternation reigned for the next 10 kilometres or so, as the peloton regrouped, riders dropped off the back made contact again, and the breakaway tried to continue its renegade act in the face of an ever-approaching peloton.
Movistar's Jose Ivan Gutierrez, seeing the peloton 30 seconds behind, clearly decided he didn't want to be caught and went on another speed crusade, taking Delage with him for company. Despite the wishes of the peloton the two managed to stay off the front until 10 k's to go, and allowed themselves to be caught gracefully before disappearing behind the prominent lead-out trains of Garmin-Cervelo and Lampre. The sprinters teams were planning to claim this one, but something definitely went awry for HTC, and despite having all nine riders preparing the train, Cavendish fell off the back of the train before Renshaw could launch him and finished 5th instead. Lampre's train also vanished and Alessandro Petacchi attached himself to Hushovd's wheel at the end of Garmin's train instead, but wasn't able to get himself up there in the end.
As it was, Hushovd instead succeeded in helping American teammate Tyler Farrar bolt ahead to take his first-ever stage victory, ahead of Vacansoleil's Romain Feillu and Movistar's Jose Joaquin Rojas. I almost teared up when Farrar lifted his hands off his bike as he crossed the line to form a 'W' - dedicating his win to his best mate and training partner Wouter Weylandt from Team Leopard Trek, who died in the Giro d'Italia a few months ago. I'll bet Farrar was wishing Wouter could have been there to see him finally make it, and on American Independence Day as well. I'm sure Wouter was watching anyway.
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