Stage 4: Abbéville – Rouen

The stage started out in the sunshine today, a good omen for the race that was to come.  The stunning scenery of northern France lent a beautiful backdrop to a much calmer, happier stage than we’ve seen recently with a thoroughly exciting finish to round things out.

Stage 4 from Abbéville to Rouen saw the Tour leave coastal Normandy and head inland towards the river Seine, which will greet the riders again when they roll into Paris.  The peloton had a much slower start to the day than anticipated at an average 37km/h, perhaps enjoying the views as they rode along the sheer cliffs of the ‘Alabaster Coast’, reminiscent of the cliffs of Dover in their pure white colour. Europcar rider Yukiya Arashiro clearly wasn’t watching the countryside, attacking as soon as the peloton was clear of the neutral zone.  He was soon joined by David Moncoutié of Cofidis and Anthony Delaplace of Saur-Sojasun, the trio rocketing away to a lead of 8’40” within 20 kilometres.

Though the peloton was taking the morning off to have a more relaxing ride, even celebrating Vladimir Gusev’s (Katusha) 30^th birthday, it was a flat stage with plenty of sprint finish potential and the peloton wasn’t going to let a breakaway ruin it. Lotto Belisol, the team of André Greipel, jumped on the front and began pulling, reducing the escapee trio’s lead to seven and a half minutes.  They relaxed a bit too soon, though, and when the gap went out to 8’35” again the team of yellow jersey wearer Fabian Cancellara, Radioshack-Nissan-Trek, stepped up to do their turn of defending the maillot jaune – Arashiro’s time gap was enough to put him in virtual yellow.

Up the front in the breakaway, Arashiro and his companions had been making their way over the first three of four Category 4 climbs for the day, climber Moncoutié taking the King of the Mountain points on offer each time.  The beautiful coastal views continued to flash by the riders, a cool sea breeze sweeping in from the clear blue ocean keeping the temperature down.  The race route finally turned away from the cliffs and headed inland, straight for the day’s intermediate sprint point, which the breakaway, unconcerned with the green jersey, passed without incident.

The peloton was certainly concerned with the green jersey, however, and Orica-GreenEDGE began setting up the win for their rider, Matt Goss.  Today’s train certainly seemed better than yesterday’s, but in the end Mark Cavendish (Sky) proved once again that he is indeed the fastest man on two wheels, narrowly taking fourth place ahead of Gossy, Rabobank’s Mark Renshaw and Liquigas-Cannondale’s Peter Sagan.

A little spot of rain further on down the road caused the peloton to take just a little more care on the newly-soaked roads, but if a crash is going to happen in a bike race then it seems no force in the world can stop it.  Australian neo Jonathan Cantwell from Team Saxobank-Tinkoff Bank clipped his wheel on the edge of the road with 45 kilometres to go and took a tumble, taking a handful of other riders down with him.  Luckily there was no damage done apart from some bumped bodies and bruised egos, and all riders were soon continuing on their way to Rouen.

Over the next few kilometres the lead group’s break continued ticking down as the race began passing through typical French countryside, brilliantly green and full of grand, ancient chateaux and cathédrales.  Arashiro definitely didn’t want to be caught, even trying a solo break at one point and earning the day’s Fighting Spirit Award, but he was the first rider to falter and fall when the peloton came knocking.  Delaplace and Moncoutié took a little longer, initially being joined by a series of riders sprinting out from the front of the peloton, the most notable being Omega Pharma-Quickstep’s Sylvain Chavanel and Philippe Gilbert of BMC.  But the peloton was hungry for the sprint, and the race came back together with about five kilometres to go, 195 riders all barrelling towards the final few kilometres of the stage.

The sprint trains were setting themselves up, Orica-GreenEDGE, Lotto Belisol and Lampre-ISD preparing to deliver their men to the line for victory, Mark Cavendish floating on the nearest wheel as a makeshift leadout train.  But nothing complicates or livens things up like a crash less than three kilometres from the finish, especially when the rainbow jersey of Mark Cavendish is sitting on the ground with pieces scraped off his back.

The front section of the peloton continued on, leaving those behind to pick themselves up, focussing instead on the sprint finish to be won.  Australia’s Adam Hansen and New Zealand’s Greg Henderson led the Lotto Belisol sprint train powering down the final straight with the same implacability once seen in the HTC-Highroad express.  Though the Lampre-ISD train kept pulling for Alessandro Petacchi, and Orica-GreenEDGE’s Daryl Impey did his best to bring Matt Goss forward, no-one could stand in the way of the ‘Gorilla’ André Greipel, Petacchi and Goss sliding into second and fourth respectively with Argos-Shimano’s Tom Veelers rounding out the podium.  Cavendish rolled over the line a few minutes later, looking very much the worse for wear but mostly unhurt, the same as his fellow victims.

As the crash happened within the last three kilometres, all those affected had their time gaps neutralised and received the same time as the group they were riding in prior to the crash.  As such Peter Sagan maintains his green jersey, and with the time gaps neutralised Fabian Cancellara maintains his yellow into tomorrow’s stage, as does Bradley Wiggins his second place on GC.  Tomorrow’s stage to Saint-Quentin is as flat as today’s, but after missing out on a chance at the win today, it will be a safe bet to keep your eyes on Mark Cavendish gunning for a second chance to be on the podium.

Stage 15 - Limoux => Montpellier

My least favourite stage - a flat one.  Give me a good old mountain climb anyday, or a nice gripping time trial so I can count the seconds.  But a flat stage?  Nothing - on a good day nothing - happens until the very end, and then only for a few seconds!  Oh, to be in the Alps already!

But the flat stages are still important, even for the GC riders.  On a stage like today's, the challenge for the GC riders is to stay up the front and stay safe, a task that Cadel Evans says is enormously difficult when you don't have a team to help you as he does now.  With the sprinters jostling for position and the other GC riders trying to stay near the front, simply staying on your bike all stage can be the hardest thing you do.

Would it surprise anyone if I said there was a breakaway?  Very early on one of FDJ's favourite breakaway riders, Mickael Delage, bolted for it, followed by four others including the Tour's youngest rider, Anthony Delaplace.  The peloton were unconcerned, happy to let the other riders have a play while they concentrated on staying out of trouble for yet another stage.

They couldn't be too complacent, though, and after a while two of Cav's teammates came up to do the pace-making and hold the escapees at an acheivable distance of three minutes.  This also placed them in a good position to help Cav take top points available at the intermediate sprint point afterthe breakaway of five had gone through with Delage taking maximum points.  Philippe Gilbert and Jose Joaquin Rojas also followed Cav across the line, keeping themselves right up with the Manxman in the green jersery competition.  After this HTC continued to keep up the pace, with Leopard Trek and BMC rendering assistance in the interests of their GC riders as well.

The breakaway was holding its own until Katusha's Mikhail Ignatiev shot off the front at 22 kilometres to go to try and make it on his own.  Niki Terpstra of Quickstep decided to join him and indeed, soon left Ignatiev for dead and went on his own at 6.5 kilometres to go, but if there's anything the Tour has taught us this year, it's that a breakaway that fights within itself and doesn't work together has no hope of staying a breakaway until the stage's end.  Predictably enough the peloton caught Ignatiev and the three others and brought Terpstra back to within 12 seconds by the five kilometre mark.

Then with both Terpstra and the finish line in sight, Gilbert decided it was a nice day for a ride and brought Terpstra back into the fold as he went for the victory, followed by Anthony Roux (FDJ) and Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil).  But a determined Team HTC with a hot-shot Cavendish just raring for a race had already called dibs on this stage, and Gilbert and entourage were quickly outpaced as the Highroad train steamed into the town of Montpellier and very neatly delivered their green man to the finish line, well clear of Garmin-Cervelo's Tyler Farrar and Lampre sprinter Alessandro Petacchi.  Another victory on a platter for Manx missile Mark Cavendish.