Stage 12 - Cugnaux => Luz-Ardiden

There is a saying amongst the riders when they reach the Pyrenees - "Le Tour commence aujourd'hui" ("The Tour starts today"), and they would be right.  This is the reason I have been waiting so eagerly for the mountains in the Tour de France - it's where you get to separate the boys from the men, find out who is in good form and who's not, and you can finally tell who's serious about winning the Tour de France.

As expected on such as auspicious day there was a certain amount of chaos from people attacking, falling back, being caught and dropping off, but being the mountains there are only so many riders who can truly handle them, and it wasn't as hard as it sometimes is to keep track of who was where.  The drama (and the television coverage!) started at 80 kilometres from the finish.  As usual there was a breakaway out the front - this time it was Geraint Thomas from Team Sky leading it, Laurent Mangel from Saur-Sojasun, Blel Kadri of AG2R and Ruben Perez of Euskaltel-Euskadi, as well as Jose Ivan Gutierrez (Movistar) and Jeremy Roy (FDJ) for the umpteenth time, all seven or eight minutes ahead of the peloton.

Meanwhile the sprinters were gathering themselves up for the last goodbye - the final green jersey points before the mountains where they would be relegated to the autobus, the group of non-mountain-loving sprinters just trying to get over the finish before the elimination time.  Though the highest points had already been taken the breakaway, the sprinters still took their chances, and it was really no surprise to anyone that it was Mark Cavendish who took the maximum remaining points, followed by teammates Gossie and Renshaw.  The two picked up more points to increase the gap between Cav and his nearest rivals for the green jersey, Philippe Gilbert and Jose Joaquin Rojas, who followed the HTC boys across the line.  After that it was the back of the pack and the autobus for these guys.

It was on the first climb of the day, the Category 1 Hourquette d'Ancizan, that the first move came.  King of the Mountains Johnny Hoogerland, soon followed by first Sylvain Chavanel and then Roman Kreuziger, raced on ahead in the hopes of winning enough extra polka-dot jersey points to keep his hold on the KOM jersey.  While Hoogerland soon reappeared in the peloton's radar, and even Chavanel eventually came home thanks to the relentless riding of the main bunch, Kreuziger went right off and was at one point within 30 seconds of the leading riders, though he never bridged the gap and fell off the back like all the rest as the climbs reached their steepest.

Out the front the lead group was collasping, as Geraint Thomas decided he was better off alone and made it happen.  Thomas had been wearing the white jersey of the best young rider until the crash of team leader Brad Wiggins, where the team stopped to see if the injured Brit could continue and Thomas lost several minutes on his rivals.  Jeremy Roy soon decided that he didn't like left behind and dragged himself up to form the leading pair, leading the race until part-way up Luz-Ardiden, the final hors-categorie (outside classification) climb of the day.

The peloton were having fun too.  Geraint Thomas had earlier had problems on one of the corners - he braked, caused his back wheel to lock and went skidding off the side of the road on a downhill.  Thankfully dodging between the parked cars and falling off his bike before the pair took the short cut down the mountain, he remounted and continued the descent, only to go skidding off the road again at the next corner!  Swapping bikes (there was mud on his wheels from the first incident that caused the second one), Thomas continued the cautious descent, while team staff advised their riders to beware Thomas' issues.  But at that self-same corner Thomas Voeckler also locked his back wheel and crashed gently into one of the parked cars, before turning his bike and heading downhill again.  Other riders weren't so lucky, hitting the deck in the middle of the corner and forcing the peloton around them. No injuries more serious than scrapes and bruises, though.

The peloton continued up the first hors-categorie climb of the Col de Tourmalet, Leopard Trek setting a grueling pace, while two or three different breakaway groups formed and faded away, the only one that never came back being that of Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Omega Pharma-Lotto unknown Jelle Vanendert.  The peloton slowly grew smaller up the climb, riders like Jens Voigt and Stuey O'Grady sacrificing themselves completely under orders from the Schleck brothers.  By the time they were one-third of the way up Luz-Ardiden it had paid off.  While Sanchez and Vanendert were still a minute or so ahead, the only other riders left were the Schlecks, Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador, Damiano Cunego, leader of Team Lampre, Ivan Basso and teammate Sylvester Smyzd, who was likewise ordered to pick up the pace, and yellow jersey-wearer Thomas Voeckler and teammate Pierre Rolland (Europcar).  The octet paced each other up, watching for the moves, until Andy and Frank pulled the old one-two on the rest, Andy feinting before Frank pulled away and made a move.  The second time Frank went none followed, so the Luxembourg national champion chased down the two leaders and finished just behind Jelle Vanendert, who didn't have the legs to beat Sanchez to the stage win.  Meanwhile the other six, Sylvester Smyzd now having been dropped, continued on up to the high finish, and everyone was surprised to see Andy, Cadel and Basso round the corner without Contador, who eventually finish eight seconds behind.

The general classification is now in disarray, Thomas Voeckler with less of a gap after finishing 30 seconds behind Frank Schleck, who has now leapfrogged Cadel into second place thanks to his breakaway attempt.  Contador, while now ahead of almost everyone else in the GC, is even further behind the riders who really matter - Frank, Andy, Cadel, and even Ivan and Damiano.  Cavendish retains the green jersey, as does Voeckler his yellow, while Sanchez stole the King of the Mountains jersey at the top of Luz-Ardiden, and the white jersey is now being sported by young FDJ rider Arnold Jeannesson, who managed to follow the big names right up the mountain to finish in 13th place.  Oddly enough, Jeannesson was only trying to improve himself in the general classification, and regarded the maillot blanc as a sort of extra benefit on the side!

Stage 11 - Blaye-Les-Mines => Lavaur

Another flat stage, one for the sprinters with no anticipated action from the big guns (as Paul Sherwen likes to call them).  For the kind of stage, 'twas a fairly stock-standard beginning, middle and end, but it's always nice to see just how they play out.  Sometimes, 'how' is every bit as important as 'what'.

When I said 'standard beginning', I meant a breakaway.  And as usual for the breakaways, there was an FDJ rider in it.  It must have been Jeremy Roy's day off, because it was Mickael Delage, seemingly Roy's 'back-up guy', up the front, along with riders from the small French teams (Saur-Sojasun and Cofidis) and the orange teams (Euskaltel-Euskadi and Rabobank), as well as blue-and-yellow Astana.  But the breakaway is never popular, and while Europcar began the work to keep their lead at bay and protect Voeckler's yellow, HTC came up and lent a hand, clearly working for their Manxman Mark Cavendish.

The riders all had a little fun at the intermediate sprint point, the top points taken out by the six-man breakaway, but still leaving a max nine points for Cav to help him keep the lead over his rivals.  They had a little more fun trying to navigate the category four climb of the Cote de Puylaure, GC teams trying to protect their leaders and green jersey teams trying to protect their sprinters on the wet roads of southern France.

HTC continued to work in the increasingly heavy rain, slowing reeling in the peloton in the massive amounts of 'wet' pouring from the sky.  Despite the attack of Lars Boom at the peloton approached the breakaway the peloton was still too strong, and by four kilometres to go had caught the last of the riders.  Now it was all down to the sprinters.

I still fail to understand why anyone wants to go up against the HTC lead-out train.  When nine guys line up in a row with the world's fastest man, Mark Cavendish, at the tail and the stage win in their sights, well, it's like a freight train bearing down on you.  It's a-coming, it's gonna go right over the o-ye, and then it's gonna keep on going til it gets where it's going.  With his team behind him (or in front of him, rather) Cav can literally do anything, and he did it yet again, sprinting across the line into Lavaur stalked by Andre Greipel, who had pipped Cav on the line the previous day and likely inspired him to victory.

On the GC front, naught to report but that naught has changed.  On a flat stage like this, Cadel, Andy and the Numero Unos only had to stay safe and on the bike, and crossing the line in a group meant that the times haven't changed.  The only difference is that we're down one more rider - AG2R La Mondiale's John Gadret failed to start, still tired from his effort in the Giro d'Italia, undoubtedly a blow for "Agr-2-R" (as I so unsophisicatedly call them).  On to tomorrow!

Stage 10 - Aurillac => Carmaux

Finally, a 'good' stage on the Tour de France - because no-one crashed out!  It's a little bit sad that this should be dubbed a 'good' stage and not a 'normal' stage on the Tour.  While there was a crash, it was comparatively small, and everyone got up and rode away.  One of the 'uninjured' teams in yesterday's round-up is also off that list now - Leopard Trek had their first piece of bad luck when several of their riders when down in a crash 11 kilometres from the start of the stage, but apart from a few scrapes and bruises all are well.

But that crash was the incentive for the breakaway, using the moment of confusion to leap off the front of the peloton.  Saur-Sojasun's Anthony Delaplace was up there again, along with Remy Di Gregorio from Astana, another team that has changed tactics to breakaways after losing their team leader, and four other riders.   Newbie Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil) made his prescence felt, taking all the King of the Mountains points to prevent anyone else encroaching upon the lead of his teammate Johnny Hoogerland in that competition.

The peloton raced through the intermediate sprint, Mark Cavendish once again showing his dominance in that discipline, before settling itself into a steady rhythm with HTC-Highroad and Europcar making the pace.  They were later joined by the teams of the sprinters such as Omega and Garmin to try and bring the breakaway back before the sprint finish of the stage.

They reeled in the breakaway with around 30 kilometres to go, Marcato trying to hang on until he'd crossed the final time and claimed the final mountain points. But the peloton was too strong riding uphill, and collected the 27-year-old, who won himself the red number of the most combative rider for his efforts.

It wasn't until around 10 kilometres from the finish that anyone made their move.  The golden boy of this year's Tour, Belgian Philippe Gilbert, raced off the front of the peloton, along with the Tour leader Thomas Voeckler, Cofidis' Tony Gallopin, Quickstep's Dries Devenyns and Tony Martin of HTC-Highroad, who was 6th in the GC.  This caused a bit of panic for the peloton, who didn't like the thought of Martin, Voeckler or Gilbert quite so far ahead, even when 'far' constitutes 11 seconds, so there was some frantic pace-making from the teams of the leaders which saw them finally reeled in around five kilometres from the end.

Then the sprinters began to come forward, HTC's lead-out train taking prominence despite being shorter than usual - Matty Goss, Bernhard Eisel and Mark Renshaw were dropped on the climb up the last hill.  This meant that Mark Cavendish went for the sprint from further back than usual.  Appearing from behind the wheel of a Liquigas-Cannondale rider, the Manxman went like crazy as usual, Omega Pharma-Lotto sprinter Andre Greipel on his wheel.  In the last 100 metres Greipel came up beside Cavendish, and finally had his victory over his rival by pipping Cav for the win by a wheel.  Thor Hushovd also made it over the climbs to finish fourth in the stage.

Monday - Rest Day

It may be a rest day, but the show never ends for the riders in the world's greatest bike race.  Unfortunately I can't give you a sneak peek backstage at that show, but today does provide a good opportunity to do a wrap-up of the Tour so far - and add updates on the news that hit the riders while they were off-duty.

By the end of Stage 9, 18 riders were no longer participating in the Tour de France.  Of those 18, 6 have broken collarbones and another 8 have injuries sustained in the crashes.  1 has been timed out.  Countless other riders are also in varying degrees of pain after the numerous crashes in this year's Tour.

Of the 22 teams, so far 3 have lost their main GC contenders (Astana lost Alexandre Vinokourov, Sky lost Bradley Wiggins and Omega Pharma-Lotto lost Jurgen van den Broeck) and two others look to be going the same way (Quickstep lost Tom Boonen and other GC rider Sylvain Chavanel is injured and riding badly; Radioshack have lost Jani Brajkovic and Chris Horner, Levi Leipheimer has lost a lot of time from crashes and Andreas Kloden went down in a crash).  There are at most 6 teams who have escaped untouched by crashes or abandons: AG2R La Mondiale, FDJ, Lampre-ISD, Leopard Trek, Liquigas and Saur-Sojasun - touch wood, of course.

There will be at least one more rider who won't start Stage 10 - Alexandre Kolobnev, currently of Team Katusha, has left the Tour after testing positive to a banned substance, the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide.  Kolobnev is now out of the Tour, whether voluntarily or at his team's insistence, and he has requested a test of his B-sample.  If the B-sample also comes back positive, not only will Kolobnev be cast out of the team and fined five times his yearly salary, but he may also face sanctions on an international level.

And lastly, after nine days of hard riding and some rather unexpected results, here is how the general classification looks now:

	Rider		Team	Time	Gap
1.	VOECKLER Thomas		TEAM EUROPCAR	38h 35' 11"
2.	SANCHEZ Luis-Leon		RABOBANK CYCLING TEAM	38h 37' 00"	+ 01' 49"
3.	EVANS Cadel		BMC RACING TEAM	38h 37' 37"	+ 02' 26"
4.	SCHLECK Frank		TEAM LEOPARD-TREK	38h 37' 40"	+ 02' 29"
5.	SCHLECK Andy		TEAM LEOPARD-TREK	38h 37' 48"	+ 02' 37"
6.	MARTIN Tony		HTC - HIGHROAD	38h 37' 49"	+ 02' 38"
7.	VELITS Peter		HTC - HIGHROAD	38h 37' 49"	+ 02' 38"
8.	KLÖDEN Andréas		TEAM RADIOSHACK	38h 37' 54"	+ 02' 43"
9.	GILBERT Philippe		OMEGA PHARMA - LOTTO	38h 38' 06"	+ 02' 55"
10.	FUGLSANG Jakob		TEAM LEOPARD-TREK	38h 38' 19"	+ 03' 08"

Stage 9 - Issoire => Saint-Flour

I wrote on Facebook a few days ago that we'd probably have the final standings of the Tour by day 10, and that the winner this year would be the one guy still on his bike by the time we reached Paris. It's beginning to look scarily like it's coming true, and for the most horrible of reasons.

It seems all I write about these days is crashes in the Tour de France, but this year's race has really and truly been defined by these incidents. While crashes are normal - indeed, expected - in any bike race, this year seems to have been particularly bad. With the death of Wouter Weylandt in the Giro and Team Movistar rider Juan Mauricio Soler left in a coma after a crash in the Tour de Suisse, the horrific accidents at the Tour are made all the more scary. Three teams (Sky, Astana and Omega-Pharma Lotto) are now left without their main GC contendors, two other teams (Quickstep and Radioshack) look set to go the same way, and the only team that seems to have been no riders who've hit the asphalt is Team Leopard Trek, of the Schleck brothers.

So today was no different - after the peloton crossed the first of the 7 climbs of the stage, the Category 3 Cote de Massiac, a breakaway finally managed to form, sprinting off the front to build up a lead of around about five minutes. It was almost surprising that the peloton let this six-man breakaway escape, given the strength of the riders in it - Spanish time-trial champion Luis Leon Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), former yellow jersey-wearer Thomas Voeckler (Europcar), former polka dot-jersey wearer Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil), as well as Niki Terpstra (Quickstep), Juan Antonio Flecha (Sky) and Sandy Casar (FDJ).

The six men raced away and began to climb mountains, Voeckler and Hoogerland originally fighting it out for King of the Mountains points as they crossed each climb, until the pair made a controversial and technically illegal agreement that Voeckler would let Hoogerland take maximum KOM points if Hoogerland would help Voeckler towards the yellow jersey and the stage win. The breakaway were so pre-occupied with trying to stay ahead of the peloton that they heard nothing of the destruction behind them.

Coming down the Col du Pas de Peyrol (Le Puy Mary on the south side), Team Astana were descending fast on the outside, so fast that when they hit the corner a rider ahead of them went down and Team Astana were forced off the road into a deep ditch. Teammates soon carried Alexandre Vinokourov out of the ditch and straight into the back of a waiting Tour ambulance, which took him to hospital to be treated for his fractured femur head. Meanwhile, Omega Pharma-Lotto's leader Jurgen van den Broeck was lying on the road looking sorry for himself, and when placed back on his bicycle by team staff, van den Broeck kicked his leg back over the bike and collapsed onto the ground again, in a clear gesture of 'I'm not doing it, guys. Just get me out of here.' It was a good call by van den Broeck, who will spend several days in the Intensive Care Unit with a collapsed lung, three broken ribs and a broken shoulderblade. Teammate Frederik Willems also pulled out with a broken collarbone, as did Garmin-Cervelo's Dave Zabriskie with a broken wrist.

By agreement at the front of the peloton, a truce was called to allow those affected by the crash who could still ride to catch up to the main peloton. 20 kilometres or so later it was back to work as the peloton now had to try and reel in the breakaway, whose lead had ballooned out to five minutes again when the peloton crashed.

But the breakaway was having trouble of its own. A French TV car, swerving into the road to dodge a tree on the shoulder, drove straight into the breakaway and cleaned up two of the riders, causing Sky's Juan Antonio Flecha to kiss the asphalt and sending Vacansoleil's Johnny Hoogerland flying into a barbed wire fence. The remaining three riders in the breakaway, Niki Terpstra long having been dropped, continued riding, now with diminshed capacity to stay off the front. Flecha was soon back on the bike and being bandaged up by the medics as he tried to return to the breakaway, but his injuries won over and he was soon caught by the peloton.

It took a lot longer before anyone could get eyes on Hoogerland, but a sorrier sight never was seen at the Tour de France. Rips, tears, gashes and gouges all over him, blood flowing from inumerable cracks in the hide and with token white bandages all over, Hoogerland was more than happy to take it easy, falling off the back of the peloton but still managing to finish the stage so as to validate his King of the Mountain points and claim his hard-won jersey. Then it was off to hospital for 33 stitches, even as Flecha was taken in for an X-ray, just to be on the safe side - presuming such a thing really exists in this Tour.

While Flecha and Hoogerland tried to be bigger than their injuries, the breakaway was still flying along and managing to keep a solid five minutes clear of the peloton, a gap which was greater than that separating breakaway leader Voeckler from the yellow jersey-wearer Hushovd, making Voeckler the virtual wearer of the sunny garment. Inspired by this idea, Voeckler pushed on, receiving no help from Casar, struggling to keep up, or even Sanchez, who was conserving energy for his own move.

That move came within 500 metres of the finish, after Voeckler, who had hauled the trio up the final climb unassisted, ducked behind his two companions before darting around to try and win the stage. Sanchez saw him coming and went, and, having more in his legs than the man who had done all the day's pace-making, raced on to win three seconds ahead of the exhausted Voeckler, Casar dragging himself across the line three seconds after.

Garmin-Cervelo soon resigned themselves to the fact that Thor had lost the jersey to Thomas Voeckler and surrendered the pace-making, instead taking it easy and conserving energy for later on. But despite the best efforts of BMC and Leopard Trek, trying to keep their GC riders within a good time gap, they couldn't bridge the gap to the breakaway and instead the front section of the peloton finished almost four minutes behind, leaving Cadel Evans 2:26 down on yellow and Frank and Andy Schleck 2:29 and 2:37 down, respectively. Alberto Contador is now 16th in the general classification, 4:07 from donning the maillot jaune, and with injuries to boot. Contador has a lot of work to do if he wants glory again this year.

Stage 8 - Aigurande => Super-Besse Sancy

An exciting day on the Tour!  Not surprising considering the Tour has finally entered its exciting phase: THE MOUNTAINS (cue dramatic music).  Surprisingly, and somehow not surprisingly, today's drama came about because of the breakaway.

For yes, again today we had a breakaway in the Tour de France.  Quel surprise.  This was by far the biggest breakaway of this year's Tour, comprising around 10 riders from a similar number of teams.  Team Sky was represented in their first breakaway for the Tour, being forced to change their tactics after the withdrawal of team leader Brad Wiggins due to injury, while Team Cofidis had two riders out the front.  Leaping off after 8 kilometres, they built up a lead of around seven kilometres at its height.

The most puzzling part of the day's stage that has kept commentators talking was the tactics of Team BMC.  The entire team of Aussie Cadel Evans moved up to the front of the peloton and took up the pace-making for almost the entire stage.  BMC was joined in the later sections by Garmin-Cervelo, making a token effort at defending the yellow jersey worn by their sprinter Thor Hushovd, which most people were sure Hushovd would lose at the end of the stage, possibly to Evans himself.

There was nothing much exciting to report until the mountains, when the peloton with Garmin leading began to close in on the breakaway, and young American rider Tejay van Garderen decided that he could do better on his own.  The HTC rider moved off, and set such a high pace that the rest of the breakaway struggled to follow.  Soon it was only Movistar's Rui da Costa who could keep up, and the two raced away up the small slope towards Super-Besse.

Meanwhile, some of the other riders wanted in on the breakaway action.  Johnny Hoogerland, leader of the polka-dot jersey competition leapt off the front of the peloton with a friend, and began chasing down the two leaders, van Garderen and da Costa, as well as the three riders that the pair had dropped off.  But then Astana's top rider, Alexandre Vinokourov, decided it was his day and made his own move.  While Hoogerland never got far - he bridged the gap to one of the chase groups - Vinokourov was a much tougher competitor.

Soon it was chaos for media and spectators alike, with so many small groups of riders moving up and down between the two leaders and the main peloton that it became extremely difficult to know who was where and with what time gap.  But one theme became very apparent - Vinokourov was closing in.  Portuguese da Costa clearly didn't like this idea, and surged ahead so quickly that this time, despite being the man to counter any individual moves in his original breakaway group, van Garderen couldn't follow.

Vinokourov soon passed van Garderen, and by the time da Costa passed beneath the flamme rouge signalling one kilometre to go, he could have turned his head and seen Vino.  But everyone was so focused on the battle for supremacy at the front that no one had noticed that the peloton was rearing its speedy head again.  Though no one wanted to pace the peloton towards actively chasing, the riders were moving very fast; so fast, in fact, that they'd made up all but a minute of da Costa's lead.

As Vinokourov passed under the flamme rouge himself, the peloton was suddenly there behind him, and Vino suddenly wasn't.  Though no-one could have hoped to catch Rui da Costa at that point, thus claiming Portugal a stage win for the second Tour in a row, the front of the peloton was now fighting it out for the other placings.  Philippe Gilbert suddenly found himself with the legs and went from behind, pounding right up to the finish line and claiming second place, 12 seconds behind da Costa.

But all eyes were on the front of the peloton, where Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador were eyeing each other off, neither ready to make the first move, Cadel Evans sitting right behind them.  Contador decided to go for it, but never got far with Andy clinging to his wheel like a limpet and Cadel still right behind him.  Riders began going past the three favourites in their elaborate dance of tactics, and suddenly Cadel decided this wasn't good enough.  One could almost see his thought process as he rode - "They're going right past us!  You guys don't wanna do anything about this?  Fine, I'll do it myself."  And suddenly Evans leapt forward onto the back of the riders surging ahead, so fast that Contador and Schleck seemed to stunned to follow.  Evans took third place on the stage, three seconds behind Gilbert, but he gained no time overall as the peloton followed him across the line.

Most unexpectedly for most (but not here!) Tour leader Thor Hushovd, best known as a sprinter, was able to keep pace with the main field all the way to Super-Besse and finished in the peloton, losing no time to the GC contenders and thus keeping his yellow jersey a  little longer.  Though clearly not able to wear the jersey through the Pyrenees, it now looks much more possible that Hushovd will wear his yellow up until we reach them.  And as for the three main boys?  Well, Cadel looks in spantabulous form this year, though Contador looks a bit off, and Andy is playing it far too cautious to tell yet.  But all will be clear when we reach the Pyrenees...

Stage 7 - Le Mans => Chateauroux

What was meant to be another normal, easy day in the Tour has once again turned into tragedy as only the Tour can.  It's beginning to prove as it does every year that a normal day in the Tour de France is actually the most abnormal thing that can occur.

It did start off normal, at least - the customary breakaway with the peloton in no hurry to catch up.  But 90 kilometres in, after comments to his DS from other riders, numerous trips to the team car, painkillers and struggling the whole way, Tom Boonen (Quickstep) hung up the dossard (race number) for this year's Tour.  Suffering a concussion and a lot of grazes and bruises from the stage in coastal Brittany that took down numerous good riders, Boonen felt that he couldn't finish the day's stage.  "I was wondering, 'who am I pleasing by continuing?'" Boonen is quoted as saying by Cyclingnews.com.  "Not myself, that's for sure."

A few people were surprised when Jeremy Roy from FDJ launched himself off the front of the peloton, thinking that he surely couldn't be trying to bridge the seven-minute gap to the breakaway in front.  But the cognoscenti knew that the day's stage would pass by Roy's house, as he'd written in his blog the night before, and as the cameras followed him Roy stopped outside a house on the very outskirts of Saint-Armand-Longpre to hug friends and family.

The feared winds began hitting the peloton soon, and the effect was clear.  I guess it was too much to hope that a single stage of the Tour could go without a crash, especially in the first week, and the first one came at 48 kilometres to go.  No one was seriously hurt, though several strong riders including Roman Kreuziger from Astana had some hard riding to catch up.

But the worst was yet to come.  In another of the gruesome crashes like the one that took out Radioshack's Janez Brajkovic two days ago, a huge fall in the middle of the slow-moving peloton took out a number of well-known riders including Chris Horner and Levi Leipheimer from Radioshack, Alexandre Vinokourov (Astana) and Tyler Farrar, the sprinter from Garmin-Cervelo.  But the biggest loss of the day was Sky team leader Bradley Wiggins, who also came down in the fall.  Wiggins was holding his left arm tenderly and wincing as the team doctor examined him, and it was later confirmed that Wiggins had broken his left collarbone.  He was immediately withdrawn from the race and put into a race ambulance, leaving the six-odd Sky riders waiting to pace Wiggins back into the main peloton to try and bridge the almost four-minute gap as they dealt with the huge blow to their team.  FDJ rider Remi Pauriol also broke his collarbone and did not finish the stage.  Pauriol brings the list of riders no longer competing to eight overall.

That was not the end of matters.  The massive crash in the middle of the peloton split it right down the middle.  What looked to be only 60 riders made it to the front peloton, while another 80 who had crashed or been blocked by the crash chased them three minutes behind, with many other riders individually or in small groups trying to make it back to one of the pelotons.

And after all that drama the stage had yet to be decided!  By this point, however, it was down to what front-pacing team HTC Highroad know best - a straight-out sprint.  And after a dubious first few stages the American team had their famous lead-out train in perfect working order.  All nine riders, unaffected by the crash, made a perfectly straight, even line at the front of the main peloton, with Mark Cavendish sitting in ninth place and every other sprinter in the world trying to get on his back wheel.  But there is never any point trying to compete with the entire HTC lead-out train, and Mark Renshaw and compatriots made it easy for Mark Cavendish to take his 17th Tour de France stage victory, on the same finish line where he took his first victory in 2008.  Needless to say, Cav was ecstatic, but "gutted" to hear about fellow Brit Brad Wiggins' withdrawal from the race.

Nothing to report on the top three GC contenders, but as the saying goes, at this point no news is good news. Knowing what separates GC riders from the rest is their climbing ability, it's likely Cadel Evans (BMC), Alberto Contador (Saxobank-Sungard) and Andy Schleck (Leopard Trek) will sit tight until the Pyrenees, where no one can ride quite as fast as they can up the mountains.  Right now their main job is to stay at the front of the peloton and keep safe, though Cadel Evans is clearly feeling in brilliant form at the moment and may not have ruled out the possibility of another stage win, especially with Contador still giving fans no reason to believe that he is entirely the man who has won this race three times before.  Is he still that man, or has Contador peaked already?