Jul 08 2011

Le Tour 2011- Stage 7

Le Mans to Châteauroux 136 miles

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Well, it rained a lot, and hard.  Teams were extremely cautious after all the crashes on Wednesday and most of the top riders’ positions are unchanged with the exception of Liepheimer who lost a full minute in, what else, a crash.

We had 2 more withdrawals, Ivan Velasco of Euskaltel who did not start and Vasil Kiryienka of Movistar who was outside the time limit.

There were 62 riders in the top group with the same time as the Stage winner, Edvald Boasson Hagen.  Matthew Harley Goss was second and Thor Hushovd third.  Rojas, Gilbert, Evans, both Schlecks, and Contador also had 0 deltas.

Everyone knows the home of the Grand Prix of Endurance and Efficiency and while tomorrow finishes with a climb into the Massif Central today’s Stage is the flatest in this year’s Tour.  BruceMcF, who understands the points competition for sprinters (Green Jersey) much better than I do, expects two classic bunch sprints– one at the midway checkpoint and again at Châteauroux.

We race through the weekend in medium mountains with a rest day on Monday (no rest for the wicked, I’ll be reviewing Sunday’s results).  After that it’s two flat Stages and then 3 days in the Pyrenees where Contador will be looking to put it away if he can.

This weekend is also Silverstone so you can expect your regular Qualifying and race coverage.  This will be somewhat distracting for me tomorrow as the live Speed coverage of Qualifying conflicts, today all I’ll have to do is drag my ass out of bed at 2 am (did I mention no rest?) to catch up with Valencia on Debrief and the lastest developments with a repeat of today’s P2 session.  The race itself will be on Fox Sunday which means tape delayed until noon.

Vs. coverage of Le Tour starts at 8 am for your half hour of hype before we join the race already in progress.

rustymancuso581

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  3. including this one.

  4. Bob- Farrar

    Paul- Rojas

  5. 4 rider break away, 7:48, 83 miles to go.

  6. No one home but me, the cleaning crew and some repairmen who are on the roof and in the basement.

    I really watch for the scenery, the countryside, that is.

  7. Yes I was watching the final shuttle launch.

    Why do you ask?

  8. Hushovd in the lead group.

    Second Peloton finishes over 3 minutes behind.

  9. ~ competition is that you can’t win the Tour in the first week, but you sure as hell can lose it.

    Wow, what a selection of top contenders. Team RadioShack, which was overloaded with four hopeful GC leaders, seems to be down to Andreas Kloden, with Levi Leipheimer 4:29 back and Chris Horner 12:59 back. For Chris Horner, its try to recover from his injuries while racing if he can, and if he recovers well enough hope to help out the RadioShack leader in week 3.

    Contador, the Schleck brothers, Cadel Evans, Kloden, David Millar, Vinokourov are all in a position where what matters is what will happen when they hit the high mountains, with Sammy Sanchez still looking to make up 2:35 on the highest placed GC contender, but but staying out of trouble today.

    These flat stages are especially important for the Green Jersey, since winning a flat stage brings 45 points, winning an intermediate stage brings 35 points, and winning a mountain stage brings 25 points. But if Cavendish contests the intermediate sprint, I wouldn’t expect to see him on the finishing line tomorrow after a Category 2 climb. But a strong classics rider like Gilbert could well be there, and Thor Hushovd in past years has shown his ability to limit his losses on intermediate climbs and regain his position on the descent. And of course, this is meat and potatoes for Cadel Evans, who cannot outclimb Schleck or Contador in the “Beyond Category” climbs but can normally hold his own in a Cat 2 climb.

  10. … on twitter it turns out Chris Horner finished with a broken nose and a concussion.

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