Tour de France 2011 – Stage 7

Le Mans to Châteauroux (218 km)

A Live-’ish’ Blog

Sorry about the content in my Stage 5 post, or lack there-of. And for not posting yesterday for Stage 6 – internet connectivity problems, bla, bla, bla. Today I’m Live Blogging the race from the Jones Avenue branch of the Toronto Public Library.

Today I’m starting at 11:42 AM EST (5:42 PM CET). The race is almost over – but that’s where all the fun happens anyway, isn’t it?

Tour de France 2011 Stage 7 Profile - Le Mans to Châteauroux (218 km)

Tour de France 2011 Stage 7 - Le Mans to Châteauroux (218 km)

Today’s stage race officially started at 12:22 CET (6:22AM EST).

11:44 AM EST

16 km to go. Four riders are 26 seconds in the lead, now 17, their going to be caught obviously. For the record they are: Urtansun, DeLage, Meersman and Talabardon. 10 seconds now. These four have been out in front from the first minute of the race; sad to see this happen every stage, the break-always never seem to work, why do they bother? One wonders.

11:54

The four persistent ones have been caught by a Peloton consisting of 90 or so riders – 80 more are about 2 minutes behind. There was a bad crash earlier today and that is why the Peloton is split in half as it is. Rider Wiggins is out of the Tour de France, as are 5 other riders, because they finished over the time limit yesterday. I’ll list those out of the race for you later in this post. I believe we are down to 172 riders – but don’t quote me on that.

12:03

On these flat stages it’s all about sprinter’s abilities and team work drafting, and rotating out of the wind-breaker position at your proper time. Team HTC is in control of the tip of the Peloton as we close in on the finish. Under 1 km to go!

Mark Cavendish team HTC wins! All 9 riders of HTC lead the Peloton to catch the escapees, and then paced the group all the way to the finish – their motivation was to control the race and launch their star sprinter at the line. Mark Cavendish’s team-mates Goss and Renshaw were the last two to take the front. Goss powered the tip of the Peloton in the final rotation and then ‘slung’ him across the line in the final metres – as planned.

1. Cavendish
2. Petacchi
3. Greipel

The mass of riders in a Peloton are more than just a wind break in my opinion, they create an energy field of some kind that actually holds those riders in the group, in it. They become carried along by the mass, like gravity holds a moon in orbit, but not the way we currently understand gravity. This is another force, an electro-magnetic one perhaps – perhaps dark matter, that not-understood missing half of all the matter in the universe.

When a team ‘leads out’ from the tip of the Peloton as team HTC did so beautifully today they create a tip of a spear that uses the inertia of the mass of the rest of the riders to extend the leading edge of that mass. A good example of this is the way a shaped charge that is rigged for cutting through steal behaves, the colliding vectors of explosive force create a needle-point of extremely high energy – a vector point that resembles the tip of the Peloton in a cycling race. With synchronized team work they push out ahead of the group borrowing energy one from another, but as well as from the entire mass of riders, they speed still faster to the line.

A thing of beauty – and a physics thought experiment at the same time!

see letour.fr 2011 for pages and pages of content.

Stage 7 finish order

1.   CAVENDISH Mark          HTC          5h 38' 53"
2.   PETACCHI Alessandro     LAMPRE       5h 38' 53"    + 00' 00"
3.   GREIPEL André           LOTTO        5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
4.   FEILLU Romain           DCM          5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
5.   BONNET William          FDJ          5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
6.   GALIMZYANOV Denis       KATUSHA      5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
7.   HUSHOVD Thor            CERVELO      5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
8.   TURGOT Sébastien        EUROPCAR     5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
9.   ROJAS Jose Joaquin      MOVISTAR     5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
10.  HINAULT Sébastien       AG2R         5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
11.  PINEAU Jérôme           QUICK STEP   5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
12.  JEANNESSON Arnold       FDJ          5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
13.  BOZIC Borut             DCM          5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
14.  GILBERT Philippe        LOTTO        5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
15.  ROCHE Nicolas           AG2R         5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
16.  SCHLECK Andy            TREK         5h 38' 53"    + 00' 00"
17.  O’GRADY Stuart          TREK         5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
18.  MILLAR David            CERVELO      5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
19.  VAN DEN BROECK Jurgen   LOTTO        5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
20.  RENSHAW Mark            HTC          5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
21.  FUGLSANG Jakob          TREK         5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
22.  EVANS Cadel             BMC          5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"

31.  SCHLECK Frank           TREK         5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
32.  VINOKOUROV Alexandre    ASTANA       5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
33.  CONTADOR Alberto        SAXO BANK    5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
34.  GUTIERREZ José Ivan     MOVISTAR     5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"

79.  CHAVANEL Sylvain        QUICK STEP   5h 38' 53"   + 00' 00"
101. HESJEDAL Ryder          CERVELO      5h 41' 59    + 03' 06"
127. HINCAPIE George         BMC          5h 41' 59"   + 03' 06"
157. LEIPHEIMER Levi         RADIOSHACK   5h 41' 59"   + 03' 06"
172. FARRAR Tyler            CERVELO      5h 41' 59"   + 03' 06"

Individual times after Stage 7

1.  HUSHOVD Thor           CERVELO     28h 29' 27"
2.  EVANS Cadel            BMC         28h 29' 28"  + 00' 01"
3.  SCHLECK Frank          TREK        28h 29' 31" 	+ 00' 04"
4.  MILLAR David           CERVELO     28h 29' 35"  + 00' 08"
5.  KLÖDEN Andréas         RADIOSHACK  28h 29' 37"  + 00' 10"
6.  FUGLSANG Jakob         TREK        28h 29' 39"  + 00' 12"
7.  SCHLECK Andy           TREK        28h 29' 39"  + 00' 12"
8.  MARTIN Tony            HTC         28h 29' 40"  + 00' 13"
9.  VELITS Peter           HTC         28h 29' 40"  + 00' 13"
10. GESINK Robert          RABOBANK    28h 29' 47"  + 00' 20"
11. VINOKOUROV Alexandre   ASTANA      28h 29' 59"  + 00' 32"
12. GILBERT Philippe       LOTTO       28h 30' 00"  + 00' 33"
13. VAN DEN BROECK Jurgen  LOTTO       28h 30' 06"  + 00' 39"
14. BARREDO Carlos         RABOBANK    28h 30' 07"  + 00' 40"
15. BASSO Ivan             CANNONDALE  28h 30' 30"  + 01' 03"
16. DE WEERT Kevin         QUICK STEP  28h 30' 31"  + 01' 04"
17. GERDEMANN Linus        TREK        28h 30' 33"  + 01' 06"
18. ROCHE Nicolas          AG2R        28h 30' 39"  + 01' 12"
19. CUNEGO Damiano         LAMPRE      28h 30' 39"  + 01' 12"
20. ROJAS Jose Joaquin     MOVISTAR    28h 30' 42"  + 01' 15"
21. VOECKLER Thomas        EUROPCAR    28h 30' 42"  + 01' 15"
22. PINEAU Jérôme          QUICK STEP  28h 30' 48"  + 01' 21"
23. KARPETS Vladimir       KATUSHA     28h 30' 56"  + 01' 29"
24. CONTADOR Alberto       SAXO BANK   28h 31' 09"  + 01' 42"
25. DANIELSON Tom          CERVELO     28h 31' 24"  + 01' 57"
26. VANDE VELDE Christian  CERVELO     28h 31' 24"  + 01' 57"
27. MONFORT Maxime         TREK        28h 31' 27"  + 02' 00"

48. HESJEDAL Ryder         CERVELO     28h 33' 55"  + 04' 28"

mh