Tour de France 2011 – Stage 10

Aurillac to Carmaux – 158 km

Monday, July 11 is a rest day in the Tour de France 2011 – see you tomorrow for Stage 10

Tour de France 2011 Stage 10 Profile - Aurillac to Carmaux - 158 km

Tour de France 2011 Stage 10 Map - Aurillac to Carmaux - 158 km

Top Three – Stage 9

1. Luis-Leon Sanchez
2. Thomas Voeckler
3. Sandy Casar

Over-all Leaders

Yellow:     VOECKLER Thomas     TEAM EUROPCAR 38h 35' 11"
Green:      GILBERT Philippe    OMEGA  PHARMA - LOTTO 217 pts
Poka-dot:   HOOGERLAND Johnny   VACANSOLEIL-DCM 22 pts
White:      GESINK Robert       RABOBANK CYCLING TEAM 38h 39' 12"
Leading Team:                   TEAM EUROPCAR 115h 03' 31"

8:02 AM EST

After a rolling start the racers crossed the Start line at 7:38 AM EST (1:38 CET).

Tour de France 2011 Stage 10 7:57 AM EST LIVE (gaps.letour.fr/us.php)

8:08

After Sunday’s Stage 9 ‘crash’ (see Versus Summary at FreeWheel Stage 9 post), where a Convoy car, trying to avoid a tree growing unusually close to the edge of the road, swerved into a group of racers, launching one of them into a barbed wire fence and crashing another – the race director reminded the Convoy drivers not to run over the cyclists.

I say get the Team Convoys off the course altogether – they should follow behind the slowest riders. Motorcycles with cameramen are bad enough – but necessary I guess – TV is very important to the funding of the race.

Tour de France 2011 LIVE 8 07 (gaps.letour.fr)

10:00

Six escapees have been out front all race long – I guess it’s time to go through the process of opening two windows and typing all their names into the blog post (Note to webmaster at lerour.fr – because the LIVE widget is a ‘Flash Object’ and doesn’t allow copy and paste).

R. Di Gregorio
S. Minard
A. Vichot
J. El Fares
M. Marcato
A. Delaplace

Tour de France 2011 LIVE 10:00 AM EST (gaps.letour.fr/us.php)

10:21

For those of you who have commented here that cycling is not a realistic urban transportation alternative – the Peloton heading up a Category 3 mountain is doing 56km/h!!! Enabled cycle-ways stretching across the city like the spokes of a wheel could replace half the cars easily – as well as improve our quality of life and the economic efficiency (imho).

July 13, 2011 – 9:15

Via letour.fr

OVERALL STANDING ON TIME

Result after Stage 10

Total distance covered: 1749 km

 
#   Rider                    Team          Time             Gaps
1.  VOECKLER Thomas         EUROPCAR      42h 06' 32" 	 
2.  SANCHEZ Luis-Leon       RABOBANK      42h 08' 21"   + 01' 49"
3.  EVANS Cadel             BMC           42h 08' 58"   + 02' 26"
4.  SCHLECK Frank           TREK          42h 09' 01"   + 02' 29"
5.  SCHLECK Andy            TREK          42h 09' 09"   + 02' 37"
6.  MARTIN Tony             HTC           42h 09' 10"   + 02' 38"
7.  VELITS Peter            HTC           42h 09' 10"   + 02' 38"
8.  KLÖDEN Andréas          RADIOSHACK    42h 09' 15"   + 02' 43"
9.  GILBERT Philippe        LOTTO         42h 09' 27"   + 02' 55"
10. FUGLSANG Jakob          TREK          42h 09' 40"   + 03' 08"
11. BASSO Ivan              CANNONDALE    42h 10' 08"   + 03' 36"
12. CUNEGO Damiano          LAMPRE        42h 10' 09"   + 03' 37"
13. ROCHE Nicolas           AG2R          42h 10' 17"   + 03' 45"
14. DE WEERT Kevin          QUICK STEP    42h 10' 19"   + 03' 47"
15. GESINK Robert           RABOBANK      42h 10' 33"   + 04' 01"
16. CONTADOR Alberto        SAXO BANK     42h 10' 39"   + 04' 07"
17. DANIELSON Tom           CERVELO       42h 10' 54"   + 04' 22"
18. TAARAMAE Rein           COFIDIS       42h 11' 24"   + 04' 52"
19. VANDE VELDE Christian   CERVELO       42h 11' 25"   + 04' 53"
20. SANCHEZ Samuel          EUSKALTEL     42h 11' 33"   + 05' 01"
21. BARREDO Carlos          RABOBANK      42h 11' 36"   + 05' 04"
22. KARPETS Vladimir        KATUSHA       42h 11' 37"   + 05' 05"
23. MONFORT Maxime          TREK          42h 11' 39"   + 05' 07"
24. HUSHOVD Thor            CERVELO       42h 11' 45"   + 05' 13"
25. ZUBELDIA Haimar         RADIOSHACK    42h 11' 46"   + 05' 14"
26. JEANNESSON Arnold       FDJ           42h 11' 53"   + 05' 21"
27. PERAUD Jean-Christophe  AG2R          42h 12' 04"   + 05' 32"
28. MILLAR David            CERVELO       42h 12' 04"   + 05' 32"
29. TROFIMOV Yury           KATUSHA       42h 12' 11"   + 05' 39"
30. RUIJGH Rob              DCM           42h 12' 15"   + 05' 43"
31. CASAR Sandy             FDJ           42h 12' 15"   + 05' 43"
32. THOMAS Geraint          SKY           42h 12' 23"   + 05' 51"
33. LEUKEMANS Bjorn         DCM           42h 12' 58"   + 06' 26"
34. COPPEL Jérôme           SOJASUN       42h 13' 07"   + 06' 35"
35. GERDEMANN Linus         TREK          42h 13' 12"   + 06' 40"
36. LEIPHEIMER Levi         RADIOSHACK    42h 13' 48"   + 07' 16"
37. URAN Rigoberto          SKY           42h 13' 52"   + 07' 20"
38. HAGEN Edvald Boasson    SKY           42h 14' 17"   + 07' 45"
39. DEVENYNS Dries          QUICK STEP    42h 14' 48"   + 08' 16"
40. GUSEV Vladimir          KATUSHA       42h 15' 17"   + 08' 45"
41. GAUTIER Cyril           EUROPCAR      42h 15' 44"   + 09' 12"
42. ROLLAND Pierre          EUROPCAR      42h 15' 52"   + 09' 20"
43. VERDUGO Gorka           EUSKALTEL     42h 17' 04"   + 10' 32"
44. PATERSKI Maciej         CANNONDALE    42h 18' 42"   + 12' 10"
45. MARTINEZ Egoi           EUSKALTEL     42h 19' 38"   + 13' 06"
46. VANENDERT Jelle         LOTTO         42h 20' 09"   + 13' 37"
47. TEN DAM Laurens         RABOBANK      42h 21' 13"   + 14' 41"
48. HINCAPIE George         BMC           42h 21' 25"   + 14' 53"
49. PINEAU Jérôme           QUICK STEP    42h 21' 46"   + 15' 14"
50. VAN GARDEREN Tejay      HTC           42h 21' 48"   + 15' 16"
51. TALABARDON Yannick      SOJASUN       42h 21' 54"   + 15' 22"
52. HESJEDAL Ryder          CERVELO       42h 22' 04"   + 15' 32"

Tour de France 2011 – Stage 9

Issoire to Saint-Flour – 208 km

Tour de France 2011 Stage 9 Profile - Issoire to Saint-Flour - 208 km

Tour de France 2011 Stage 9 Map - Issoire to Saint-Flour - 208 km

Click on the images to go to letour.fr – they have some content on stage 9.

From the summary video page at letour.fr:

“At 102km a crash that will have ramifications on the battle for overall honors in 2011 occurred. Alexandre Vinokourov went off the right side the road on a sweeping left bend and into the forest. He was helped back to the road by two Astana team-mates but his Tour was over. He was one of four men to abandon the race because of the incident and his injuries included a fractured femur and possible broken hip. Omega Pharma-Lotto also lost its leader Jurgen van den Broeck (with spinal injuries), as well as Frederik Willems (fractured collarbone) and Dave Zabriskie quit with a fractured wrist. It prompted a brief respite from racing for the peloton which allowed the escapees to build their lead to over seven minutes.”

Versus Summary of Stage 9

Breaking sports news video. MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL highlights and more.

(I, on the other hand, don’t have a reliable internet connection today. See ya tomorrow for stage 10.)

mh

Tour de France 2011 – Stage 8

Aigurande to Super-Besse Sancy – 189 km

We’re not in the Plains anymore, Dorthy.

Today is the first mountain stage of the Tour de France 2011 – although not the first categorized grade, (there have been 3 category 4′s so far), but this is the real thing. Today’s race includes two category 4, a category 2, and one one category 3 to finish the day.

Tour de France 2011 Stage 8 Profile

Tour de France 2011 Stage 8 Map - Aigurande to Super-Besse Sancy

9:50 AM EST

Today’s stage started with a neutral zone ride, the riders crossed the Start line at 12:26 CET (6:22 AM EST).

The Tour de France LIVE widget commentator says Chris Horner (RadioShack) is yet another victim of yesterdays gully crash, after the race (12 minutes behind the winner), he was diagnosed with a concussion, a broken nose and a hematoma in his right leg – he’s out of the race.

10:08

At the 10 km mark of the stage 9 riders lead out in front, there are still out there now with 35 km to go in the race. The escapees are approaching the the big climb of the day the category 2 Col de la Croix Saint-Robert.

Here’s a handy table from letour.fr

Mountain passes & Hills of Stage 8 – Aigurande to Super-Besse Sancy

Km Mark        Mountain                Length      Gradient  Difficulty

Km 65.5   Côte d'Évaux-les-Bains            1.7 km climb   6.2 %      Category 4
Km 119.5  Côte du Rocher des Trois Tourtes  1.3 km climb   4.6 %      Category 4
Km 164.0  Col de la Croix Saint-Robert      6.2 km climb   6.2 %      Category 2
Km 189.0  Super-Besse Sancy                 1.5 km climb   7.6 %      Category 3

The Nine Escapee’s

1. Faria da Costa
2. Riblon
3. Zandio
4. Engels
5. Van Garderen
6. Kolbnev
7. El Fares

10:28

I’m working from the Jones Branch of the Toronto Public Library – they only allow me one, 1 hour booking of a computer per day, I’m saving that for the finish. Right now I’m using 15 minute sessions to Live Blog the race – it is hell on earth – I have to re-sign in to all sites re-open pages, windows and then if I’m not quick and aware at all times – the thing will just shut down and throw all the content I haven’t published yet, into the garbage.

As such the race as it embarked up the Col de la Croix Saint-Robert has completely changed; the nine in the lead are no more and who they were is lost on the internet (Tour de France’s LIVE widget).

10:42

There were three leaders up the mountain – now there are four in the lead down the other side:

1. Faria da Costa
2. Riblon
3. Van Garderen
4. Gautire

There is a chase group of three, 33 seconds behind them:

1. Vinokourov
2. Tiralongo
3. Flecha Giannoni

The Peloton is 1:15 behind the chase group.

10:45 – 10 km to go

10:55 – 5km to go

Faria da Costa has struck out on his own, up the Category 3, Super-Besse Sancy. He has built a 20 second lead up the mountain.

Tiralongo, Riblon, Flechia Giannni, Van Garderen and Gautire are chasing. The Peloton is 1 minute behind.

Team BMC, including Cadel Evans, is pacing the Peloton. Thor Hushovd, wearing the Yellow jersey for Garmin-Cervelo, is marking Evans

11:03 – 100m to go!

Faria da Costa and Vinokourov race for the stage win! Contador and Andy Schleck are right behind them!

Alberto Rui Costa takes it!

1. Alberto Rui Costa
2. Plilippe Gibert
3. Cadel Evans
4. Samuel Sanchez
5. Peter Velits
6. Dries Dvenyns
7. Damiano Cunego
8. Alberto Contador
9. Andy Schelck
10. Frank Schleck

Well that is interesting – after the first mountain stage the the Anti-hero (Contador)) and the Heroes (the Schleck brothers) finish 8, 9, and 10.

A foreshadowing of days to come to be sure.

mh

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

Tour de France 2011 – Stage 5

Stage 5 – Carhaix to Cap Fréhel – 164.5 km

This will be a Live Blog. The race starts at 6:05 7:50 AM EST (12:05 PM CET).

Tour de France 2011 - Stage 5 Profile

Tour de France 2011 Stage 5 Map (click on image to go to letour.fr page)

Thanks for visiting. Comments are welcome, I’ll try to respond, or answer any questions you may have with-in one day.

I’ve been having trouble with my internet connection the past few days; for now that is resolved – thanks to the Toronto Public Library free Wi-Fi connection! (Google Map of all the hot-spots – every branch now has a server.) Barring any unforeseen problems, I will be Live Blogging all the Stages of the Tour de France 2011.

Live Blog

6:29 AM EST

Good morning racing fans!

I miss-read the start time on the letour.fr site last night – Stage 5 starts at 7:50 AM EST (13:50 CET).

Tour de France 2011 Live Widget - Stage 5 Start: 7:50 EST | 13:50 CET

7:54 AM EST

They off!

Tour de France 2011 Stage 5 - 7 50 AM EST

mh