Firstly, sorry this is a day late! Rather busy-ish Sunday and by the time I got back it was evening time and the race was on again! So this is a recap of the next seven stages from 7-12. The race went over all terrain as we had breakaways win, time-trials, mountainous terrain and even a sprint victory mixed with echelons. As expected Team Sky were absolutely dominant. I’ll make up for the lateness with an extra-long report and of course a wrap up of the fantasy games. Read on below!

<!--more-->

<a href="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Team_Sky.jpg"><img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Team_Sky.jpg" alt="" width="450" />[/url]

Stage 7

So the first main stage for the climbers as well as anyone with general classification aspirations. A break of 7 got away but they were never given a lot of room as Sky and BMC controlled the peloton for most of the day. As it got close Garmin came to the front to ramp up the pace for their man Dan Martin, but also to get some pride back after a disastrous first week. At 15km to go though, the Sky train arrived on the front and it was EBH drilling it. Jurgen Van Den Broeck had a disaster at about 10km out as his chain slipped, effectively ruining his chances of being in the peloton with the leaders.

Almost as soon as the 6km steep climb started the break were caught and it was left to the Dodger (Michael Rogers) to take up proceedings and the pace he set popped out many riders including Levi Leipheimer, Tony Martin and the yellow jersey Fabian Cancellara. When little mor than half the climb was to be done it was Richie Porte’s turn, with his swinging Tassie necklace, to take to the front and he proceeded to thin out an already elite bunch. By the he swung off there was only 5 riders left, Bradley Wiggins, Chris Froome, Cadel Evans, Vincenzo Nibali and Rein Taaramae.

As the red kite for one ‘k left appeared the young Estonian finally cracked and it was just a quartet with Froome setting the pace. When the climb slightly levelled out near a turn, Evans made a tenacious attack but he was easily countered by Froome and the others. Froome then proceeded to “sprint” for the win, gaining a gap on the others as Cadel tried to follow with Wiggins on his wheel and Nibali dropping of near the end. So ended an impressive win for Froome and Sky. Also notable was Sagan “winning” with the fans, doing a no handed wheelie as he arrived up the top, which sent the crowd to raptures (watch the video chels posted).


Stage 8

An undulating stage with an unforgiving profile this was a stage tailored made for the break. As pictures went live from the very start you could see that half the peloton had a mind to get in the break and the other half were just trying to stay in contact. Several permeations and different combinations ended up off the front but most notable early on was oldest man in the bunch, big Jens Voigt, who managed to get a decent lead of a minute until the peloton eventually caught up. Eventually after 50km of riders going off the front and  being caught (like a spring) a big group of 20 riders managed to stay away. Large groups like this never work well as there is little cohesion and two riders attacked, Jeremy Roy (infamous foe his failed escapades last years) and Frederik Kessiakoff.

The Astana rider eventually dropped Roy who went back into a smaller chasing pack of 14 and went off on his own massive, lone attack. When the chasers came to the penultimate climb it was the youngest guy in the race, Thibault Pinot, who grinded away from the rest and he eventually caught and passed Kessiakoff on the last climb and surged past him. Meanwhile in the depleted peloton Liquigas were on the front but it was the Lotto duo of Jelle Vanendert and Jurgen Van den Broeck who lay on the hurt, shredding the pack to just the favourites by the top. The descent was too short to do anything so the elite group remained together with a few flurries off the front by Evans and VDB but it came to naught. The day belonged to Pinot however as he held off the group by under 30 seconds and much to the delight of his DS, won the stage.


Stage 9

The first of the two big time trials at the Tour is a 41.5km stage around the town of Besancon. With the the rst day looming and impressive farm art as a backdrop this was to be a “race of truth”. Injured Tony Martin put up the first good time, but must’ve broken a mirror before the tour as he had a mechanical during the race and his time was hampered by that and his bad wrist. As more reputed time triallists came on the course it became apparent that the effort of the previous stages was taking its toll, as well as the hills before the first intermediate. Cancellara continued his good time-trialling form by being the first to topple Martin’s time and by over a minute but the performance appeared to be sub-par, at least for an elite TTer like Fabian.

As the overall contenders came onto the course the times started lowering and young BMC rider Teejay Van Garderen (TJVG) was lowering the splits in the intermediates, only fading a bit in the last part to be 9 seconds behind. It was however, the day Sky reaffirmed their dominance in the Time Trial and the race, with Chris Froome bettering all time checks and beating Cance at the end by 22 seconds. His times didn’t last as Bradley Wiggins did even better, smashing the course in an amazing 51’24 (48.44km/h avg) to put daylight between himself and his rivals, especially Cadel Evans who finished 1’43” behind Wiggins and now has a big task of trying to reclaim nearly 2 minutes on his rival…and there’s another time trial to come!


Stage 10

Le Tour has arrived in the Alps! The first hour was raced at a fast pace as several riders all tried to get into the breakaway. Due to Sagan being up the road, Goss and Gerrans went with 21 other riders to form a large group off the front. Goss, Sagan and Hutarovich contested the intermediate sprint with Goss gain a couple of points on Sagan in the battle of the Green. When they finally reached the big HC climb making its debut, Col du Grand Colombier. The break quickly splintered and 4 riders ended up riding away together towards the top: Voeckler, LL Sanchez, Scarponi and Devenyns . Back in the bunch it was all Sky and once EBH finished his turn it was up to Porte to set the pace.

As soon as the peloton has gone over the top it was Vincenzo Nibali who launched a daring attack on the descent and he was aided by Sagan who had waited up the road for him. They managed to get a lead of minute before Nibali was eventually reeled in once the descending stopped by Porte. On the next climb, a small Cat 2, Van Den Broeck and Pierre Rolland launched an attack and managed to get a small gap. Meanwhile as the final k’s ticked away Jens Voigt, who had chased constantly since the big climb, managed to make it a 5 man group. Once they were onto the final slopes it was every man for himself and it was the French hero, Voeckler, who proved to be the victor, climbing away solo for the win. Rolland and VDB managed to put 31 seconds into the leading group, brought home by Pinot and Evans.


Stage 11 (super long post, apologies beforehand)

This is it, one of the biggest stages in this edition of Le Tour with 3 massive climbs and 4 in total. It was going to be a brutal day for all. Almost from the gun the riders were on attack and before they knew it bam, they were on the tough slopes of Col du Madeleine. It took a while for a break to form but when it did it was a case of 2 groups merging together and then getting bigger...and bigger. Eventually there were 28 riders in the break and remarkably they stayed together till the top, where Peter Velits and Frederik Kessiakoff fought it out to take the points, Kessiakoff moving back into the virtual lead in the KOM. They then proceeded to keep the pace on the down-slopes but by the time they arrived at the next climbs there was a group of 22 riders.

Col du Glandon/Col de la Croix de Fer (Pass of the Iron Cross) was next and the climb started taking its toll on the breakaway early. Big names such as Scarponi (tired from yesterday), Basso, Leipheimer were all dropped as Rolland’s team-mate Kern piled on the pressure and by the time they crested the beast of a climb, there were only 8 riders in the lead. But the biggest story of this climb was the BMC attacks. Midway on the climb TJVG went up the road on a lone attack. 2km later, it was Evans who went on attack and it seemed like there was no response from Team Sky (who were on the front from the start) but Mick Rogers just quickened the tempo of the main group. Cadel soon met up with TJVG but it was becoming apparent that he did not have good legs, as their lead was only a maximum of 20 seconds and Teejay almost always had to go back to Cadel. The Sky-train soon caught them and the diminished peloton (that still had 4 Sky riders) went over the summit.

Another short climb and a tricky descent (where Rolland fell) and the leaders who were now down to 4 were onto the final climb and Kiserlovski and Rolland quickly jumped away from Sorenson and Kiriyenka. However several times they came back together but it was to be Rolland’s day as 10km from the finish he made the decisive attack and was never seen again until the finish, creating a historic 1-2 in the Alps for France and Europcar.

The main battle of the GC however was only just starting. After Roger’s mammoth effort on the front (47km up and down some of the hardest parcours) it was Porte to take up the pace but by 12km to go it was Brajkovic who drew the first attack. Quickly after JVDB and Pinot went up the road to join him but still there was a constant tempo from Sky.  When Nibali attacked that cracked Porte and it was up to Froome to now set the tempo to reel in the attackers. His quick tempo narrowed the Maillot Juane (MJ) group to just 5 riders: Wiggins, Froome, Cadel, Schleck. Once Froome caught Nibali the pace slowed which helped TJVG get back on but Nibali quickly went again, getting a better gap up the road and bridged up to those ahead, making it 4 v 5. Wiggins now took up the pace making as Froome struggled at the back. The pace kept up relentlessly as the Sky Duo tried to reel the others in and at 6km to go disaster struck for Australia as Cadel finally paid for his attack and average legs, dropping off the pace but in the company of faithful worker, Teejay Van Garderen.

As Froome slowly caught the 4 in front, Frank Schleck dropped too, and it was now back to a group of 6 very tired leaders but it was too much for Brajkovic and he went out the back too. Then the big talking point of the day happened: Froome attacked the group. Whatever the reason for it, what we do know is that it put Wiggins in trouble and Froome was told to slow and wait for Wiggins, as the other 3 riders had managed to get ahead. Pinot got away in the confusion but by 2.5km to go they were altogether and that’s how they got to the line, with Pinot outsprinting Froome and Wiggins giving Nibali a pat on the back.

A good day for Sky as they are now 1-2 on GC, Nibali moves to third and Evans drops to fourth with Van den Broeck into fifth. TJVG still has the white jersey by nearly 2 minutes. A good graphic on the time spent on the front from the Sky domestiques:

<a href="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sky-work-on-front.jpg"><img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sky-work-on-front.jpg" alt="" width="475" />[/url]

Stage 12

With two Category 1 climbs right at the start the pace was hot as riders tried to get into the breakaway and they hit the ascents almost instantly. Many riders tried to form a break but eventually it was a 4 man group that got away and just one of the chasers managed to bridge to make it a quintet. There was a bit of excitement back in the pack at the last climb, as Wiggins went on a mini-attack forcing a lot of people to try and chase back to his while but fizzled out by the time they crested the climb. Peter Sagan tried to attack on the decent to get to the break but by the time they got to the flat GreenEdge was on the front and wheeled him back.

The peloton then backed off and tried to make the most of a semi-rest day, allowing the break to get big time. Eventually as the race neared the finished David Millar and Jean-Christophe Peraud managed to get away from the other 3 on short climbs to the finish line and it was the experienced Scotsman who stopped it being a hattrick of wins for the French at Le Tour and a great day for Britain as he became the fourth Brit to win a stage this year and on the anniversary of Tom Simpson’s death. Also a contentious issue was the sprint to the line from the pack. It was a mano-a-mano sprint between Goss and Sagan who gapped the rest but despite Goss being faster than Sagan he was DQ’ed to 7th (behind Sagan) and docked 30 points for coming off his line. Very harsh.


Stage 13

Finally a day for the sprinters, with a few twists thrown in with a tough bump to get over close to the finish and expected winds. After the disqualification and the docking of points of Goss after the sprint yesterday, GreenEdge rode like boys on a mission on the front for most of the day. Bastille Day saw a group of 8 with 5 Frenchman in it to wave the flag for national pride but it was never given enough rope by the Orica boys. Slow start to the stage with the only early highlight being Sagan extending his lead at the intermediate point.

This year’s breakaway “king”, Morkov, attacked his breakaway companions and held a 2 minute lead over the peloton but as soon as the race turned into the winds the pace became very high and it caused echelons. Echelons are splits in the group and happen when there is strong wind and a fast pace, a rider drops the wheel in front and that’s all it takes to create a gap. Today winds caused a frenetic pace to be set and when the peloton arrived at that “bump” it caused chaos as Evans and Mechov each tried to attack. It didn’t do much except drop a lot of the sprinters and once over the pack’s high pace cause echelons again. Despite a couple of breakaway attempts it ended with a 40-man sprint finish and it was won by Andre Greipel, showing he can get over hills (thanks to his team!) and Sagan finished second, all but ensuring green and despite a perfect lead out by none other than the leader of the race, Wiggins, EBH could only manage third

We’re now into the Pyrenees and with 7 stages left, we’re very much at the business end of the Tour. Expect a break to survive tomorrow, a sprint on Monday, then when racing resumes after the rest day we’ll have the 2 main Pyrenean stage followed by another likely breakaway stage and then it’s the last time trial. After that its Paris and the Champs-Élysées!

&nbsp;


SBS Fantasy Tour de France

We’re now into the business end of the Tour and likewise the SBS fantasy competition. We all got new trades last night which will spice up the game as managers become shrewder with their teams and look for point of differences! It’s a bit hard to describe how everyone did with such limited stats but I will try my best to report. Early on in Stage 8 as predicted Blind Mice Cycling did jump to the front. However his team was too engineered for breakaway wins and after a time-trial on Stage 9 where everyone dominated, racking up big points the chasing pack caught up. Should note that Peter’s Pumas tdf had an amazing 173 points from this stage! Biggest point haul on a stage I think from any of us and we’re all he didn’t put it as his bonus!

As the road started going upwards we all put in the climbers to mixed success. After his unique selection of Pinot, which paid off well on Stage 8, chel’s team “Fuentes is a great help”, surged to the lead on stage 10. After holding back my bonus stage until the mountains, my team shot from the middle of the pack into second on stage 11 so I am very happy with that! After stage 12 there are gaps emerging up the top but with the noticeable changes thatve happened and with still 7 stages to go, I reckon it looks like anyone in the top 10 could make a dash for top honours with the right trading strategy from now. It will be quite a challenge and the whole league has done great in my opinion, our average is still very high despite the inclusion of late-starters and a couple of no-shows. TS community obviously loves their cycling!

Last leaderboard until the end, good luck to all! Click for full results:

<a href="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sbs-leaderboard.png"><img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/sbs-leaderboard-preview.png" alt="" width="450" />[/url]

&nbsp;

Velogames

After a couple of big mountain stages, as well as some rouleur stages the leaderboard now likes quite different to what it did before! Now everyone just has to hope their riders get to Paris and score something for them, I don’t think anyone has riders who haven’t been affected by bad luck! One thing hasn’t changed however, and that’s our leader! Debbie’s Team Russell is still in front by a narrow margin of just 42 points to Jodie’s Fuentes Favourites. Sagan is again dominating for them both but it looks like the unique pick of Jodie to have Nibali instead of Evans just may prove the difference. BMC Racing is still in third but dropping back from the leaders as his stage-hunters haven’t racked up the points.

Up into fourth but a long way behind is my team, ShepDoesItBetter, which has shot up the ranking thanks to mainly having GC guys but no Sagan + some crashes mean I won’t be moving up anymore. Chel’s team celery is fifth and determined to try and best mine for bragging rights, which seems to hitch on how well JVDB or Rolland do in the next mountain stages. Other players close behind are Team Pharmacy-Bruyneel still going strong with his Lotto unique team and Los Campones who only need a bit more luck to shoot past the rest of the bunch.

There are a few little battles going on and the race for first is interesting but as we near the end there shouldn’t be too many surprised in this game but you never know! Good luck to all and the full leaderboard is posted below, click to enlarge.

<a href="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/veloleaderboard.png"><img src="http://tooserious.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/velogames-leaderboard-preview.png" alt="" width="450" />[/url]

&nbsp;


So what do you all think about the Tour? What about your Fantasy teams? Anyone you’re pleased to have picked or are you rueing missing a certain rider? Comment below!