While it's been another fabulous day at the Tour, it's also been a long one, so dear readers, I hope you'll forgive me if this one is a little short on text!
Tyler Farrar and Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg.
Rafael Valls.
Romian Sicard.
MTN Qhubeka receive their prize for being the best team on yesterday's stage.
The media surround Nibali.
Cavendish tells speaker Marc Chavet he is not trying to break Eddy Merckx's record for the most number of wins at the Tour. Rather, he is racing against the riders of today, not the history books.
Michal Kwiatkowski talks with the press.
John Degenkolb, Paul Voss and Leopoldo König relax before the day's work begins.
Riders on their way to the start.
When the race was off, so was I. A fried who lives nearby had borrowed a friend's motorcycle so we whipped past the slow moving traffic and hit the road to the Mûr de Bretagne. Roadblocks prevented us from getting to the Mûr itself, but that was no problem as it was probably bursting with people by this point. We ended up just before the 10k to go banner.
The road approaching us was dead straight and downhill before kicking up to the 10k banner, so we had a superb view of the run in.
Lars Bak and Michal Golas were in the lead but only by a handful of seconds.
Bartosz Huzarski was about to be caught by the peloton at any moment.
Astan driving hard.
The speed and force of a compact and fast peloton never fails to surprise me.
Several riders were dropped.
When the last rider had gone by, we dashed ahead to watch the final kilometers play out on someone's TV.
Unlike the Mûr de Huy, the Mûr de Bretagne is mostly dead straight, making it psychologically harder to plod on with virtually no end in sight. The main players were barreling up the climb when Alexis Vuillermoz managed to attack and get away. Dan Martin finished 5″ back in second place on a stage he had high aspirations for.
The last stage before the first rest day is the team time trial. BMC may be the team to beat. The reigning world TTT champions have Rohan Dennis, former holder of the world hour record and winner of the opening TT last weekend in Utrecht, and 4 of the 6 members of the squad that won the gold medal in Ponferrada last September are at the Tour. They presently have 2 riders in the top 10 and Tejay Van Garderen has been riding a quiet but remarkably consistent Tour so far.
Movistar will be another one to watch. Dowsett, Castroviejo, and Malori are the TT engines of the Spanish outfit.
Etixx Quick Step suffered a blow in losing Tony Martin, which means that Kwiatkowski and Vermote are the only riders who helped the Belgian team win the TTT bronze medal.
A week ago, Orica GreenEdge would certainly have been considered contenders but now that they are without Gerrans, Impey, and Albasini, and Matthews is in rough shake, that places a tremendous burden on the likes of Svein Tuft and Luke Durbridge.
Tinkoff, Astana, and Sky are likely to ride well, all looking to grab a few seconds here and there for their team leaders.
Sagan and Van Garderen are just 11″ and 13″, respectively, off of the maillot jaune. If there are big splits tomorrow, the leader's jersey could possibly change hands.
Today's 34 autographs came from:
2. Lars Boom
6. Tanel Kangert
8. Rein Taaramae
13. Jan Bakelants
21. Thibaut Pinot
23. Sebastian Chavanel
51. Nairo Quintana
62. Damiano Caruso
67. Michael Schär
74. Thomas Debusschere
76. Adam Hansen
78. Marcel Sieberg
81. John Degenkolb
93. Jacopo Guarnieri
94. Marco Haller
96. Alexander Kristoff
105. Michael Matthews
115. Mark Renshaw
116. Zdenek Stybar
121. Pierre Rolland
131. Robert Gesink
132. Wilco Kelderman
133. Steven Kruijswijk
137. Laurens Ten Dam
139. Sep Vanmarcke
141. Bauke Mollema
147. Bob Jungels
152. Matteo Bono
158. Jose Serpa
164. Ryder Hesjedal
184. Stef Clement
192. Jan Barta
211. Edvald Boasson Hagen
219. Daniel Teklehaimanot