Tour De France 2006

[Ben Lauer]

Stage 6

- One climb (1.7km, 6.7% grade), three sprints. 189 km from Lisieux to Vitre.
- There were many attacks today in the early stages of the race. A few gained a decent lead on the peloton, but they were brought back in due to an extremely high average speed. Over 45 km per hour for the first two hours.
- One escape included the yellow jersey wearer, Tom Boonen, but that one was also reeled back to the swift peloton.
- Many of the escapes this year look very similar. A group will go out during the first 3rd of the race, and stay out until the last 5-30 km of the stage, where the peloton catches them. The escapees are still benifiting. They are taking points at each of the sprints and climbs, and there is always the chance that the peloton will not start chasing soon enough, or a fast team doesn't take control of the peloton and the escapee's get away. That is the hope of each rider leading the stage.
- There was another great spirint my McEwen today, bringing home his 11th career tour stage win.
- The Top Seven were:
1. Robbie McEwen (AUS - DVL)
2. Daniele Bennati (ITA - LAM)
3. Tom Boonen (BEL - QSI)
4. Bernhard Eisel (AUT - FDJ)
5. Thor Hushovd (NOR - C.A)
6. Oscar Freire (ESP - RAB)
7. Erik Zabel (ITA - MRM)
You will notice some big names in that finish. A lot of great sprinters got to the front, but were still warded off by McEwen.
- Boonen is still in Yellow, although McEwen gained some time and not only trails by 12 seconds.
Jersey Holders:
Yellow: Boonen
Green: McEwen
Polka Dot: Pineau
Youth: Benoit Vaugrenard

Top teams:
1) Discovery Channel
2) Team CSC
3) T-Mobile

[Ben Lauer]

Stage 7

Time Trial.
- Saturday's stage was a chance for some of the new great American riders to show thier stuff. Levi Leipheimer, George Hincapie,, Dave Zabriskie, and Floyd Landis.
- Levi, George and Dave had less than stellar performances, and they all lost precious seconds and even minutes in the GC.
- Landis on the other hand, finished second. Despite an early bike change, he rode hard and finished 1 minute and 1 second behind Sergiy Honchar, the Ukranian stage winner and new yellow jersey wearer.
Top Five:
1. HONCHAR (UKR, TMO) 52.0km in 1h01’43"600 (50.6km/h)
2. LANDIS (USA, PHO) at1’01"
3. LANG (GER, GST) at 1’04"
4. ROGERS (AUS, TMO) at 1’24"
5. LARSSON (SWE, FDJ) at 1’33"

New Yellow: Honchar
New Youth Leader: Fothen
New Team Leader: T-Mobile
Other Jerseys remain the same.

Stage 8

- This stage was host to some excellent breakaways, that were unsuccessful. During the first 2/3rds of the race, there was a breakaway containing 6 riders from 6 different teams. None of the riders were very close to contention with Serhiy Honchar. One of these riders was Sylvain Calzati, the eventual stage winner. There were some comments made about early break-aways and thier purpose for the ridesr i them. Some said that the purpose was for publicity, for a chance to be on international tv, and for the other media coverage, but for all the riders in the Tour de France, it is for a chance like Calzati, break away early, get a lead on a peloton that has little organization, and bring home a stage win for your country.

Top Five for the Stage:
1. Sylvain Calzati (A2R)
2. Kjell Carlstrom (LIQ) at 2’05"
3. Patrice Halgand (C.A) at 2’05"
4. Robbie McEwen (DVL) at 2’15"
5. Daniele Bennati (LAM) at 2’15"

GC:
1. Honchar
2. Landis +1.00
3. Rogers +1.08

Yellow: Honchar
Green: McEwen
Polka Dot: Pineau
Youth: Fothen
Team: T-Mobile

[Ben Lauer]

Stage 9

The 169.5km ninth stage from Bordeaux to Dax is scheduled to start at 1.15pm. The road that hugs the coastline is pancake flat; there’s no hill to be found on the route that begins in the Girone department and concludes in Landes.
The conditions are warm and, at the start of the stage, relatively still.

- An attack in the early km of the following three riders gained an almost 8 minute lead before being brought back in with just 3.5 km to go.
1. Walter Beneteau (BTL)
2. Stephane Auge (COF)
3. Christian Knees (MRM)
- The Group claimed all three sprints in the stage for valuable points.

There was a very close finish today, but Oscar Freire holds off McEwen, Zabel, and Boonen for the stage win.

The distance you are seeing seperating them is about 5 cm.

There is no change in the overall standings.

[Andy Baker]

Nice picture! Keep these reports comin', Ben. I appreciate them, so I assume that a few others may also.

Andy B.

[Ben Lauer]

Originally Posted by Andy Baker

Nice picture! Keep these reports comin', Ben. I appreciate them, so I assume that a few others may also.

Andy B.

Oh, I will, it was a shorter report becuase I had a shorter lunch today. That's what I get for having a job.

[Ben Lauer]

Stage 10

There are two sprints, and 3 climbs today. Quite a change from yesterday's stage. Stage 9 is the flattest stage of the tour, with no climbs.
On the map you will see three of the 5 categories of climbs.
HC: Literally means "out of category," Usually this climb is to a mountain summit, and is the hardest of the 5
1-4: One being harder, 1 easiest.
The categories are based on the gradient of the climb.

- Due to the climbs today, there was a group of around 12 riders that got ahead, and had since spread out all over in front of the peloton.
- The peloton dropped many riders today. The dropped riders formed another group behind it. The T-Mobile team took charge and showed now mercy to the riders that couldn't keep up.
- The Peloton continued to drop riders through all three climbs and afterward. The after the third climb, the peloton, of over 150 riders at the beginning of the stage, was down to less than 35.
- Two riders out front of them all are Juan Miguel Mercado and Cyril Dressel, both of the Euskaltel team.
- Both of these riders ended up taking the stage, with Mercado just edging out Dressel. There were many changed on the leaderboard, including a new Yellow Jersey holder, Dressel.
Top Five in the GC:
1) Cyril Dressel
2) Juan Miguel Mercado
3) Serhiy Honchar
4) Cristian Moreni
5) Floyd Landis

Points leader (Sprinters)
Robbie McEwen

Climbing Jersey:
Cyril Dessel

Youth Leader:
Marcus Fothen

Team standings:
1) AG2R Prevoyance
2) T-Mobile
3) Phonak Hearing Systems
...
8) Discovery Channel Team

I can't wait to get home and watch the stage...

[Ben Lauer]

Stage 11

- Wow, today had some tough climbs. 4 cat. 1 climbs and 1 HC.
- The peloton was again riding fast and lost riders out the back for much of the stage.
- With 6km for the 4th climb of the day, T-Mobile swamped the AG2R riders at the head of the yellow jersey’s group. It thinned out to only 16 riders. (Azevedo, Sastre, Schleck, Rogers, Kloden, Moreau, Boogerd, Rasmussen, Toschnig, Leipheimer, Fothen, Evans, Landis, Zubeldia, Parra, Arroyo and Cunego and Simoni). This group had slowly dropped all the other riders in the peloton. They all joined a group behind.
- The only real attack of this group of 16 came from Leipheimer; this caused Sastre and Evans to lose contact 2.5km from the finish. Menchov burst into the lead with 250 meters to go and won his first Tour de France stage.
Skipping toward the end of the stage...
- Rasmussen set the tempo in the valley between the 4th and 5th climbs
The top 5 in the stage is:
1. Denis Menchov (RUS - RAB)
2. Levi Leipheimer (USA - GST) at st
3. Floyd Landis (USA - PHO) at st
4. Cadel Evans (AUS - DVL) at 17"
5. Carlos Sastre (ESP - CSC) at 17

Standings:
GC leader: Floyd Landis
Points Leader: Robbie McEwen
Climbing Leader: David De La Fuente
Youth Leader: Marcus Fothen
Team Leading: T-Mobile

[Ben Lauer]

Stage 12

- The stage today has 4 climbs of moderate difficulty, and 2 intermediate sprints. There is an overall drop in altitude of about 500m as the begin to ride from the Pyrenees to the Alps.
- This stage started out with a few decent sized escapes during the first 100 km. Most were brought back easily.
- In the 95km 4 riders escaped [Oscar Freire (Spain - Rabobank); Yaroslav Popovych (Ukraine - Discovery Channel); Christophe Le Mevel (France - Credit Agricole); Alessandro Ballan (Italy - Lampre-Fondital)]
- 40 km after the escape, they lead by 4 minutes
- This escape has a good chance of doing very well. With the closest threat Popovych at 9 minutes behind the leader Landis in the GC and 4 different teams represented, it is hard to find a team that wants to lead the peloton in the hard work of reeling them in.
- During the last 10km in the stage, the group of 4 was still leading, they each attached the others in order to get a lead and gain stage honors.
- Papovych attacks with 3 km to go. He is success in breaking away from his escapee group. He takes the stage and has an average of 46.15 km per hour over 211.5km.
- The overall leaders remain the same after today's stage, and Papovych moved in to 10th and gained over 4 minutes on Landis.

[Eric Scheuing]

Personally, I'm rooting for Thor. He probably could have won the first stage if it wasn't for that friggin' finger.

EDIT: I like the updates as well, since I don't get OLN.

[Ben Lauer]

Sorry, I probably won't be able to do them anymore. I am really busy at work, and I am taking night classes so I don't have enough time to check out the stage and summarize.
but, go here http://www.letour.fr/ and at the end of each stage, the right a quick article which captures a summary of the stage.

[AcesPease]

Originally Posted by Ben Lauer

Sorry, I probably won't be able to do them anymore. I am really busy at work, and I am taking night classes so I don't have enough time to check out the stage and summarize.
but, go here http://www.letour.fr/ and at the end of each stage, the right a quick article which captures a summary of the stage.

DO check it out. An amazing ride by Floyd Landis today

[RogerR]

Originally Posted by AcesPease

...An amazing ride by Floyd Landis today

true.... here's a compressed rundown:

stage 15
Near the end of the stage, Landis breaks away from the peloton, catching, and (for the most part) dropping an earlier breakaway. He beats the current race leader, Pereiro, by approximately 1:40, earning him the yellow jersey by 10 seconds. After such a strong showing, it is generally assumed that he will gain even more time in the next two mountain stages, and has more or less one le tour. Until...

stage 16
Isolated in a leading group full of big GC names, Landis suffers constant attacks and challenges, but has no teammates to support. He was unable to respond to an attack by rival Menchov with 14 km to go or one by Sastre at 12 km. He bonks spectacularly, and finishes a devastating 10:04 behind the stage winner. With a gap of 8:08 between him and the yellow jersey, it is generally assumed that he is out of the running for an over-all victory, and probably won't even make a podium finish. Until...

stage 17
50 km into the stage, and 150 from the end, in a move that’s been described as "one of the most audacious and bravest...seen in the modern era of the Tour de France" Landis launches a solo attack on a already winded and disorganized peloton. He chased down, and dropped an earlier breakaway that had a significant time advantage. Despite a mechanical problem that forced him to change bikes at 150 km, and the best efforts of an angry peloton, Floyd finished alone, with a 5:42 advantage of a the next racer, and 7:08 over the yellow jersey. After time bonuses, Landis is in third place, :30 behind the yellow jersey, and back in the race.