Tour de London

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

186km - Agritubel have been present in all three breakaways of the Tour so far. Will they make it four from four today?

 

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

185km - All remaining 187 riders started the stage today. Just two have been forced to abandon: Edu Gonzalez of the Agritubel team after a crash on stage one, and Tomas Vaitkus (Discovery Channel) after the massive pile-up at the end of stage two.

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

184kms to go....

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

Still no breakaway from the peloton.

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

173km - No breakaways so far as the pack approaches the first climb of the day, the Veuilly-la-Poterie (Km 23.5, 4th cat.).

 

 

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

170km - The Cofidis team is keen to help Stéphane Augé preserve his polkadot jersey, they are towing him up the climb, though two of Monday's escapees beat him there. Aliaksandr Kuschinski takes the three points, followed by David Millar (two points) and Stephane Auge (one point).

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

30kms gone now, just 15 seconds the gap.....

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

168km - That little flurry of activity sees David Millar move to within two points of Auge in the mountain classification.

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

167km - A group of four riders tries an attack, though after just a couple of seconds they are swallowed back up by the peloton.

 

 

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

162km - Matthieu Sprick (Bouygues Télécom) now tries his luck with an escape attempt.

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

The leading pack are now 1m25s ahead of the peloton.

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

159km - Five riders have now escaped! Sylvain Chavanel (Cofidis), Matthieu Sprick (Bouygues), Gorka Verdugo (Euskaltel), Juan Antonio Flecha (Rabobank) and Christian Knees (Milram) have a 30 second lead on the pack.

 

It's all happening.....

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

156km - Liquigas' Kjell Carlstrom is floating in between the breakaway and the field.

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

154km - Carlström has been swallowed back up by the peloton, only for another rider to attack. This time it's Barloworld's Paolo Longo Borghini.

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

152km - The average speed over the first hour of racing is 40.7 km/h.

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

150km - The peloton seem to have given up trying to reel in the lead quintet, who have now extended their lead to 2'30".

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

148km - The leaders are now three minutes clear of the pack, who are now being led by Caisse d'Epargne.

 

I'm off for some lunch.

[Greg_Dyke]

Originally Posted By: Westie

159km -,.... and Christian Knees (Milram)

It's all happening.....

Christian Knees !!!


Stop making up these names Westie !!!

[Greg_Dyke]

From 188 riders.....we have 27 nations in this year's tour..

 

The breakdown is:

40 – Spain

36 – France

19 – Germany

18 – Italy

13 – Belgium

7 – The Netherlands

6 – Australia, USA and Russia

5 – Great Britain and Switzerland

4 – Kazakhstan

3 – Austria and Colombia

2 – Belarus, Luxembourg, Norway and Ukraine

1 – South Africa, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Portugal, Slovenia, Lithuania and Sweden

 

 

 

[NotTheRealSteveWest]

145km - Incidentally, a certain Lance Armstrong took his first ever stage victory on the Tour de France fourteen years ago to this day, outsprinting Raul Alcala, Ronan Pensec and Dominique Arnould in a breakaway group.