Road Racing

David Moncoutié’s LOOK 695 IPACK

LOURDES, France (VN) - A 39-year-old German father of six tore the Tour de France apart Thursday on its second major climb, the Col du Tourmalet. Leopard-Trek’s Jens Voigt called Thursday one of his best days on the bike and said his team leaders, Andy and Fränk Schleck, need at least three minutes on Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-Sungard) before the penultimate day time trial in Grenoble.

LOURDES, France (AFP) — HTC-Highroad manager Bob Stapleton said he would not rule out merging with another team if he fails to find a major sponsor before the end of the year.

LOURDES, France (VN) — Tony Martin denied rumors Friday morning that he is set to join Bjarne Riis at Saxo Bank-Sungard in 2012. French daily L’Equipe reported Friday that the German is in discussions with Riis as the title sponsorship of his current squad, HTC-Highroad, is set to expire at the close of the year.

LOURDES, France (AFP) - RadioShack's Tour de France hopes suffered a huge blow on the second day in the high mountains when Andreas Kloden pulled out during Friday's 13th stage.

• 1. Thor Hushovd, Team Garmin - Cervelo, in 3h 47' 36"
• 2. David Moncoutie, Cofidis Le Credit En Ligne, at 00:10
• 3. Jérémy Roy, Fdj, at 00:26
• 4. Lars Bak, Htc - Highroad, at 05:00
• 5. Jérôme Pineau, Quick Step Cycling Team, at 05:02

World champion Thor Hushovd (Garmin-Cervelo) won Friday's 13th stage of the 2011 Tour de France in solo breakaway after outracing the members of an early breakaway.

Breakfast with Bernie, stage 13

“First uphill finish you get an idea of how everyone’s going, who’s really climbing good, who’s climbing okay, who’s going bad and where I fit in amongst it all," said Cadel Evans after stage 12. The jury is still out, but what we do know is that the unfortunate Andreas Klöden, Robert Gesink, Tony Martin and Christian Vande Velde no longer fit into the mix of favorites.

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

ESPN commentator Michael Smith entered treatment Wednesday for what network executives have identified as Cranio-Rectal Syndrome. The rare condition is characterized by impaired vision, a heightened sense of smell and the ill-advised use of smart phones.

LUZ-ARDIDEN, France (VN) — It's not the 13 seconds that Alberto Contador lost in Thursday's summit finish at Luz-Ardiden to Andy Schleck that everyone was talking about. It was how he looked.

LUZ ARDIDEN, France (AFP) - German Tony Martin refused to blame flu as his hopes of remaining in contention for a top overall place at the Tour de France were severely compromised on Thursday.

Garmin-Cervélo’s climber, on the form of his life, climbed with the best at Luz-Ardiden

Brian Holcombe chats with HTC-Highroad's Bernie Eisel

Finish-line analysis, stage 12: It keeps adding and adding ...

LUZ-ARDIDEN, France (VN) - Ivan Basso confirmed his place among the overall favorites Thursday on the first mountaintop finish of the 2011 Tour de France, at Luz-Ardiden.

LUZ-ARDIDEN, France (VN) - Geraint Thomas has had his best Tour de France to date, but the 25-year-old’s race nearly ended Thursday when he left the road twice on the wet, technical descent of La Hourquette d’Ancizan.

Stage 12 winner Sammy Sanchez's Orbea

The weight of steel, pro warm-ups, UCI rules and more

CUGNAUX, France (VN) — Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Highroad) was a bundle of nerves at the start line of Thursday's 12th stage. After riding through the first half of the Tour de France unscathed, the Tour rookie was looking down the gauntlet of the Tour's first major climbs.

Stage

• 1. Samuel Sanchez, Euskaltel - Euskadi, in6h 01' 15"
• 2. Jelle Vanendert, Omega Pharma - Lotto, at 00:07
• 3. Frank Schleck, Team Leopard-Trek, at 00:10
• 4. Ivan Basso, Liquigas-Cannondale, at 00:30
• 5. Cadel Evans, Bmc Racing Team, at 00:30

• 1. Thomas Voeckler, Team Europcar, in 51h 54' 44"
• 2. Frank Schleck, Team Leopard-Trek, at 01:49
• 3. Cadel Evans, Bmc Racing Team, at 02:06
• 4. Andy Schleck, Team Leopard-Trek, at 02:17
• 5. Ivan Basso, Liquigas-Cannondale, at 03:16

Sammy Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) won the first mountain stage of the 2011 Tour de France on Thursday, on a day when a view of the top of general classification finally became clear.

A fresh Evans faces challenges from Contador and the Schlecks in the Pyrenees

Check out CyclingTips's author page.

... Thursday looks to be the 2011 Tour’s first true GC selection day as the peloton begins the first of 3 days in the Pyrenees. Covering 211km from Cugnaux to Luz Ardiden (best known as the site of Lance Armstrong’s brazen 2003 attempt to snatch a spectator’s purse with his handlebars) the stage ends with a pair of killer HC climbs ...

Finish-line analysis: Storm clouds looming

Off the radar and unnoticed; that sums how the first half of the 2011 Tour has gone for HTC-Highroad's two-pronged GC attack. And that's just fine for them.

LAVAUR, France (VN) — It was raining at the start of Wednesday’s stage 11 in Blaye-les-Mines, a down-on-its-luck coal-mining town on the southern edge of the Massif Central. Riders stayed in their team buses as long as possible. Some ventured outside to give hurried interviews in the shelter of their bus’s canopy or a journalist’s umbrella.

LAVAUR, France (VN) — HTC-Highroad team owner and manager Bob Stapleton is always proud of his riders, and he said it was just good luck that he made his first appearance at this year’s Tour de France on the day that his super-sprinter Mark Cavendish took his third stage win of the race. “That was all Mark Cavendish and good teamwork. I can’t take any credit for that,” he said Wednesday after the stage 11 finish.

We take a look at the bike of another unfortunate early Tour retiree, Brad Wiggins

LAVAUR, France (VN) — Nicolas Roche (Ag2r-La Mondiale) crashed a lot during his run-up to the Tour de France this year, but he's largely avoided the disasters that have struck other top contenders in the first half of the race.

LAVAUR, France (AFP) - Reigning champion Contador said his painful right knee was "feeling good" ahead of what could be his first big test of the Tour de France.

Breakfast with Bernie, stage 11: Riding for the kids, and sticky bidons

LAVAUR, France (AFP) - Britain's Mark Cavendish moved to quash speculation of another sprint clash with Frenchman Romain Feillu after claiming his third stage win of this year's Tour de France Wednesday.

LAVAUR, France (AFP) - Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez says he is hoping to put his disappointing start to the Tour de France behind him with a stage victory in the Basque stronghold of the Pyrenees.

Lennard Zinn visits Specialized and reports back on his coolest finds and observations

Stage

• 1. Mark Cavendish, Htc - Highroad, in 3h 46' 07
• 2. André Greipel, Omega Pharma - Lotto, at s.t.
• 3. Tyler Farrar, Team Garmin - Cervelo, at s.t.
• 4. Denis Galimzyanov, Katusha Team, at s.t.
• 5. Boasson Hagen Edvald, Sky Procycling, at s.t.

• 1. Thomas Voeckler, Team Europcar, in 45h 52' 39
• 2. Luis-leon Sanchez, Rabobank Cycling Team, at 1:49
• 3. Cadel Evans, Bmc Racing Team, at at 02:26
• 4. Frank Schleck, Team Leopard-Trek, at at 02:29
• 5. Andy Schleck, Team Leopard-Trek, at at 02:37

Mark Cavendish (HTC-Highroad) won Wednesday's stage 11 of the 2011 Tour de France, a 168km sprinters' stage that concluded in Lavaur, the final stage before the Tour enters the Pyrenees on Thursday.

AURILLAC, France (VN) – Brent Bookwalter never expected to be on the front row for a yellow jersey push for Cadel Evans in the Tour de France.

Check out Wade Wallace's author page.

Team RadioShack’s Bruyneel and Leipheimer have some answers

CARMAUX, France, July 12, 2011 (AFP) - Frenchman Thomas Voeckler said he is under no illusions over his guardianship of the Tour de France yellow jersey as the race heads steadily towards the Pyrenees mountains.

He may be gone from the Tour, but Vino's Specialized Tarmac SL4 still deserves a look

A record-low 16 riders began Tuesday’s stage 10 after a crash-filled rest day served only to further decimate the peloton. Notable abandons included Team Sky’s Rigoberto Uran (who swerved to avoid a litter of kittens during his team’s recovery ride), AG2R’s Blel Kadri (who attempted to change his bib shorts while on a gently sloping descent) and Liquigas-Cannondale leader Ivan Basso (who was momentarily distracted by his own handsomeness). Also scratched were all nine members of the Saur-Sojasun squad, whom race officials now admit have actually been missing since stage 3.

Breakfast with Bernie, stage 10: Rating the GC teams

Ben Delaney and Andrew Hood dissect stage 10

CARMAUX, France (VN) — André Greipel won't tell you how much Tuesday's stage victory meant to him. He didn't have to, his triumphant fist and scream at the finish line said it all.

Johnny Hoogerland gained a new legion of fans for his heroic ride to claim the KOM jersey after a television car blasted him off the road and into a barbed wire fence. With blood pouring from his legs and backside, Hoogerland soldiered on to the finish of stage 9, where he first went on stage, in tears, to receive his jersey, before being loaded into an ambulance for a ride to the hospital where he received 33 stitches.

Although we haven’t yet reached the high mountains, the 2011 Tour de France has already been one giant rollercoaster of a ride. With 10 stages in the books as of Tuesday, we thought it appropriate to take a look back. And besides, who doesn’t love a good Top 10 list?

CARMAUX, France (VN) — Though he's battered and bruised, three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador strongly denied reports that he will leave the race early.

Stage

• 1. André Greipel, Omega Pharma-Lotto, in 3h 31' 21"
• 2. Mark Cavendish, HTC-Highroad, at s.t.
• 3. Joaquin Rojas Jose, Movistar Team, at s.t.
• 4. Thor Hushovd, Team Garmin-Cervelo, at s.t.
• 5. Romain Feillu, Vacansoleil-Dcm, at s.t.

• 1. Thomas Voeckler, Team Europcar, in 42h 06' 32
• 2. Luis-leon Sanchez, Rabobank Cycling Team, at 01:49
• 3. Cadel Evans, BMC Racing Team, at 02:26
• 4. Frank Schleck, Team Leopard-Trek, at 02:29
• 5. Andy Schleck, Team Leopard-Trek, at 02:37

Andre Greipel denied Mark Cavendish a third stage win in this Tour de France, winning Tuesday's stage 10, a 58-kilometer race from Aurillac to Carmaux, the first of two stages through the Cévennes as the race heads toward the Pyrenees.

World cycling's ruling body is set to look into the reasons behind a raft of crashes which have decimated the field during the first nine stages of the Tour de France.

AURILLAC, France (AFP) — Russian Alexander Kolobnev said Tuesday he had nothing to hide shortly after becoming the first rider to leave this year's Tour de France in disgrace.

AURILLAC, France (AFP) - Team Sky are pondering whether to take legal action against the television car which sent their Spaniard rider Juan Antonio Flecha flying during the race's ninth stage Sunday.

AURILLAC, France (AFP) — Tour de France champion Alberto Contador has met, and forgiven, the young fan who caused a crash in the first stage of the race and left the Spaniard with a significant deficit.

AURILLAC, France (AFP) – Team Sky's Spanish rider Juan Antonio Flecha, who was hit by an overtaking France TV car during the Tour de France, has expressed his regret that the driver had not come to say sorry for causing the accident.

AURILLAC, France (VN) – The RadioShack team announced on Tuesday that Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych has left the Tour de France due to a fever.

AURILLAC, France (VN) – While many of the other favorites have lost skin and time to crashes — if not crashing out entirely — Leopard-Trek’s two-brother GC front is sitting pretty. Fränk and Andy Schleck are now fourth and fifth overall, just three and 11 seconds behind BMC’s Cadel Evans, the highest-placed GC contender.

The Schlecks and Contador ready to test the “rest day favorite” in the Pyrénées

AURILLAC, France (VN) — The French sports daily L'Equipe and the UCI are reporting that Russian cycling Alexander Kolobnev, a member of the Katusha team, tested positive for a banned diuretic during the first week of the Tour de France.

Editor's note: The following column appeared in the September 2005 issue of VeloNews magazine.

UCI press release on Alexander Kolobnev doping positive

VIC-SUR-CERE, France, July 11, 2011 (AFP) - Australian Cadel Evans has refused to discount Alberto Contador's bid for a fourth yellow jersey despite the Spaniard suffering from knee trouble going into key mountain stages.

LES-ANGLARDS-DE-SAINT-FLOUR, France (AFP) - Andy Schleck, runner-up to Alberto Contador for the past two years, was taking stock here Monday after a dramatic first week's racing in which he emerged unscathed from all the carnage that left many of his fancied Tour de France rivals battered and bruised.

LE LIORAN, France (AFP) - Germany's Andreas Kloden will continue the Tour de France despite suffering lower back injuries suffered in a spill on the crash-marred ninth stage, RadioShack said Monday.

LE LIORAN, France (AFP) - Reigning champion Alberto Contador is putting a brave face on a disappointing Tour de France campaign which has left him in a race against time to get fit for key stages in the Pyrenees.

Stages 1-7 are in the books for this year’s Tour de France. The riders who survived the opening day’s crashes are starting to feel the effects of the blistering fast racing with the mountain stages just over the horizon.

LE LIORAN, France (AFP) ─ The Astana team reported on Monday that an operation on Alexander Vinokourov's fractured femur was successful following his devastating crash at the Tour de France the day before.