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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.

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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.

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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.

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

Training logs are useful tools to learn from past experiences and maximize your potential as a cyclist. The complexity of your training log will vary based on the technology you use to gauge and guide your training and the amount of analysis you wish to perform for each workout.

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.

In a Tour de France rest day announcement, the Quick Step team on Monday said it has signed Belgian Kevin De Weert for the next two seasons, with an option for one after that.

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.

Team Sky's Michael Barry is working with Toronto artist Noah Rosen and Pinarello to auction a custom-painted Pinarello to benefit the Right to Play charity.

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.

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It’s exceptional to have so many leading riders eliminated from the yellow-jersey stakes before reaching the first true mountain stages. But it’s not unknown for potential winners and contenders to crash out of the race in incidents like those on Sunday.

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Stage 9 will almost certainly be remembered as one of the Tour’s most bizarre and gut-wrenching.

Alexander Vinokourov and Jurgen Van den Broeck crash out of the 2011 Tour de France.

A mid-race crash helps Thomas Voeckler (Europcar) gain the yellow jersey, Chris Horner leaves the hospital for Mickey D's, and Tejay Van Garderen is the second American to lead the mountains competition.

Cadel Evans, BMC’s hope for Tour de France overall victory, is happy to have this week behind him after watching more than 18 riders drop out of the race, most with serious injuries.

Furious Tour de France organizers threw a television car off the race for striking Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil) and Juan Antonio Flecha (Sky) during a crash-marred ninth stage.

Two stage wins, seven days in yellow, one rider in an ambulance and a lot of torn clothing. In nine days, Garmin-Cervélo has experienced the highs and lows of the rollercoaster that is the Tour de France.

Ben Delaney and Andrew Hood discuss what they say has become the Tour of the Last Man Standing after a crash-filled ninth stage.

Graham Watson was on the job during Sunday's crash-filled ninth stage of the 2011 Tour.

Alberto Contador wound up on the deck in stage 9 after getting tangled up with Vladimir Karpets.

• 1. Luis-Leon Sanchez, Rabobank Cycling Team, 5h 27' 09"
• 2. Thomas Voeckler, Team Europcar, at 00:05
• 3. Sandy Casar, Fdj, at 00:13
• 4. Philippe Gilbert, Omega Pharma - Lotto, at 03:59
• 5. Peter Velits, Htc - Highroad, at 03:59

Crashes once again played a decisive role as Thomas Voeckler took the yellow jersey in stage 9 of the 2011 Tour de France on Sunday.

Breakfast with Bernie: Stage 9

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Even if you weren’t one of the 10 riders who abandoned in the first week of this Tour de France, the cuts and bruises sustained in the repeated pileups and crashes continue to hamper many of the 188 survivors.

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Check out CyclingTips's author page.

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Casey B. Gibson trains his lenses on the Tour's first foray into the Massif Central.

Tejay Van Garderen (HTC-Highroad) lit up the roads of France with a thrilling ride in Saturday's eighth stage that confirmed his status as a future grand-tour rider, and the team bosses couldn't be happier with the young rider's performance.

Ben Delaney and Andrew Hood break down the first of two days in the Massif Central.

Sunday’s stage 9 from Issoire to St. Flour is both lengthy (208km) and difficult – with five substantial climbs within 55km of one another. Don’t look for any high-profile GC changes to occur, however, as Contador, Schleck and Evans have again agreed to complete the stage on a three-seat tandem bike.

Ben Delaney chats with Bernie Eisel about how he got into cycling and the joys of the gruppetto.

The first week of the 2011 Tour de France has already been one giant rollercoaster of a ride. With the first chapter of the Tour closing in Chateauroux Friday, and the second chapter beginning in the Massif Central Saturday, we thought it appropriate to take a quick look back. And besides, who doesn’t love a good top-10 list?

SUPER-BESSE, France (VN) ─ Veteran American cyclist Christian Vande Velde knows well what a rollercoaster of luck and fitness the Tour de France can be. He finished fourth overall in the 2008 Tour, 11th in the 2009 Tour and crashed out of the 2010 competition with broken ribs. Well before that, he twice rode on U.S. Postal Service squads that deliver Lance Armstrong to overall victory.

SUPER-BESSE, France (VN) ─ Andreas Klöden is RadioShack's last man standing.