Road Racing

Katusha's Sergei Ivanov won Saturday's stage 14, a mostly flat transition stage from Friday's day in the mountainous Verges region and Sunday's first day in the Alps. Ivanov attacked his 11 breakaway companions in the final 11 kilometers and used his time trial skills to roll away to an impressive win. His breakaway companion George Hincapie almost snagged the yellow jersey from Rinaldo Nocentini, finishing just five seconds too late to take the lead.[nid:95377]

Cav' in early break?

Astana won’t have its ace in the hole as it confronts the decisive final week of the 2009 Tour de France. With Levi Leipheimer’s early departure, the team will have to decide to go all in with either Lance Armstrong or Alberto Contador. There’s no more full house. The American was fourth overall at 39 seconds back, poised for a run at the Tour podium – and more – when he crashed out Thursday in a fluke late-race spill when he came in too hot into a left-hander and crashed, breaking a bone in his right wrist.

American Tyler Farrar is targeting the Tour de France 14th stage as he bids to beat British sprint king Mark Cavendish in a 'fair and square' speed battle. Cavendish has been the undisputed speed king with four wins so far but Farrar is one of the few riders to have beaten him this year when he won the third stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico in March. With the Tour de France moving into the Alps on Sunday, Saturday's rolling route from Colmar to Besancon could, if the sprinters' teams decide to chase down anticipated breakaways, end in a bunch finish.

Colin Cares and Amy Dombroski required fresh, clean stars-and-stripes jerseys Friday after taking the U23 crowns at the 2009 USA Cycling national mountain bike championships, held at SolVista resort in Granby, Colorado. Both riders crossed the line coated in layers of dirt and trail grime after suffering mid-race crashes. Cares even had a sizable rock wedged between the vents of his helmet. “I went down on the last lap — I just washed out on a loose corner,” said Cares, who hails from Boulder, Colorado. “The adrenaline kicked in. I got right back on my bike.”

The Italians are already making their mark on the 2009 Tour de France, with Rinaldo Nocentini enjoying his seventh day in yellow after defending it over the Vosges on Friday through the rain and cold. Incredibly, Nocentini is the first Italian in yellow since the 2000 Tour, when Alberto Elli wore the maillot jaune for a few days before the Pyrénées. Franco Pellizotti is another Italian making headway in Friday’s five-climb stage when he bounced passed Basque climber Egoi Martínez to claim the polka-dot climber’s jersey.

Photographer Casey B. Gibson finds that true fans come out for Tour, even on a miserably rainy day.

All week long, people watching the Tour de France on TV have been saying, “This Tour looks too easy. When are they gonna start racing?” Memories are short, and appearances are deceptive. A week ago, everyone was saying that the opening stages of this 96th Tour de France were the hardest in recent memory, and that the excitement level had been ratcheted up several notches by the return of Lance Armstrong. And speculation was high on how the upcoming fight for control of the Astana team between the Texan and his Spanish teammate Alberto Contador would pan out.

Heinrich Haussler rode the cold and rain all the way to Colmar to claim his first Tour stage victory of his career on Friday. The 25-year-old Cervélo TestTeam rider delivered his squad’s second stage win of this Tour and confirmed his status as one of the rising stars of the sport. Second at Milan-San Remo and Tour of Flanders this spring, Haussler proved that he’s a force to reckon with any time of year. Here’s what he had to say during the post-stage press conference Friday: How important is this victory for you?

Alberto Contador of Astana admitted Friday's cold and rain-hit 13th stage of the Tour de France had hindered his rivals' plans to claim back lost time. However Spain's 2007 champion and current race favorite warned that attacks are sure to come in the Alps. "It was a bad day for the weather today, but it was good from our point of view that no-one attacked us, because it made things more relaxed," said Contador, second overall at 06sec behind race Italian leader Rinaldo Nocentini.

Police have launched an investigation after two riders suffered light injuries when hit by shots fired from an airgun on the 13th stage of the Tour de France on Friday. New Zealander Julian Dean of Garmin-Slipstream and Spaniard Oscar Freire of Rabobank were hit with pellets near the 165km mark of the 200km stage in the hilly Vosges region. Freire, a three-time world road race champion, had to have a pellet removed from his leg by his team doctor after finishing the stage. "He's got a bit of bruising but he will be able to start on Saturday," said his team boss.

American Levi Leipheimer had successful surgery on his broken wrist Friday, but said he may not be able to compete in major events again this year. The 35-year-old American, who had been in fourth place, sustained the injury in a fall 2km from the finish line of Thursday's 12th stage of the Tour de France. He withdrew from the race Friday morning and had surgery later Friday. "The recovery can take a while. I'm afraid I will not be able to do big races any more this year, maybe only some US events,” he said in a team statement.

On a 200km stage, Heinrich Haussler (Cervélo TestTeam) was off the front for 195km. Most important, he was off the front at the very end of the day. Haussler went clear with six others just 5km into a rainy day that featured five categorized climbs. After 60km it was only he, Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) and Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi) off the front. After Perez Moreno was dropped on a climb, and Chavanel was dropped on a slippery descent, Haussler simply put his head down and went it alone.

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The overall classification for the top 10 in the Tour de France has not changed since last weekend’s stages in the Pyrenees. Monday was a rest day and stage 10 and 11 have been won in field sprints by Team Columbia-HTC’s Mark Cavendish. Team Saxo Bank’s Chris Anker Sorensen continues to ride well within his first Tour de France. He is recovering quickly and has been well within his comfort zone the last two stages. However, many others have been, as well, so we should expect some real fireworks as the Tour enters the Alpes in a few days.

Stage 10

A fast start, a late break and the escape holds in the 12th stage of the Tour de France. Photographer Casey Gibson was there.

Mark Cavendish’s victory in the uphill finish Wednesday at Saint-Fargeaux proved that the British sprinter’s isn’t a one-trick pony limited to the flats. Just like his surprise victory at Milan-San Remo revealed this spring, a leaner and stronger Cavendish revealed he can get over the hills and win when the stage goes uphill.

The climbs (and descents) in the low mountains of the Vosges of northeast France have often caused unexpected problems or opportunities for major Tour contenders. Bad crashes ended the winning hopes of Raymond Poulidor and Luis Ocaña during Tours of the 1960s, while Ivan Basso crashed out of his first Tour on a stage through these wooded peaks. On the other side of the coin, Eddy Merckx brilliantly used his first experience of the Vosges to leave all his opponents behind in a solo victory to the summit of the Ballon d’Alsace in 1969.

Levi Leipheimer is banged up after a late-stage crash in Thursday’s wild ride to Vittel, but he’s thankful that he wasn’t seriously injured ahead of the potentially explosive stage across the Vosges on Friday. The Astana rider – poised for the Tour podium in fourth place at 39 seconds back – crashed on a left-hander as the main pack swept into the finish line sprint nearly six minutes behind solo winner Nicki Sorensen (Saxo Bank).

The UCI, on Thursday reversed its controversial decision to ban race radios for Friday's stage 13. "To put an end to the controversy which is compromising the running of the Tour de France, the International Cycling Union Management Committee has decided not to repeat the experiment of a stage without radio communication on Friday 17th July," it said in a statement. Race radios were banned for the 10th stage of the race, a move which prompted 14 of the Tour's 20 teams to submit a petition in protest.

Saxo Bank's Nicki Sorensen emerged from a seven-man break to take a classic solo win on a perfect summer day in France Thursday. Sorensen was part of the group that formed about 70km into the 212km 12th stage from Tonnerre to Vittel, the last relatively flat day before the Tour returns to the mountains Friday. Sorensen attacked the breakaway with Agritubel's Sylvain Calzati with about 20k to go, and then attacked Calzati with 5k to go to cross the line with a 37-second gap over the rest of the break. [nid:95239]

After outfitting sponsored teams with new time trial helmets last week, Giro used the first mountain stages of this year’s Tour to unveil a new road helmet as well. Unlike the TT helmet, which has yet to be named, priced, or slated for release to the public, the new Giro Prolight is already in the pipeline for retailers this coming spring.

Giro Prolight – less is more

Close calls Well, two more sprint stages in the books and two more near misses. One second- and a third-place are certainly nice, but not quite the win we have been looking for. We're definitely getting our timing dialed for the bunch kicks, though. Julian has been amazing the last couple of days! It's going to click one of these days. The only bummer today was that both Christian and Ryder crashed. This was the third time Ryder has hit the deck! They say bad things come in threes though, so I guess he's gotten them all out of the way now.

While Mark Cavendish is getting all the glory of stage win after stage win at this 96th Tour de France, he always compliments his Columbia-HTC teammates, notably his lead-out man Mark Renshaw. But the Manxman, who looks like he’s on his way to at least six stage victories this year, also knows that he would never get the opportunity to use his explosive sprint if it weren’t for his less-heralded colleagues Bernhard Eisel of Austria and Bert Grabsch of Germany.

Mark Cavendish kicks it in the last 200 meters of a 192km stage to Saint Fargeau. Casey Gibson was there for the whole race, capturing images from another terrific day at the Tour de France.

With Columbia-HTC’s Mark Cavendish having won four of this year’s nine road stages, it would be easy to assume his sprint victories have come as easily as he makes it appear. However looks can be deceiving. On Wednesday the 24-year-old from the Isle of Man equaled his tally of Tour stage wins from last year’s Tour, and in doing so matched the record number of stage wins by a British rider; he also took back the green jersey from Cervélo’s Thor Hushovd.

Five-time Tour de France champion Bernard Hinault has never been one to hold his tongue. A month before the Tour started, the last French Tour winner lashed out at just about everyone in an infamous interview, lambasting riders and sport directors alike. VeloNews European correspondent Andrew Hood sat down with Hinault this week to get his assessment of how the race is shaping up midway through the 2009 Tour de France and the “Badger” was at his cantankerous best. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Dear readers, It’s Tour time and that means that for many of you, you’re first dose of VeloNews.com comes in the form of a visit to our Live Update page. As many of you know, we’ve switched formats since last year and that allows us to read many of your questions directly in our update editing tool. Over the course of the last 11 stages, we’ve had quite a few repeat questions pop up, so I thought I’d try to turn this edition of the Explainer into a sort of FAQ page for folks who stop in to check up on the Tour.

They said stage 11’s uphill finish would certainly shed Mark Cavendish, opening the door for someone else to win. They were wrong. With his trusty leadout Columbia-HTC train of George Hincapie and then Mark Renshaw setting him up at the front of the peloton, Cavendish jumped on the uphill sprint finish of stage 11 to take the win ahead of Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream) and Thor Hushovd (Cervélo TestTeam). The bunch finish came at the end of Wednesday’s flat 192km stage from Vatan to Saint-Fargeau, following an all-day two-man breakaway that was caught with 5km to go.

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Behind every great sprinter — or perhaps in front of — is a great lead-out man. Mario Cipollini had Giovanni Lombardi, Alessandro Petacchi had Marco Velo. Mark Cavendish, who is quickly establishing himself as the man to beat in the high-speed sprints, has found his man. Mark Renshaw, a 27-year-old Australian who joined the Columbia-HTC team this season, is the rider who delivers Cavendish to the line. Cavendish is quick to point out that the success is thanks to a team effort, but singled out Renshaw as the best in the business.

The Tour de France always showcases a wealth of new products. This year, we’ve seen helmets, shoes, saddles, pedals, and even a road frame or two. We’ll have a look at each over the course of the next few days.

Specialized Body Geometry S-Works road shoe

Editor's note: The Tour de France recently honored John Wilcockson for his remarkable 40 years of reporting. VeloNews.tv took the opportunity to salute him.

Sure, Bastille Day is the day France celebrates its Revolution, but it also marks the mid-point of this year's Tour. Casey Gibson was out on the road during Stage 10 and sees that the French know how to celebrate both.

The Saxo Bank team suffered a setback Tuesday when Norwegian road champion Kurt-Asle Arvesen was forced out of the race after suffering a broken collarbone in a heavy crash during the 10th stage. The 34-year-old Norwegian champion, who won the 11th stage on last year's Tour, fell after 87km trying to avoid a spectator who had fallen into the road. He finished the stage, but was obviously in great pain as he pedaled near the back of the peloton. Saxo Bank spokesman Bryan Nygaard confirmed the bad news.

The chance of a stage win is likely to tempt more than one of the peloton's more agile sprinters in the 11th stage of the Tour de France on Wednesday. However, the likes of Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and Thor Hushovd Cervélo TestTeam) would do well to study the profile of the undulating 192km ride from Vatan to Saint Fargeau, which gets tricky inside the last 50km before ending on a slight incline. With only two Category 4 climbs the stage should, in theory, finish in a bunch sprint — although only those who can finish fast on a slight incline, including Hushovd and Freire, need apply.

Mark Cavendish (Columbia-HTC) won a leisurely, radio-free 10th stage of Tour de France on Tuesday. It was Bastille Day, and a breakaway full of Frenchmen declared independence early on, but the home crowd would have no reason to celebrate the finale — with a little help from George Hincapie and Mark Renshaw, Cavendish won yet another drag race to the line ahead of green jersey Thor Hushovd (Cervélo TestTeam) and Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Slipstream).

Luxemburger Frank Schleck admitted he struggled to cope with media focusing on his younger brother Andy during the first days of the Tour de France, a report said Tuesday. The Schlecks both race for the Saxo Bank team (formerly CSC) which last year helped Spaniard Carlos Sastre win the race. Despite Frank's obvious talent, though, younger brother Andy is considered the team's best hope of triumphing this year having won the Tour's white jersey in 2008 for the top placed rider under 25.

A teams' protest over the banning of race radios for the 10th stage of the Tour de France failed to prompt any kind of protest before the start on Tuesday. Organizers, following agreement with the International Cycling Union (UCI), have banned the all-important race radios which allow team managers to talk to their riders throughout the race for two stages this year. Fourteen of the race's 20 teams launched a protest, however Tour organizers and the UCI have stood firm and so far refused offers of a compromise. The banning of race radios on stage 13, however, is still up in the air.

The concept of looking for allies with common goals in the tactical minefield of cycling's big stage races is not new, and can be a fruitful initiative for some. But Australian Cadel Evans has so far seen little evidence that he will be helped to beat the mighty Astana team of Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong by any of his fellow challengers for the Tour de France yellow jersey. Evans resumes racing on the 10th stage Tuesday a day after admitting he has his "work cut out" if he is to try and get back in contention for, never mind win, this year's race.

Defending Tour champion Carlos Sastre said Monday he would be choosing his moments carefully when the Tour de France moves up a gear next week in the Alps. "Astana are the strongest team in the race at the moment, and when it comes to the Alps next week it is up to us (rivals) to react to whatever they decide to do," Sastre said Monday on the race's first rest day. The deficits of Astana's direct rivals range from the 1:49 of Luxembourg's Andy Schleck, of Saxo Bank, to the 3:07 held by two-time runner-up Cadel Evans.

As the son of one of cycling's greats, Nicolas Roche knows he has plenty to live up to. And after a tough first nine stages of racing on his Tour de France debut, the France-born Irish national road race champion is not expecting the race to get any easier. Roche, the son of former Tour de France and Giro d'Italia champion Stephen, has spent the past few days in the unexpected position of battling to keep teammate Rinaldo Nocentini in the race's yellow jersey.

Lance Armstrong's impressive form on this year's Tour de France may have taken some people by surprise, but Saxo Bank leader Andy Schleck insisted Monday the American can win an eighth title. The 24-year-old Luxemburger is 1:49 behind Italian yellow jersey holder Rinaldo Nocentini. But Schleck says Armstrong, the seven-time champion who is participating for the first time since retiring in 2005, can win the Tour - and ominously for his rivals - is getting stronger.

Michael Rogers dropped his chain off the small chainring in the stage one time trial, not once, but twice, forcing him to dismount and put it back on. He was on a Scott Plasma3, as were all his teammates, and he was using a Shimano Dura Ace Di2 grouppo, the same as on all the team TT bikes. What went wrong? According to team mechanic Perry Moerman, a relatively last-minute equipment change, compounded by the nature of Di2 front shifting, conspired to cause the problem. Normally, Di2 is set up and programmed to shift perfectly between a 53- and a 39-tooth chainring.

While Alberto Contador was being grilled by a 250-strong media throng at the Novotel Limoges on Monday afternoon, a small group of six reporters sat around a table with Brad Wiggins at the Campanile hotel barely 500 meters away. And that’s how the lean, long Brit likes it: no pressure, having fun. You wouldn’t know he’s in fifth overall, the closest challenger to Contador’s (and Lance Armstrong’s) Astana team, and sitting only seven seconds behind fourth-placed Levi Leipheimer.

I love rest days! Nothing feels quite as luxurious as spending an entire day lying around doing nothing after nine days of racing. I have been trying to make the most (or maybe I should say the least) of my day off. A little spin in the morning to loosen up the legs and then a lot of time getting acquainted with my bed. I'm sure it's going to be game on from kilometer zero again tomorrow, so I need all the recovery I can get!

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Looking forward to the radio ban

Alberto Contador said Monday if the tables are turned in the Alps, he would not chase down an attacking Lance Armstrong in a solo move. The Spanish climber suggested he would adhere to the cycling code that says never chase down an attacking teammate on a summit finish, opening the door for the next round in the struggle for team leadership at the Astana squad. “If we arrive to a mountain stage and Lance attacks, I will not follow him,” Contador said when asked by VeloNews at a rest-day press conference. “There are other riders who have to chase him down.”

Yellow jersey contender Cadel Evans is clinging on to the hope that he will resurrect his Tour de France bid at the end of this week when the race heads back into the mountains. But Evans, who after nine of the race's 21 stages is three minutes behind main rivals Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, admits it will be hard to find a way around the mighty Astana team. "We had some bad luck in the team time time trial that has put me in a frustrating position in the general classification," said Evans on Monday on the race's rest day.

As the Tour de France wraps up its first week of racing on the lower slopes of the Pyrénées, it seems the racing action among the general classification favorites has been put on hold for a while. Stages 8 and 9 had similar scripts — allow a lead break of non-GC contenders to escape, race the major Category 1 climbs at a cautious pace, and limit all losses.

All the beers have been cheered and bloody scrapes Band-Aided for yet another installment of the Downieville Classic mountain bike race. The second and final stage of the Northern California testpiece went down Sunday afternoon as competitors took off at one-minute intervals to attack a plummeting 17-mile Super-D style course that climbed a mere 1,000 feet while descending 5,333 feet into the streets of Downieville, a quaint mining town one hour north of Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Foothills.

Columbia-HTC sport director Ralf Aldag is content with the opening week of the 2009 Tour de France. Two stage victories by Mark Cavendish and runs in the green and white jerseys bode well for the U.S.-registered team heading into the last two weeks of the race. The team took stock on Monday’s rest day as it prepares to head toward the Alps with all options on the table. While the team’s GC hopes have taken a blow, the team is quietly optimistic Kim Kirchen will find his best form in the decisive final week.

The ongoing debate over the use of radios between riders and team directors will take center stage at the Tour de France on Tuesday’s stage from Limoges to Issoudon. In response to the chorus of complaints that the rise of race radios has made the sport too predictable and formulaic, Tour organizers Amaury Sports Organisation asked the UCI management committee to agree to a directive banning radios on two stages, meaning virtual radio silence for both Tuesday and again on Friday's 200km route from Vittel to Colmar.

Spain's two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso is planning to create a cycling team headed by his compatriot Alberto Contador, the 2007 Tour de France winner, a Spanish newspaper reported on Monday. According to a report in the sports daily Marca, Alonso has already discussed the project with Contador. Contador, however, brushed off the story as speculative. "I only want to focus on the Tour de France, I will talk about my future after that," said the Astana team leader. "This is only a rumor and I have a contract with Astana for another year."

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There's always something going on at the Tour de France, even on days when the GC contenders call a truce, and none of it escapes the long lens of our man Casey B. Gibson.

Lance Armstrong conceded on French television Sunday that “there’s a little tension” between himself and Astana teammate Alberto Contador. The seven-time Tour champion sits in third overall, eight seconds behind Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r), who is not considered a yellow jersey contender. Contador, the 2007 champion, is in the runner-up spot at six seconds back. As their rivals look for ways to close deficits incurred in a thrilling first week, it seems the real battle for supremacy may be taking place in one team.

When the first phase of the 96th Tour de France ended on Sunday with a near 80-man field sprint (on a mountain stage!), we knew that the race leaders were already looking ahead to the final week. They all know that the stages in the Alps, followed by a time trial at Annecy and the penultimate day’s finish on Mont Ventoux, are going to decide this Tour’s outcome — and that the middle week between Monday’s rest day in Limoges and next Sunday’s stage 15 finish in Verbier, Switzerland, is just a period in which to tick things over.

Lance Armstrong on Sunday backed a protest by 15 of the 20 teams in this year’s Tour de France teams over plans to ban radio contact between riders and their team managers on two of next week's stages. Armstrong's Astana team is one of 15 to have signed the petition against radio silence for stages 10 and 13, which was submitted on Saturday; French outfit Cofidis added its riders’ signatures on Sunday. "I don't agree with it (the radio ban)," said seven-times Tour winner Armstrong.

Veteran sprinter Laura Van Gilder (Mellow Mushrooms) lit up the night at the fifth annual Iron Hill Twilight Criterium Saturday, taking the win and the lead in the USA Crits series. In the men's race at the Westchester, Pennsylvania, event, Luca Damiani (Colavita-Sutter Home) took a hard-fought victory from a field of hardcore sprinters. Tom Soladay (Team Mountain Khakis) took the lead in the men's USA CRITS overall standings.

Early break in the women's race

Pierrick Fedrigo (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) countered a late attack by fellow breakaway Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas) to win stage 9 of the 2009 Tour de France on Sunday. The two were the survivors of a 13-rider break that went clear early on in the 160.5km race from Saint Gaudens to Tarbes, which took in two of the most storied climbs of this part of France, the Category 1 Col d’Aspin and the hors categorie Col du Tourmalet.

Lance Armstrong believes six days of hard climbing will reveal whether he, or teammate Alberto Contador, will emerge as Astana's real yellow jersey contender in the Tour de France. Heading into stage 9 Sunday, seven-time champion Armstrong was only two seconds behind 2007 winner Contador in the race's overall classification. With another two teammates, Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden, in the top ten, Astana will be the team to beat when the race heads towards the Vosges and Alps mountains next week.

Day one of the legendary Downieville Classic Mountain Bike Race is in the record books with more than 800 riders having faced up to the grueling 29-mile point-to-point cross-country race – stage one of Downieville’s hotly contested All-Mountain World Championship. Giant's Adam Craig was the hot shot of the day as he casually destroyed the course record and took the All-Mountain pro men’s stage victory. Pedaling into the streets of Downieville in 1:52:04, Craig’s time bested reigning All-Mountain champion Ross Schnell’s record-setting 2008 performance by nearly five minutes.

This year’s Tour de France is laid out so strangely that even though two of the toughest Pyrenean climbs, the Aspin and Tourmalet, are included in Sunday’s stage 9 they will be virtually marginalized. That’s because from the top of the Tourmalet — the most difficult climb in the Tour’s first two weeks — to the finish in Tarbes is a yawningly long 70 kilometers. So any contenders who make a move on the hors-catégorie mountain and gain even as much as three minutes are sure to be caught — unless something extraordinary occurs.

Olympic pursuit king Bradley Wiggins has moved to end doubts surrounding his superb form on the Tour de France by insisting his performances are not drugs-related. The Garmin-Slipstream rider started and finished the eighth stage of the race Saturday in fifth place overall at 46 seconds behind overnight race leader Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r-La Mondiale), who is being trailed by Astana teammates Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong. As part of a team aiming to put Christian Vande Velde into race contention after his fifth place finish last year, Wiggins has so far stolen most of the

Cadel Evans just can’t catch a break in this Tour de France, even when he tries to break away. To the surprise of many, the two-time Tour runner-up went on a daring, potentially dangerous attack on the first climb up the Cat. 1 Port d’Envalira in the opening 23km of Saturday’s 176.5km eighth stage from Andorra to Saint-Girons. But instead of riding away from his rivals and bouncing back into contention, all he caught was grief.

After a brief foray into Spain and Andorra, the Tour de France has returned home. Photographer Casey Gibson was there for stage 8.

Top Tour de France teams will protest plans to ban radio contact between riders and their team managers on two of next week's stages. Johan Bruyneel, the team manager of Astana which includes yellow jersey favorites Alberto Contador, Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer, has described the decision as "unjustified and unacceptable". Astana is one of 14 teams who have already signed a petition against radio silence for stages 10 and 13 and will submit it later Saturday.

Stage 7 between Barcelona and Arcalis in Andorra was the first major test of the Tour de France, and would ultimately show who had arrived in Spain prepared to fight to the end in Paris. Even though there are still many more category 1 and hors category climbs to be raced in this year’s Tour, Arcalis was the first major obstacle.

As you probably know, I have never raced in the Tour de France, but I think it’s a safe bet to say Friday’s final Breck Epic stage is kind of like rolling into Paris along the Champs-Élysées after many hard days of racing.

Until reaching Barcelona and heading for the Pyrénées, the first six days of the Tour de France were held in hot weather. Road races in the heat present challenges for riders and staff in terms of hydration and electrolyte supplementation. But because “warming up” for the race usually happens in the first few kilometers, overheating isn’t a factor.

Caisse d'Epargne's Luis Leon Sanchez won Saturday's second day in the Pyrenees, a 176-km romp from Andora back into France for the start of the race's second week. Sanchez was part of a nearly day-long break that shook down to just four men rolling into Saint Girons. He smartly monitored a late attack by Ag2r's Vladimir Efimkin and benefited from Sandy Casar's too-early jump to take a solid win less than two minutes ahead of the main field.

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Alberto Contador just couldn’t help himself on the beyond-category steeps of the Arcalis summit high in the Pyrénées in Friday’s seventh stage. The 26-year-old is a natural born climber and, when he sees a road turn uphill, he’s going to do one thing: attack, even if that means attacking Astana teammate Lance Armstrong and defying team orders. “There were no instructions from the car (to attack),” said Astana team boss Johan Bruyneel. “We wanted to try to maintain our collective strength and wait for the attacks to come. Those attacks didn’t come.”

Just five teams are still in contention to deliver the winner of this excruciatingly tense 96th Tour de France. And these five do not include Ag2r-La Mondiale, the French team of the new race leader Rinaldo Nocentini. He was far from being the strongest man in Friday’s successful long-shot breakaway and he will certainly fall back into the ranks on Saturday.

After a spectacular morning start in downtown Barcelona, the Tour de France moved into the even more spectacular Pyrenees. Casey Gibson was there to follow all of the action

Two Tour de France rookies on opposite ends of their careers hogged the spotlight Friday in the Pyrénées. While the GC favorites marked each other up the Tour’s first of three summit finishes, Brice Feillu and Rinaldo Nocentini took full advantage of the opportunity. Feillu, 23, best-known as the younger brother of sprinter Romain Feillu, attacked out of a nine-man breakaway to win France’s second stage in three days while Nocentini, 31, an Italian roulleur familiar to American fans for his stage victory during this year’s Tour of California, snagged the yellow jersey.

It usually takes a highly-publicized doping scandal to bring Tour de France chief Christian Prudhomme to the brink of tears. But on Friday it was 24-year-old debutant Brice Feillu, giving the hosts their second stage victory of the race, who brought the emotions flooding out after an impressive ride to victory on the first day in the mountains. Feillu, a specialist climber who rides for Agritubel with his brother Romain, took his chance by attacking his small group of breakaway companions inside the final 6km of the 10.1km climb to Arcalis.

Agritubel’s Brice Feillu attacked his daylong breakaway companions to a stage win atop the hors catégorie Andorre Arcalis, as Astana’s Alberto Contador rocketed away from the main group to put time into his rivals for the overall. Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r), who joined Feillu in the day’s big breakaway, held on to finish in between Feillu and Contador to take the yellow jersey.

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