Tour de France 2025

“I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!”— Captain Renault in “Casablanca,” shortly before a coupier presents him with his winnings.

While the news media were massed around the pale yellow Saunier Duval team bus in Lavelanet Thursday just as stage 12 was setting out farther down the street, Philippe Brunel stood back from the crowd watching the spectacle. I felt sorry for him. As an award-winning French sportswriter — he’s the principal cycling reporter for L’Équipe, the major French sports newspaper — Brunel looked to be in a quandary.

Riccardo Riccò's departure from the Tour de France produced a stack of emails and letters to the editor. Here is a sampling: Zero Tolerance Editor, This little gem was in your one of your Ricardo "Vegetable" Ricco articles: "While teams like CSC, Columbia, Garmin-Chipotle and Astana have financed independent blood-monitoring programs, some question whether that “new cycling” will ever occur until doping in sport is criminalized internationally, as it is in France, and the risks outweigh the incentives."

Riccardo Riccò always wanted to be like his hero, Marco Pantani. The self-styled "Cobra" got his wish Thursday and made a Pantani-esque implosion as two French gendarmes hauled him away after he failed a doping control from stage four at the Tour de France. In a scene that was an eerie replay of Pantani’s exclusion from the 1999 Giro d’Italia for testing for high hematocrit levels, Riccò made his own forced exit Thursday that could have equally grim consequences.

Australia's Cadel Evans has called on cycling's detractors to take a long hard look at what is being done in the sport to clean up its image. For the second consecutive day the Tour de France was rocked by controversy following the news that Italian climber Riccardo Ricco had become the third rider to test positive for the banned blood booster EPO (erythropoietin). Ricco won two climbing stages last week, becoming one of the most followed riders in the Pyrenees where he left many established climbers — including Evans — in his wake with his lightning fast accelerations.

Tour de France organizers ASO may be regretting the choice of music played after the peloton rolled out of Lavelanet at the start of stage 12 Thursday. Only 45 minutes after the news of Ricardo Riccò’s positive test for red-blood cell booster CERA rocked the start village, the public address system blared Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” — fitting perhaps as the swansong for a defiant young rider who rocketed into the spotlight while simultaneously thumbing his nose at the sport’s establishment.

Stage 12, Lavelanet to Narbonne, 168.5km Weather: Cloudy at start, sunny at finish, strong westerly winds up to 45kph, highs in 80s Stage winner: Mark Cavendish (Team Columbia) had enough spring in his legs after making it over the Pyrénées last weekend to win his third stage of this year’s Tour, becoming the first British rider to win three stages in the Tour. Sébastian Chavanel (FDJeux) made a late charge that fell short while Gert Steegmans (Quick Step) made a long sprint to hang on to third. A three-man breakaway was caught with nine kilometers to go.

French anti-doping authorities and Saunier Duval team officials confirmed Thursday that Italian climbing sensation Ricardo Riccò (Saunier Duval) has tested positive for a new form of the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO). Informed of the positive just an hour before the start of Thursday’s 12th stage of the Tour de France, Riccò was taken by gendarmes to a local police station for questioning. Within minutes of Riccò’s departure, his entire team voluntarily withdrew from the Tour.

With the Pyrénées in the rearview mirror, the riders in the 95th Tour de France can now look forward to three less nervous stages across the South of France, where the main obstacle to overcome will be the heat. Temperatures will be in the upper-80s by the end of Thursday’s stage 12 in Narbonne, and somewhat warmer the following two days.

Stage 11, Lannemezan to Foix, 167.5km Weather Warmer, with moderate northerly winds, highs in the upper 80s Stage winner Kurt-Asle Arvesen (CSC-Saxo Bank) shot away with under 3km to go and stabbed his bike across the line to win in a photo-finish ahead of Martin Elmiger (Ag2r-La Mondiale) in a four-up sprint. After winning two Giro stages, it’s the first Tour victory for the Norwegian national champion.

After a quality day of rest in Pau, complete with Chipotle burritos, it was straight back into racing today from the second the gun went off. With big time gaps now in place there are a lot of guys no longer a threat on GC and the chances of breakaways making it to the finish are far higher than in the first week. Garmin's strategy has now shifted a bit, moving from being aggressive wild cards to now sitting in the position of protecting an overall contender.

World cycling chief Pat McQuaid has called on the Spanish authorities to increase their efforts in the fight against doping after the latest doping affair at the Tour de France. Moises Duenas of the Barloworld team became the second Spaniard to leave the race under a cloud Wednesday after being told he had tested positive for the banned blood booster erythropoietin (EPO). Fellow Spaniard Manuel Beltran, of Liquigas, was suspended by his team last week after he also tested positive for EPO.

Don’t Touch His Shoulder: Cadel Evans might be a charming bloke away from the TV cameras, but it’s quickly becoming obvious that he doesn’t particularly enjoy the media duties that come along with the maillot jaune. The Australian is finding time for the media. He patiently answered nearly an hour’s worth of questions on a rest-day press conference Tuesday and worked the line in post-stage comments from TV and radio behind the podium. It seems, however, that Evans is losing his patience with the growing horde.

Christian Vande Velde stepped out of the Garmin-Chipotle team bus Wednesday morning in Lannemazen to find a good-sized media scrum waiting to speak with him. The fact that a dozen scribes and a few TV camera crews wanted to learn more about the American sitting third place overall revealed just how far Vande Velde’s stock has risen midway through the 2008 Tour de France. “I surprised myself a little bit on Hautacam the other day,” Vande Velde said. “But it’s everything I’ve worked for, so every day it’s becoming less and less of a surprise.”

Barloworld’s Moises Duenas has been pulled from the Tour de France after a urine sample provided after stage 4 showed signs of the blood booster erythropoietin. Police later found banned substances in Duenas' hotel room, according to a statement on the Barloworld Web site. The Spaniard was in 19th place in the overall standings, 6:43 behind overall leader Cadel Evans, following Monday’s stage to Hautacam. The team was informed of the positive test by the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) on Wednesday morning and Duenas was immediately suspended from the team.

If Mavic sold the pro-only version of the R-SYS, which popped up at this year’s Tour, it would have been a winner from the beginning.

There’s a “down home” quality to Cadel Evans that was emphasized by his rest-day get-together with the media on Tuesday. It was certainly not a rest-day event in the style of a Lance Armstrong, whose Tour de France press conferences were all business, much in the style of Armstrong himself.

Burning KohlBernhard Kohl is a man on the rise. The 26-year-old Austrian climber surged away at the base of Hautacam and rode straight into contention for the Tour de France. Kohl entered Monday’s stage quietly poised in 13th overall at 2:03 back. Many weren’t paying attention to him, but all that changed on the twisting climb when he bolted away from the Cadel Evans-Denis Menchov group. He crossed the line fourth in the stage at 1:06 back and bounced into fourth overall at 46 seconds behind Evans.

Seventeen of the world's top cycling teams said on Tuesday they would not be seeking ProTour licenses for 2009, according to a statement released at Pau during the first rest day of the Tour de France. The UCI launched the ProTour in 2004 in a bid to revamp the cycling calendar and have the best teams riding in the best races. However, since then the series has met with resistance on several fronts.

Unpredictable. That’s just what the Tour de France wanted when it designed a wild route this year without time bonuses, shorter time trials and no prologue. Ten days into the race, Tour officials must be very happy. The first half of the 2008 Tour has delivered just the kind of sparks and wide-open racing they were hoping for. Five riders have already worn the yellow jersey. Following the first individual time trial and two mountain stages across the Pyrénées, the top 5 is separated by less than one minute, a number almost unconceivable so deep into the race.

Editor’s note:We’ve been doing Live Updates of Tour de France stages for 14 years now, and for many of those years the same cranky old character – Live Update Guy – has kept you abreast of events on the road. When the action hits a lull, the Live Update Guy – or “LUG,” as we like to call him – kills time with limerick and haiku contests, “where are you from" contests and answering readers' questions. Today's a rest day, but we thought we would wake the old LUG up to answer a few of the most common questions we get.

CSC has promised a repeat of the collective power that virtually eliminated Caisse d’Epargne’s Alejandro Valverde from contention once the Tour de France hits the Alps this weekend. But this time, it is Australian Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) and Denis Menchov (Rabobank) who will be in their sights. Evans took the race lead by a second over CSC's Frank Schleck after Monday's thrilling day of racing in the high mountains of the Pyrenees.

Australian rider Cadel Evans' tenuous grip on the yellow jersey is likely to be undone because of the "weakness" of his Silence-Lotto team, according to Spaniard Alejandro Valverde. The Caisse d’Epargne rider virtually dropped out of the running for the overall victory in the Tour de France on the 10th stage from Pau to Hautacam on Monday, when Evans took the race lead by a second from Luxembourg's Frank Schleck of Team CSC.

When Phil Anderson became the first rider from the Southern Hemisphere to wear the yellow jersey at the Tour de France back in 1981, the French called him “Le Kangourou” simply because he’s Australian. Almost three decades later, this Tour’s new maillot jaune, Cadel Evans, might well be named the “Boxing Kangaroo” after the courageous way he picked himself off the canvas Sunday and came back Monday to fend off his closest opponents and take the overall lead.

Stage 10, Pau to Hautacam, 156km Weather Partly cloudy, moderate northerly winds, highs in 60s Stage winner Leonardo Piepoli (Saunier Duval-Scott) surged away with 7km to go up the Hautacam along with teammate Juan Cobo and Frank Schleck (CSC-Saxo Bank). Schleck faded with about 2km to go and Piepoli slipped in ahead of Cobo to win his first career Tour stage to complete his grand tour sweep to go along with Vuelta and Giro stages. It’s the third stage win for Saunier Duval in a week.

01:01 PM: Happy Bastille day and welcometo VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the 10th stage of the Tour de France, a 156-kilometer race from Pau to the summit finish at Hautacam.

Christian Vande Velde had reason to smile following Monday’s summit finish up Hautacam. The Garmin-Chipotle captain remains within striking distance of the yellow jersey in third at just 38 seconds back. Vande Velde, however, believes his day could have turned out even better and quietly cursed a missed opportunity to make more of his great form. The 31-year-old Vande Velde rode impressively up the day’s hors categorie steeps to finish 10th at 2:17 in the five-man group that included new leader Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto) and arch-rival Denis Menchov (Rabobank).

The paint job on Erik Zabel’s Colnago was originally used 25 years ago, but even that classic look can not hide the new form beneath it. Zabel debuted Colnago’s new EPS (Extreme Power Special) frame at this year’s and is the only rider using in the peloton.

On a day when race leader Kim Kirchen of Team Columbia admitted he was suffering, and third-placed Stefan Schumacher of Gerolsteiner was dropped on the final climb, Garmin-Chipotle’s Christian Vande Velde rode as strongly as he has ever since the start of this 95th Tour de France — and he moved up to third place on GC. It’s already been a remarkable performance by the Chicago native, whose best previous Tour rides were 25th last year and 24th in 2006 when he was riding as a team player for CSC.

Not to minimize Stefan Schumacher’s surprising stage 4 time trial win, but the 2008 Tour de France saw its first truly amazing performance Sunday as Saunier Duval-Scott’s Ricardo Riccò rode away from the best riders in the world to take his second stage win in four days.

Schleck moving up Andy Schleck quietly slipped into the best young rider’s white jersey in Sunday’s preview in the Pyrénées. So far, the 22-year-old Luxembourger has been riding quietly under the radar. That could change in dramatic fashion in Monday’s summit finish to Hautacam. “I’ve never ridden up Hautacam but all these French climbs are new for me. I saw it on TV when Bjarne (Riis) won it in 1996,” Schleck said. “There’s been a lot of talk going on how strong the Schleck brothers are, but we’ll see in the next days how good we can be.”

Stage 9, Toulouse to Bagneres-de-Bigorre, 224km WeatherMostly cloudy, moderate westerly, northwesterly winds up to 15kph, temperatures in the 60s

After yesterday's stressful stage in the rain I woke up this morning feeling a bit groggy for the first time so far. Looking around at breakfast I wasn't the only one; I think there really is something about a day in the rain that wears on the body. As I walked upstairs from breakfast I got a call from a friend, quickly plural, still going strong on the town in Boulder. There was nothing better than some seriously entertaining drunken jibberish to lighten the mood and put a smile on my face — just in time to get kitted up and head down to the bus.

Sprinters who are capable of winning stages of the Tour de France rarely keep winning for long. They either burn themselves out (either mentally or physically) or soon lose the leg-speed that’s so essential for winning a highly charged field sprint at 40 mph. In view of the astounding finishing speed and dominant margins of victory shown by Team Columbia’s Mark Cavendish in his stage wins at Toulouse on Saturday (and in Châteauroux on Wednesday), I thought it was worth seeing where the 22-year-old Brit stacks up again great sprinters in recent Tour history.

Stage 8, Figeac to Toulouse, 172.5km Weather: Light rain in morning, turning to heavier showers in afternoon, temperatures in the 60s Stage winner: Mark Cavendish (Columbia) won his second stage of this Tour with a brilliant finishing kick to fend off such experienced sprinters as Oscar Freire (Rabobank) and Jimmy Casper (Agritubel). The “Cannonball” finished off great work by Columbia, with teammate Gerard Ciolek coming across the line second ahead of third-place Casper.

WHAT MAKES CAV SO FAST? It looks like Mark Cavendish was born to win. Despite losing the wheel of his lead-out man Gerard Ciolek after riding cautiously through the final bend with just over one kilometer to go to avoid crashing on wet roads, Great Britain’s “Cannonball” was still able to blast across the line with apparent ease to win for the second time in a week. At 23, Cavendish is using his raw finishing speed and tenacious personality to make up for any lack of experience he might have in what is his third grand tour start.

CSC-Saxo Bank’s national Luxembourg champion Frank Schleck dismissed statements made by race leader Kim Kirchen Friday that there was no love lost between the compatriots. Following Friday’s difficult stage, which saw the CSC team of brothers Frank and Andy Schleck set a high tempo that nearly shattered Kirchen’s Columbia team, the race leader insinuated that the tactic had, at least in part, intended to shed the first Luxembourgian maillot jaune in 50 years.

One week. That’s all it took before a doping scandal erupted on the 2008 Tour de France. Photos of Spanish veteran Manuel “Triki” Beltrán doing a perp walk as French police hauled him away in handcuffs from the Liquigas team hotel Friday evening pushed the Tour back into the type of headlines the race is trying to avoid. Perhaps it was appropriate that clouds and rain greeted riders in Figeac before the start of the eighth stage as the pall of cycling’s troubled past reared its ugly head after a week of titillating racing seemingly pushed scandals off the headlines.

French police have taken Spaniard Manuel Beltran away for questioning in the wake of the first doping scandal to emerge at this year's Tour de France. Beltran, best known for helping Lance Armstrong to the last three of his seven Tour de France wins, tested positive for the blood booster erythropoietin (EPO) on the Tour's opening stage, according to top anti-doping officials on Friday.

The first skirmishes in the battle for the Tour de France yellow jersey left damage in their wake during the tumultuous seventh stage to here on Friday. But the biggest souvenir from the second day of climbing in the 'medium' mountain stages was the full exposure of the existing rivalry between three of Luxembourg's most talented bike riders. In one corner is Kim Kirchen, the Columbia team leader who has been wearing the yellow jersey since the end of Thursday's sixth stage.

After seven stages, the 2008 Tour de France is one-third over and starting to take shape, even with the Monday’s first high-mountain stage looming in the distance. Four of the first week’s six road stages have seen separation on the day’s final climb, with the race’s GC contenders coming to the fore to show their cards and limit their losses. And in an unusual twist, the race has seen only one field sprint, won by Columbia’s Mark Cavendish, and its first solo breakaway victory, won Friday by Caisse d’Epargne’s Luis-Leon Sanchez.

There are no easy days in this very different Tour de France. This was especially true on Friday when stage 7 was raced more like a one-day classic than a semi-mountain stage of the Tour. One man who knows a thing or two about the classics (and the Tour!), George Hincapie, had this to say about a stage where his Columbia was stretched to the limit in defending the yellow jersey of Kim Kirchen.

Stage 7, Brioude to Aurillac, 159km Weather: Sunny in morning, building clouds on climbs, cooler, late showers, strong cross and headwinds, highs in 60s. Stage winner: Luís León Sánchez (Caisse d’Epargne) worked into a four-man breakaway that was neutralized by a lead pack of GC favorites only to counter-attack to victory six seconds clear. He saluted to the heavens for his fallen brother, who died in a quad accident a few years ago, as he crossed the line winner of a Tour stage for the first time of his career.

Christian Vande Velde (Garmin-Chipotle) has been one of the revelations so far in the first week of the Tour de France. Through the first opening seven stages, Vande Velde has ridden with consistency and strength to slot into fourth overall at just 44 seconds out of the yellow jersey. After years in the service of others, Vande Velde is finally getting a crack at being a team leader, and he’s making the most of it. VeloNews spoke to Vande Velde ahead of Thursday’s stage to gauge his first week. Here are excerpts from the interview:

MILLAR TIME OVER David Millar officially gave up the chase for the yellow jersey after a give-all raid that ran out of air early in Thursday’s hilly course across Massif Central. Despite struggling up Super-Besse in Wednesday’s stage, the Garmin-Chipotle captain was still dreaming of the yellow jersey in one last, final shot. Milllar started the day fifth overall at 47 seconds arrears and worked into a promising five-man breakaway that also included German marauder Jens Voigt in the opening 50km.

“Phew! That’s not even one of my farts! I told you, I’ve got four farts. My Heineken fart, my broccoli fart, my rice-pudding fart and my dairy-creamer fart. And the fart I’m smellin’ right now is definitely not one of mine.”—the late, great George Carlin, from “Napalm and Silly Putty”

The agency charged with carrying out anti-doping controls at this year's Tour de France has played down a report that 10 riders are about to be issued warnings for "suspect" blood samples. A report in the French newspaper Le Monde on Friday suggested that the riders were being specifically targeted by the AFLD, France's national anti-doping agency, because of suspected doping. However a statement by the AFLD, later in the day, dismissed those claims as speculation.

Belgian-based frame builder Ridley has completed two new models in time for this year’s Tour de France with the goal of putting Silence-Lotto's top rider on the top step of the podium in Paris on July 27. Anyone can hope, of course, but Ridley has the technological chops to back it up. Aside from Team Columbia's prototype Giant, which we’ll look at in another piece, Ridley’s Dean and Noah are the big tech stories of this year’s Tour. And, unlike Columbia's new time-trial bike, both Ridley models are slated for 2009 production.

While the spectacular battle for stage 6 unfolded on the erratic climb to Super-Besse on Thursday, I was standing at the finish line next to Bob Stapleton, the owner-manager of Team Columbia. As we watched, we speculated whether his team leader Kim Kirchen could make up the 12 seconds by which he trailed Stefan Schumacher and take the yellow jersey. Right then, as Kirchen and the other race contenders were about to start their sprint for the line, Schumacher fell off his bike.

Britain's David Millar has all but given up hope of finally ending his eight-year wait to wear the Tour de France yellow jersey again. However, the Garmin team leader said his encouraging performance on the race's first foray into the hills on Thursday can now boost his second objective of a stage win at this year's race. Millar began the first medium mountain stage of the race, a 195.5km hilly ride from Aigurande to Super-Besse in the Massif Central, in third place overall at 12 seconds behind Stefan Schumacher of Germany.

12:57 PM: Good day and welcometo VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the sixth stage of the 95th edition of the Tour de France, a 195.5-kilometer ride from Aigurande to Super-Besse.

RICCO A LA PANTANI? Will Riccardo Riccò pull a page from the playbook of his childhood hero, Marco Pantani, and surprise everyone at this Tour de France? Riccò insists he’s here only for stage victories, but his impressive pop in Thursday’s stage could betray his public declarations.

Stage 6, Aigurande to Super-Besse, 195.5km Weather Partly sunny, warmer, highs in the 80s, light westerly wind

Sponsoring a bike team makes good business sense, especially if you’re Garmin and one of the largest companies in the fast-growing, highly competitive GPS market. Garmin unveiled its high-profile deal with Slipstream sports at the start of the 2008 Tour de France as the first step of a title sponsorship contract that continues through the 2010 season. VeloNews spoke with Jon Cassat, vice president of communications with Garmin, about the details of how the sponsorship deal came about and why the company decided to bet on cycling. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Today was the first stage in this year's race where we hit some hills. After traversing Brittany we're now down into the heart of France and the mountains of the Massif Centrale.

CSC is not a Shimano-sponsored team. Instead, it buys the Shimano components it uses. You might be surprised that a team like CSC pays for its drivetrain components, but there are multiple reasons why it pays. The primary reason is because of other sponsor obligations, namely to FSA. But it has always been the team’s practice to pick and choose the parts its director Bjarne Riis feels are the best. A byproduct of not being tied to a certain manufacturer’s parts is the ability to experiment.

The French fans finally saw a real sprint finish Wednesday — resulting in a superbly confident first Tour stage win for Team Columbia’s young Manxman Mark Cavendish — but his well-placed GC teammates, along with the other race favorites, are already looking ahead to the next three stages through the low mountains of the Massif Central. Besides heading into the hills Thursday, the riders will be racing into summer temperatures as the Tour now heads south before arriving in the Pyrenees on Sunday.

Sun and a screaming tailwind made for what was one of the easiest days on a bike this year. We'd all prepared mentally for a hour-plus head smashing today before the break would go clear, especially after the relatively quick launches the past few, but people once again seemed content to relax. Twenty minutes of flying down wide open roads and when a few guys got a small gap the field was quick to sit up, yells to chill all around. A few minutes slow, a huge "nature break" as they call it on the radio here, and we settled in for a long one.

Wednesday’s 232km stage from Cholet to Chatearoux might have been the fifth stage of this 2008 Tour de France, but in many respects it was a day of firsts. It was the first hot, sunny day of a Tour that began in the rain and cold winds of Brittany — weather that seemed to follow the peloton wherever it traveled. Stage 5 was the first day spent in the malliot jaune for Gerolsteiner’s Stefan Schumacher, an unlikely hero who seems as surprised as everyone else to find himself leading the world’s biggest bike race.

Stage 5, Cholet to Châteauroux, 232km Weather: Partly cloudy in the morning, warm and sunny in afternoon, moderate westerly breeze with 20kph, highs in the low 80s

Valverde scare: It looked innocuous on the medical report, just cuts and scrapes, but Alejandro Valverde’s Tour de France was nearly short-circuited Wednesday in a pileup. Valverde, 28, flipped over his handlebars and landed on the same collarbone he broke in the 2006 Tour when his front tire slipped on a small, cat-eye road reflector. It was too close for comfort for the stage-1 winner.

Photographer Casey Gibson has been given full access to shoot behind the scenes with the Garmin-Chipotle team at the Tour. He will share some of his best shots from the first four days.

This Tour de France couldn’t be going any better for Cadel Evans. In four days of racing he and his Silence-Lotto team have ridden conservatively, largely out of the spotlight — just like the modest Aussie wants it. He showed his form was coming along nicely on opening day, losing by just one second to the explosive Alejandro Valverde on the uphill finish at Plumelec. On stages 2 and 3, his team kept him near the front of the peloton all day, well away from the crashes that were all too common.

Garmin party: Garmin-Chipotle was in a good mood today. The riders raced with a yellow dossard because they stood atop the team GC while Will Frischkorn raced with a red background on his number after winning Monday’s most aggressive rider’s prize. Frischkorn said he felt Monday’s effort in his legs, but admitted he didn’t go too hard in Tuesday’s TT.

Stage 4, Cholet-Cholet, 29.5km (individual time trial) Weather: Mostly sunny, with building clouds in afternoon, no rain. Strong SW winds up to 35kph, highs in upper 60s Stage winner:

While Gerolsteiner’s Stefan Schumacher scored an impressive ? and surprising ? win in Tuesday’s 29.5km individual time trial in Cholet, he’s still not ranked among the favorites to wear the yellow jersey in Paris on July 27.

Germany's Stefan Schumacher pulled on the Tour de France yellow jersey here Tuesday, and was then forced to defend himself quickly over a positive test for amphetamines last year and explain why he was invited to race the Tour, while Tom Boonen was not. Schumacher, who denies taking the stimulant, tested positive after a police stop while returning from a disco. The incident reminds some of Boonen's out-of-competition positive test for cocaine this spring, which resulted in Boonen being denied a Tour start.

05:35 AM: Tune in Tuesday morning at 8:00 a.m. EDTfor live coverage of stage 4 02:06 PM: Good day and welcometo VeloNews.com's Live Coverage of the fourth stage of the 95th edition of the Tour de France, a 29.5km individual time trial in Cholet.

You’ve already seen the new Bell Volt helmet, even if you didn’t recognize it as new. Thor Hushovd put the Volt in the spotlight of victory at the end of Sunday’s stage two. The new model will slot in as the top road and cross-country race helmet from Bell.

Oh so close. Garmin Chipotle’s Will Frischkorn, out ahead of the peloton in a four-man breakaway from the first 10 kilometers of the Tour’s third stage from Saint-Malo to Nantes, came within a wheel’s length of winning a stage in his first grand tour. Not a bad ride for a rider who only learned he was heading to the Tour de France a week before the start, on a team that earned a wildcard invitation to the world’s biggest bike race.

When I was an amateur racer in Brittany a few decades ago, one event I did was the local classic, Nantes-St. Nazaire. We raced on some of the same flat roads that the Tour de France peloton covered Monday; and the weather was similar: heavy rain showers and a strong southwest wind. Although I usually enjoyed racing in the rain, that classic was the first time I encountered fast-moving echelons, angled into the wind. It was all I could do to grovel in the gutter, trying to hang on to the thin line of riders stuck at the back. It’s not a pleasant memory.

Stage 3, Saint Malo to Nantes, 208km Weather Intermittent showers, southwesterly winds, gusts up to 60kph, highs in 60s Stage winner Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) won out of the winning four-man breakaway featuring American Will Frischkorn (Garmin-Chipotle), the Tour’s first winning break this year. The diminutive Dumoulin, one of the smallest riders in the peloton, played it perfectly in the final 1.5km. Tour-rookie Frischkorn came within a wheel length of victory as Dumoulin became the first French winner of the 95th Tour. (5h05:27 at 40.857kph)

Yellow jersey hopeful Alejandro Valverde willingly gave up the Tour de France lead on Tuesday, but admitted he had raced the hectic third stage with more of an eye on the crucial fourth stage.

Rabobank’s Denis Menchov became the of the Tour de France's top yellow jersey contenders to lose a significant amount of time Monday when he got caught napping in a hectic run to the finish of a 208km stage. Menchov, a two-time Vuelta a España winner, found himself in a group that had been left trailing by some furious accelerations at the front of the peloton and a mid-field crash as sprinters’ teams ramped up an ultimately futile pursuit of a four-man break.

BADGER STILL BITES: Don’t say the Bernard Hinault has lost any of his punch with old age. Just as Samuel Dumoulin was stepping atop the podium to accept his prize as the day’s winner, a protester dressed in a neon yellow vest jumped in front of the pint-sized Dumoulin and raised his arms in defiance. Hinault — who works with the Tour organization and appears daily on the podium to present the day’s awards — quickly sprung into action and shoved the hapless protester off the front of the stage. Tour goons swarmed and shuttled him out of the way.

There is what’s best theoretically, and then what’s best in practical application. As applies to time trial aerodynamics, riders and engineers are always struggling to balance the very best position and design with what’s realistic out on the road. This year, Specialized tweaked the design of its TT3 helmet to better match how its sponsored riders like Cadel Evans actually ride.[nid:79530]