Stage 11 - Another Win For Cav

Mark Cavendish may have got off to a rocky start in the Tour this year, but he certainly seems to have come good now, as he just bagged stage win number 3 of the race and number 13 of his career. The lad is still young, so chances are there are plenty more victories to come before he hangs up his wheels.

There was some contact of the head-butting variety between Cav's lead-out man Mark Renshaw and Juilan Dean from Garmin, during the dash to the line - forcing Cav to go for a long one, and resulting in Renshaw being chucked off the race.



The Green Jersey changed shoulders today, as Petacchi's 2nd place was enough to put him 4 points ahead of Thor Hushovd, while Cav moves up to 4th spot. It should be a close run thing to see who gets the jersey, and it could all go down to the sprint in Paris - which Cav should win, even without Renshaw.

There's not much else to tell you about today's stage, all the GC favourites finished together and were happy enough to take it easy. In fact, unless you enjoy watching the early break working away for ages, and then getting caught, there wasn't really any point in watching anything other than the last 10km or so.

The most exciting thing I saw today happened in real-life right before my very eyes. Some dude's car caught fire just outside the shop.

The Fox News helicopter was circling overhead as the smoke rose, and eventually the the Fire Department turned up and put it out.

I caught the news tonight and it seems the "fire outside the bike shop" story didn't quite make the cut. I think they story about the guy stealing the monster truck must have just edged it out. They did show some head-butting from the Tour though. Who said the Tour never gets any mainstream coverage in the US unless Lance is involved? Anyway, dude's car is fucked. No great loss, it was an ugly car anyway.

Stage 11 scores don't seem to be in just yet. I think we can just say, if you have Cav in your team then you did pretty well. If you have Thor Hushovd, then you didn't do quite so well.

Stage 12 sees the return of the hills...... not big mountains mind, but enough to spoil the sprinters chances. It's a long stage too at over 200km. Maybe a day for a plucky breakaway of strong riders to make it to the finish ahead of a resting bunch. Then again, that uphill finish may see the likes of Schleck and Contador try to get a few seconds over one another.