FTDF Stage 1 - Gilbert wins Gallop: Beans on Most

It was just the other day that I was telling you, that crossing the Passage Du Gois shouldn't pose much of a hazard, as the race would be neutralised.  I guess Andre Geipel wasn't listening though, as he took the honor of the first crash of the race when he went down before they'd even had the official start.

Once the race actually started, we had a 3-man break get away for some early TV coverage.

And then the bunch reeled them in with 18 km to go. All pretty much as you'd expect for the opening week of the Tour. Another thing you can expect is a crash or two. There was a big one with about 9km to go. Although he didn't go down, Alberto Contador got caught the wrong side of the split and ended up losing 90 seconds or so on most of his rivals.

Up at the front of the race Cancellara had a tried a crafty dash for the line. But there was no stopping the man everyone was tipping, and Philippe Gilbert won comfortably ahead of Cadel Evans.

So let's have a look at who's on the Bile Beans this year. They are healthy, bright-eyed and slim I'm sure you'll agree.

There were five Bile Beans in the top six today, so there were some big smiles in the team bus after the finish.

Now the race has started, the Velogames scores are in, and you can all have a look at those rival teams. My super-lucky picks have earned me top spot in the Tour de Pance mini league for the moment, not to mention second overall on the main leaderboard out of all 11,175 teams. Not bad I reckon. It will all be downhill from here I'm sure.

There's too many teams in the league to do my normal cut&paste job, so you'll have to look on the Velogames site to see where you came.

On to tomorrow then, and the spectacle that is the team time trial. Gilbert only has a few seconds lead and his Omega Pharma team is likely to lose enough time for him to be out of yellow. Especially after all the work they did chasing down that break today. It's only 23km long and pan-flat though, so unless someone has some bad luck, the time differences shouldn't be too big.

There's several teams who want the win....... Sky, Garmin, HTC and Radioshat all spring to mind. I wouldn't be surprised if Rabobank did well either. Contador's Saxo team is looking a bit weak and he may lose more time to those Schlecks, who will have Cancellara to drag them round the course.