Watching the telecast last night, I wasn't sure whether I was looking at a replay of Stage 5 or not: early breakaway of three, trundling peloton, late-ish catch mainly orchestrated by HTC-Columbia, disorganised run into the line, and a Mark Cavendish victory courtesy of Mark Renshaw savy. But then, the fact that it was Stage 6 was confirmed - Cav. wasn't having a snivel on the podium! Not that I begrudge him after the Stage 5 win - but a weep-peat could've been on the cards.
So, Stage 6 from Montargis to Gueugnon was on the menu - a rolling journey of 227.5km with four Cat 4 climbs in the mix, the last two being towards the end of the stage, and the last (Croix de l'Arbe), being situated only some 23km before the finish, perhaps a chance for a few to try and sneak off.
Another early breakaway, this time featuring Mathieu Perget (Caisse d'Epargne), Sebastian Lang (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Spanish rider Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi). As per yesterday, the breakaway motored early on, and the peloton allowed the gap to build to over 8 minutes within the relatively short distance of 23 km. Once again, Saxo Bank took up the early running to whittle the lead down, with Stuart O'Grady and Nicki Sorensen prominent in the task to protect Fabian Cancellara's yellow jersey.
With around 100km to go, the roles then switched to the sprint teams to make the capture, and HTC-Columbia predictably took up the running from there. After a power of work on the previous 2 days, Konstantin Siutsou of HTC-Columbia was given a deserved rest, and Bert Grabsch and Maxime Monfort were tasked with the chase, which they duly carried out with metronome-efficient precision.
Approaching the last climb of the day, the Croix de l'Arbe, the gap was down to a minute and on the climb, Dmitri Champion (Ag2R-La Mondiale) and Anthony Charteau (BBox Bouygues Telecom) decided to have a little dig, skipping away from the peloton and soon reeling in Perez and Lang. Perget had also tried a little move on his own on the downhill, and had scooted away to a slender lead but with the chasing pack growing to four, he too was soon brought back into the fold.
The lead pack's days were very much numbered as a variety of teams came to the front to up the pace and make the catch, including at various points, the GC contenders teams of Radio Shack, Astana, and BMC. It was decidedly strange to see the likes of Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador, and George Hincapie shadowed by Cadel Evans actually on the point of the arrow! Maybe it was in fulfillment of some contractual obligation e.g.
...clause 6, paragraph 5, sub-paragraph 3: Team (insert team name here), hereinafter know as "The Team", will agree to provide verified TV exposure featuring one or more Riders, hereinafter known as "Indentured Slaves", of "The Team" leading the 2010 Tour De France (hereinafter know as "The Tour") for a guaranteed minimum designated period of not less than 5 seconds and a maximum designated period of n-1 seconds (where 'n' is the total elapsed time in seconds of "The Tour" at any given point during "The Tour") by the conclusion of Stage 6 of "The Tour".
I've been wrong before but...
Still, these were mere cameos, and with the chief sprint teams taking up the running, the lead pack of 5 was well caught with around 10 km to go.
Following the pattern of the sprint stages at this year's Tour, the likes of Garmin-Transitions, Lampre-Farnese Vini and Cervélo Test Team all took turns to try and disrupt the HTC-Columbia train, and again, it was partially successful, with HTC arriving at the flamme rouge with only Mark Renshaw and Mark Cavendish in attendance, and Garmin-Transitions looking fairly well setup with Julian Dean and Robbie Hunter towing Tyler Farrar, with the usual suspects of Petacchi, McEwen, Ciolek, Turgot, Boasson Hagen and Hushovd thereabouts.
The Garmin-Transitions three lead thru' the final right-hander into the long 750 meter finishing straight, but it proved indeed to be the finish of them as well as the other contenders as with 600 to go, Renshaw laid down a very strong run with Cav in tow, cleared out by 4 or 5 bike lengths, and released the Cav-meister who then lit the wick and accelerated away to his second win in as many days. Farrar blew home to a good second over a tiring Petacchi, with McEwen proving he likes 4th by acquiring it again (I think that's a three-peat of 4ths for him this tour). Points leader Hushovd faded somewhat back to 10th.
Another great sprint spectacle ending a fairly routine day, but good stuff nonetheless. After the sprint finish, probably the most excitement was a reported stoush between Spaniard Carlos Barredo (Quick Step) and Rui Costa (Caisse d'Epargne) of Portugal (Barredo armed himself with a wheel and bopped Costa on the helmet a few times post-race in apparent displeasure at Costa's manhandling of him in the sprint home, after which it descended into a little pugilism), and Robbie McEwen having a somewhat clueless TV camerman wander into him in the run-off area as he was still more-than-ambling along, with the resulting collision seeing Robbie make a cautionary visit to the hospital.
So, victory number two for Cav, and yet another round of drinks he owes to the HTC boys.
And now for the slopes, where the mountain goats and GCs come out to play!
Ride Safe!
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