With the 'massacre of Madeleine' behind the Tour, the following two stages were transitional, and a chance for the long-break gamblers and sprint teams to come out to play.
First up, the 179 km stage from Chambery to Gap. With a few decent climbs in it - the nasty little Cat 1 Laffrey of 7km at 9%, the longer and more strategic Col de Nuyer at around 130 km into the stage, and the final bump of Le Fare-en-Champsaur starting at 158.5 in - the race was very much a chance for the glory hunters to set out on long breaks. It was also Bastille Day, so it was inevitable that one or more Frenchmen would have a dig at the show.
Strangely enough, after a significant 36 km long squabble over who exactly would be allowed into the break, there was no-one from France present: it looked like the putative "Let them eat cake" was back in vogue! The initial break of four comprised Mario Aerts (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Dries Devenyns (QuickStep), Sergio Paulinho (Radio Shack) and Caisse d'Epargne's Vasili Kiryienka. Perhaps understanding the enormity of the crime of not having a native of France in the picture, two of them decided to step up and bridge to that breakaway (now a fair way up the road): Maxime Bouet (AG2R-La Mondiale) and Pierre Rolland (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) set sail for the group and France's honour! After a hard slog of some 20 km - mission accomplished (although the effort eventually took it's toll on Bouet much further down the road).
From that point onward, the break initially continued to increase their lead considerably, and then held onto the gap, which had climbed to over 11 minutes with 110km traveled, for the rest of the day. With the peloton in cruise control, and the breakaway tight and non-combative, the action centered around the KOM battle back in the main peloton, with Jérôme Pineau (Quick Step) and Anthony Charteau (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) bopping it out over the Cote de Laffrey (the only climb of the day with any points on offer, with the breakaway negating the KOM struggle by sucking all other points available on the stage). In a spirited duel, Pineau took the line ahead of Charteau and broke the deadlock between them, inheriting the polka-dots by a single point.
After some game efforts to stay with the break (including some impressive re-gains after snapping the band on several climbs) Bouet finally cracked with 15 km to go, as first Aerts and then Devenyns tired to run away with a long solo. With both of these efforts failing, Paulinho decided to chance his arm and this time the push worked, with only Kiryienka able to push up and tag on. So, these two set off to the line with a re-grouped Aerts, Deveyns and Rolland trailing.
In the final run home, Kiriyienka (a track points racer of note) took the lead under the red kite and played track shadowing with Paulinho. Unfortunately for Kiriyienka he forgot one vital tactic - don't turn your head away from your opponent. As soon as he did, at the 150 m mark, Paulinho took of like the proverbial scalded cat, and Kiriyienka reacted late, as the Radio Shack rider gained enough of a gap to squeeze over the line a half-wheel ahead of the fast finishing Russian. I'm sure this will be a nightmare to haunt Kiriyienka for many a night: he was the faster sprinter but got foxed.
The chasing three pulled in around 1:30 later, and the main group some 14+ minutes in arrears, with Mark Cavendish winning the small-points sprint to the line over Petacchi and Hushovd, thus closing up the race for the Green.
Onto Stage 13 (how come they don't display the stage number upside down?), a 184.5 km jaunt from Sisteron to Bourg-les-Valence. The profile followed a long slow Cat 3 climb up Col de Cabre, at the 53 km mark, and then a gradual descent to the line at Bourg-les-Valence. So, a day engineered for the sprinters.
Thus ensued a day of fruitless toil for any breakaway as Anthony Geslin (Française des Jeux), Stephane Augé (Cofidis) and Jose-Alberto Benitez (Footon-Servetto) discovered. Whilst content to cruise, the peloton was never going to let the break gain a substantial distance. The maximum time achieved was 4:15 early into the race, and after that it was slowly whittled down until a very long way out from the line (84km) it was down to a minute, at which time the peloton kept the hapless prey dangling for fear of a too-early catch.
Even then, the final catch at 25 km posed some potential issues for the peloton, as it seemed to encourage the attempt at another getaway. However, Saxo Bank soon put payed to any such thoughts - with the final long run into home now into a potentially dangerous crosswind, the usual suspects of Cancellara, Voigt et al ramped up the pace at the front to seriously high levels, and it became a matter of hanging on (which many did not and the group started shedding riders like dog hairs in a breeze). It looked like Saxo Bank was attempting to break Alberto Contador, but the second placed GC contender stuck to Andy Schleck like a sucker fish, and with all the major GC contenders in tow, the final run-in control was passed over to the sprinter's teams at the 10 km banner.
From there, HTC-Columbia was the chief influence, although once again other teams tried to gatecrash their party in spoiling maneuvers. Under the red kite, it was HTC-Columbia represented by Eisel, Renshaw and Cavendish in that order, and once again it was this lead out that proved successful, with Cavendish launching from a gap 400 m out and taking a long sprint over Petacchi and a somewhat unlucky Farrar, who had looked good until badly baulked by what looked like a fairly cynical spoiling move from a slowing Renshaw.
So Cavendish gets win number 3 for the Tour, and stage win number 13 for Le Tour in his career thus far, making him the most successful sprinter in the History of the event! Petacchi's 2nd saw him get the Green Jersey after Hushovd faded to seventh across the line.
In a post-race decision by the jury, Mark Renshaw (the primo lead-out man for Cavendish) was ejected from the Tour after some strong interactions with Garmin-Transition's Julian Dean in the final sprint (including some vigorous head-butting). Personally I thought the initial butt was fine - Dean moved visibly into Renshaw whilst he was attempting to pilot Cavendish into the lead - but Renshaw did carry it on a little more than necessary. I think it was his seemingly deliberate cutting off of Tyler Farrar that was more objectionable - Farrar was in a good position and had a head of steam: although not likely to catch Cav, second was a definite chance. Still, ejection? - I suspect Renshaw is paying for some rash moves by Cavendish in the recent past prior to the Tour, and some incidents in it. It's tough being a lead out! Clearly he should've waited until post-race, taken a wheel to Dean's helmet, got in a fist-fight, and then been fined a pissy 300 Euros and allowed to stay! The Jury apparently loves this type of aggression.
Ride Safe!
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