Stage 10: Tuesday, July 12 158 km Aurillac → Carmaux
 

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looks like a potentially 'fun' stage. relatively short & undulating. could bring some excitement between the massif central and the pyrenees. tailor-made for someone that's had some bad luck the first week or so to gain some time back...

Thor called...he wants his yellow jersey back.

Unfortunately I have a meeting tomorrow and won't be able to watch this stage live.

I'll go with David Moncoutie in a breakaway. The French have to win a stage sooner or later.

it looks like a stage for cavendish or Thor...

Did you see him ride the last 3k of stage nine? He's 5:13 down and he's fine with that.

he's not in it for the overall, but I'm sure he'd like a stage win...and he does get to wear his rainbow jersey.

From Levi's facebook page.

Levi Leipheimer
Deluge of rain and hail just before the start of stage 10. #TdF

Huge win for Greipel. Let's renew that Cav/Greipel rivalry.

The Vanilla Gorilla is FAST! I'd really like to know how many watts he put down in that final sprint compared to Cav. He gets MUCH less aero, and was going faster, so it's gotta be a huge number. He's also 20 lbs. heavier than Cav, although that's not a big deal when your leadout is already going 40mph.

Good throw for Greipel. It'll be interesting to see what kind of sheeeeet Cav will be talking about André.

http://velocitynation.com/files/imag.../tturns234.jpg

Great win for Greipel. Gotta be his favorite win. As for the rivalry, it can actually start one now. Cav might have been Greipel's rival, but I don't think Cav ever thought of him as a rival. He will now.

I believe Cavendish once said "There's no chance he's coming to a bike race that I'm in. Me on bad form is still better than him." OOOPPPPSS.

HTC used up too many of their guys getting Cavendish over the climbs. They should really have adjusted their tactics after that, they didn't have the numbers to make a train. So Cavendish was exposed too early, and Griepel was able to come off his wheel rather than the other way around.

Much more entertaining stage than I was expecting. Bodes well for the rest of the tour, especially as far as the green jersey is concerned.

Two additions to the list today brings it to twenty, with 178 still in the race.
Kloden looks like he's in serious pain though.

Abandoners to date:

Van de Walle.............DNF 4
Kern.....................DNS 5
Brajkovic................DNF 5
Murillo..................DNS 6
Kiryienka................HDD 6
Boonen...................DNF 7
Wiggins..................DNF 7
Pauriol..................DNF 7
Horner...................DNS 8
Intxausti................DNF 8
Garate...................DNS 9
Poels....................DNF 9
Brutt....................DNF 9
Vinokourov...............DNF 9
Zabriskie................DNF 9
Willems..................DNF 9
Van Den Broeck...........DNF 9
Txurruka.................DNF 9
Kolobnev.................DNS 10
Popovych.................DNS 10

Cav did very well to be there at the finnish, I bet he almost wishes he had not botherd!

Greipel passed him on stage 7 even with an htc lead out, but the line was just a bit to far away.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzQhi...tailpage#t=50s

I think the true questions is: Without the lead-out train how good is Cavendish?

He's one of the best, but as an individual he just isn't dominant. I'd give him top speed, but it seems to me the likes of Goss and Griepel have him beat in the Acceleration department. Put Cav on a team who doesn't surround him and he wouldn't be the same.

I'm sure I'll catch flack for this but thats my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Don't forget Stage 5. He's no Robbie McEwen flying solo all the time, but that was an impressive win without a train. His bigger problem is that he tends to have problems getting over even the smallest hills. HTC may have been better off riding for Goss today, but until the last moment it seemed like Cav was still going to pull it off.

Tomorrow should be very interesting. There's no reason the HTC train shouldn't be there at the end and we'll get to see what Greipel can do against it. As mentioned, he looked strong in stage 7 but his positioning wasn't great and he had to go too early. I hope Greipel puts it together again tomorrow and we see a nice head-to-head battle.

Of course he wouldn't be the same without a team to support him. Who would? But as he has already demonstrated in this year's tour, and several times in last year's, he can win in scrappy finishes as well as when HTC have the lead-out sorted. Saying he isn't dominant seems at odds with the fact that he has won more stages in the last three years Tours than all the other sprinters put together. Not a bad statistic. Nobody wins every time.

Tony Martin is an ass for trying to get Voeckler to pull in front of him, next to last in the breakaway. If the people that go in breaks with Voeckler actually DID SOME WORK, those breaks could work very well, ESPECIALLY when Philippe Gilbert is there to share the work.

That said, Gilbert's move was made REALLY far from the line, but I'm wondering if that was planned, with Greipel as the backup plan.

It's a shame we won't see what Greipel could do with a good leadout train. With Cav nipping at his heels in the points competition, Gilbert will want to go for points rather than lead Greipel out, and there aren't too many other strong men on the team.

That's funny. I was thinking that Martin's moved seemed quite smart. Cav was their best shot at a win, not Martin. From Martin's standpoint, he can ride that train to the finish if it lasts, and sprint with fresh legs. If they get caught, meh. Cavendish likely wins anyway.

It would have been sweet to see a break with green and yellow survive though.

It was smart, and ballsy, but it's boring racing, and everybody knows race tactics should be designed to entertain me in my La-Z-Boy.

Gilbert move was planned htc had to hunt him down, while Greipel sat protected,htc was consuming loads energy from far out, The lotto team got Greippel there and he did the rest. Great strategy great riding

The move dropped a lot of the other sprinters that didn't have much support like ferrar and pettachi. It was a planned move. I was however rooting for that break to make it. I love bunch sprints but I also love seeing the late break win. I guess anything but the long break makes me happy.