Cycling Shirts Guide

Stage 6 from Montargis to Gueugnon was another hot day in the saddle, on the longest stage of the Tour de France 2010, the rider racking up 227.5 km with three intermediate sprints and four small hills to climb for points. As has become customary, there was the obligatory breakaway, today seeing a trio attack to escape the unconcerned peloton. The escapees this time were Perget (GCE), Lang (OLO) and Perez Moreno (EUS). The three of them shared the intermediate points among themselves, with Perget desperate to take advantage of the climbers points while the other two shared the sprint points. The maximum gap the front trio managed to notch up was 8 minutes, and like in the last two stages, HTC-Columbia despatched four chasers to the front of the peloton to begin the work of closing that gap. Despite some rain as the riders pressed on, and with extra assistance at the front from Grabsch (THR) and O’Grady (SAX), the chasing group began to catch the three stage leaders. At 25 km to go, the time difference wast just over 1 minute.

Also at 25 km remaining, on the final ascent of the stage, Champion (ALM) decided it was time to make an attack of his own, and escaped the peloton, quickly followed by Charteau (BTL); but in the meantime, Perget had mounted an attack of his own, leaving the other front riders in his wake after reaching the final summit. A few kilometers later he was recaptured by the other four riders to create a breakaway group of five. At the 15 km to go mark, they had a slim lead of 20 seconds. Despite their best efforts and some very determined riding, their inevitable demise came at 10 km out as they were finally absorbed into the mass of other riders.

The reeastablishment of the single group signalled the jostling for position of the sprint groups, and Stage 6 saw several teams getting better organised than in Stage 5. The leaders of General Classification for Yellow Jersey, including Contador, reached the front to start the lead out for their respective teams, but also to stay out of trouble as the shuffling for prime position continued.

HTC-Columbia had rider lined up and went ahead of Lampre, but tactics were the order of the day for Garmin, who began inserting riders into the HTC pack to disrupt there final approach. At the final bend, Garmin had riders in the lead with Dean and Hunter, Dean acting as lead. As Hunter ducked out to contest the final sprint, Renshaw led Cavendish through on the right in another inspired piece of riding, to drop Cav off at under 200 meters to go. Cavendish hit the turbo and bombed it to the line, with other riders coming through (Petacchi for Lampre and Farrar for Garmin-Transitions), and won his second consecutive stage easily. Job done.

(Photo: Mark Cavendish, by Vlaam. Reproduced under Creative Commons licence.)

In a twist at the end, the pack split into two groups, with the first 14 riders awarded the same time, and the following group given a time 3 seconds behind. This does not change any of the classifications, and so Cancellara remains the Yellow Jersey holder, Hushovd keeps Green Jersey (after coming in 10th position in Stage 6); Pineau keeps Polka Dot Jersey and Thomas keeps White Jersey, but enjoyed taking part in the sprint today, finishing in the leading group and getting 3 seconds closer to Cancellara for Yellow.

The result after Stage 6 look like this:

So another great day for Cavendish, the Manx Missile, who now has a tally of 12 stage wins in Tours de France since he began contesting them in 2007.

Stage 7 is the first of the challenging mountain stages, so don’t expect to see the sprinters feature two heavily for the next few days. The cycling shirt to keep your eyes peeled for now is the Polka Dot Jersey currently held by Pineau.