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Tim Renowden has been following professional cycling closely since Indurain won his first Tour. An ex-runner, now a club grade bike racer, Tim tweets about sport at @megabicicleta.
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Five leaders now, although Roche is struggling to hold the wheels.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Onto the next climb, the Côte de Désertin.
Roche and Bakelants have caught Elmiger. Herrada and Gaultier are about to join them. That would be a powerful group, but there’s plenty of impetus in the peloton coming from Cannondale and OGE. The gap is 36″.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Talansky is about 18 minutes behind the leaders, and the estimated time cut off is about 33 minutes at the finish. So the Garmin-Sharp leader has about 14 minutes to lose in 37km if he wants to stay in the race (and he seems to want to do that),
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Roche and Bakelants can see Elmiger about 50m in front of them, he’s about to be caught.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Elmiger first over the Côte de Choux mere seconds ahead of Roche, then Bakelants.
Peter Stetina leads the peloton over the top.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Westra of Astana is dropped.
Roche and Bakelants are winding Elmiger back slowly, but they are only a couple of hundred metres in front of the peloton, so I think this will all come to nothing.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Two more Europcar riders attack. Gautier is one of them.
Movistar sends Jesus Herrada after them.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Lemoine is caught by the main bunch.
Talansky is over 15 minutes behind this group, but still fighting on. I hope he makes the time cut, he deserves it.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Three climbs remain today.
Elmiger still holding Roche and Bakelants at about 27″
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Elmiger nearly overcooks a corner on the descent. That would’ve been embarrassing, but he must be getting pretty fatigued by now.
Bakelants and Roche have dropped Slagter and Lemoine and are pressing on towards Elmiger. Orica-GreenEdge moves to the front of the chase group to impose themselves on the stage.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
That peloton looks like it’s only about 40 riders.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Porte is right up the front of the peloton with some teammates, watchful for attacks, and Europcar obliges with two riders. Tinkoff-Saxo immediately counters.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Astana is controlling tempo on the peloton, but there’s no urgency there because nobody within sight of the GC has attacked.
Elmiger hits the summit of the Côte de Rogna about 30 seconds in front of the Roche/Slagter/Lemoine/Bakelants group.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Roche, Bakelants and Slagter have caught Lemoine.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Sky’s diesel engine Vasil Kiryienka has been dropped – that’s a blow for Richie Porte.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Martin Elmiger has now dropped Cyril Lemoine and is leading the stage solo, with a gap of 1’06” to the peloton.
Nicolas Roche has attacked, trying to salvage something for his Tinkoff-Saxo team.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
That is Jan Bakelants attacking, and Tom Slagter follows, so perhaps he’s not the main man for Garmin today?
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Attack from OPQS, and a Garmin rider responds.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Talansky has lost over 8 minutes to the peloton. He needs to ride himself up to the grupetto.. but wait, he’s stopped by the side of he road and is stretching his back.
I think he’s abandoning.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Quite a large grupetto has formed behind the peloton, as the sprinters sit up for the day.
Garmin-Sharp’s Seb Langeveld is on the front of the peloton, wearing the Dutch national champ’s jersey. The team is working for Tom Slagter, it seems.
Langeveld’s work has brought the gap to the leaders down to 1’38” with 51km to go in the stage.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Delaplace is dropped by Elmiger and Lemoine.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Peleton seems to be diminishing in size as riders slide backwards and start calculating the time cut-off in their heads.
The 3 leaders Delaplace, Elmiger and Lemoine have 2’35” .
Amazingly, Garmin-Sharp has hit the front of the peloton and is driving with 6 riders, while their team leader is struggling at the back of the race. Wow.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog
Sylvain Chavanel is collecting some bottles from the team car, he might like a sneaky attack on the final descent. He’s a master descender.
The gap to the leaders is 31″ as they reach the top of the Côte de Désertin – Elmiger leads and gets a point.
Tour de France Stage 11: live commentary, blog