#TDF Stage 13 Need some cycling healing?

Day two in the Pyrenées is the easiest day here. If climbing the 19km western approach of the Col d'Aubisque easy.

Before the long slog up the d'Aubisque we have the minor issues of the Côte de Cuqueron and the Côte de Belair at 43.5 km and 65km. Both these 3rd and 4th Category climbs come before Bielle at 82.5km where the Sprint is placed today. As with yesterday look for HTC Highroad to lead out for as many Green points for their leader Mark Cavendish as possible before he drifts of the back a little under 10km later at the start of the climb up the Col d'Aubisque.

The d'Aubisque is the second most visited mountain pass in Tour history, only yesterday's high point the Col du Tourmalet has been visited more often. The western approach this year is from the other side to last year's approach, which came after the Cols des Peyresourde, Aspin and Tourmalet before ending up in today's start town Pau. Today we'll decend, with a slight ascent to the top of the Col du Soulor all the way down to the Pilgrimage town of Lourdes.

Cadel Evans will have good memories of the d'Aubisque in 2005 he was the first to the summit here. But last year a breakaway, including Lance Armstrong, climbed the d'Aubisque ahead and stayed ahead to the finish. If another group manages to do that today it could be a very similar finish, but what will the leaders in the GC do. Yesterday there were a few attacks. Basso attacked, the Schlecks did a one-two routine until Fränk got away to chase down the two leaders on Luz Ardiden, after the Leopard Trek team failed to break many of the top contenders off on the Tourmalet. 


I think that Thomas Voeckler will carry on for one more day in yellow today, if he can ride like he did yesterday. The descent to the end will help him, don't forget he actually attacked yesterday on the descent of the Tourmalet. So no changes in Yellow, I think that Cav will contest whatever points he can in Green so no change there. The Mountains also without a Mountain Top finish doubling points is going to remain with Samuel Sanchez unless one of his main rivals summits d'Aubisque first and he is not placed. 


So they will arrive in Lourdes relatively rested, though some of those who need healing are already out before we have another tough day tomorrow.

Letts pick a window and head back to Victorian Times

It may have been OK for Quentin Letts who's earl,y schooling took place at Oakley Hall Preparatory School run by Richard Letts Pere to Letts, Q.R.S. His father was around, if in the headmaster's office, when he was growing up.

However, seeing as the man lists his hobbies in Who's Who as including "character defenestration" he should really have looked a little more closely before picking a window to attack Miriam González Durántez, the wife of Nick Clegg in today's Daily Fail. For a start her name is within the Spanish convention where even married women will keep the name of their father and mother. She married an English man, so the concession she got for her sons not being called Clegg Gonzales was that they would have Spanish given names.

But unto the fact that Nick Clegg wants to have some family time, so too does the Prime Minister David Cameron and the Leader of the Opposition Ed Milliband. All three have young families, as do the last two Prime Ministers. But this isn't necessarily a new thing, we are aware from watching the Kennedys that even then they struggled to balance family time with political leadership. The job of First Lady was tough of Jackie, just as the role of Miriam as a International renowned lawyer is, but then the last Prime Minister to have a child in office also had an internationally renowned lawyer as a wife one Cherie Booth Q.C. , AKA Mrs A.C.L. Blair.

Of course many mothers and fathers up and down the country balance two career these days. From the poorest to the richest families there are often two people of equal ability and earning potential in the same household.

Who should give up their job to look after the offspring?

Actually neither should need to give up what they are doing to be able to provide for their family. Indeed there is now moves afoot to improve paternity leave, something the Richard Letts no doubt didn't benefit from, as fathers then didn't even attend the birth, but paced the corridors outside. They didn't get time off work but turned up after they had left the office, or in his case school.

Things have moved on, if not in the case of equal pay, or equal numbers in the boardrooms. Therefore when there is a successful woman like Miriam, they are still sadly a rarity. Yet people like Letts still think they should give up their careers, lessen the world of their skills when their husbands become politically powerful and in key roles. Of course political careers at the highest level can be short lived, and for Lib Dems that may be very true at the moment. Whereas Samantha Cameron has put her career on partial hold as a part-time consultant, instead of the creative director for her old firm, Miriam was the head of her division, a five year suspension would put her behind her colleagues, some male and some female who probably also have working spouses, but not as high profile.

Personally I'm glad that we live in a 21st Century where women don't have to quit their jobs upon becoming pregnant, but are a part of the workforce, a part of the intelligentsia, a part of political leadership or civic leadership. Letts can just hop in his TARDIS and go back to Victorian times where his sexism and attitude to fatherhood would fit right in, it doesn't make them right however.

#TDF Stage 12 Up, up and up again.

The only time we are likely to see the new wearer of the green jersey Mark Cavendish in today's stage is at 92km when he will be after as many points as possible once again. In the last couple of days that as been everyone that was going for the peleton. The reason that this will be the last we see of Cav, we're heading to the Pyrenées.

After the sprint we make our first ascent in the Tour of the Hourquette d'Ancizan. Over a 10 km distance we climb about 800m. This is however, the easiest of the three climbs on today's stage being only a first category climb. There is then 16.5km of descent down to Sainte-Marie-de-Campan.

Then it is unto a more familiar peak in the Tour.

The 76th Ascent of the Col de Tourmalet in 101 years come next. It was climbed twice last year to mark its centenary on the Tour. An honour that will go the Col du Galibier later in this year's addition. This is the eastern approach to the Tourmalet where the last 12km don't average less than 7%. The lead group here may well start to show us who the major contendors are, but we are not finised when we get to the statue for Jacques Goddet, it is down to Luz St Saveur. Where up above will be seen Luz Ardiden the finish of today's stage.

If there was a group out in front that survived over the Tourmalet, they are likely to be caught on the ascent to the ski station carpark at Luz Ardiden. The contenders are likely test each other out. Tomorrow although still in the Pyrenées has a 'flat' run in to Pau, before another tough day on Saturday. I'll be expected Alberto Contador ro launch some sort of attack, as he needs still to get back some of the time that he is lacking.

Of course though we live in hope that the climb to Luz Ardiden tomorrow is less action back to the GC contenders than Lance Armstrong's acsent in 2003, this is the 2011 Tour. So I'm half expecting it to be just as filled with incident.

Tomorrow's stage also passes not far from Lannermezan, indeed in is close to today's feed station. It was the town that in the 2004 Tour a young Frenchman wearing yellow for the 7th day on the trot set off towards Plateau de Beille (we'll be there on Saturday). That man, Thomas Voeckler, is currently again wearing yellow. He may be thankful that we are not going through Lannermezan as he lost the jersy as he climbed that day. However, Voeckler doesn't have as big a lead as he did in 2004. I fully expect him to no longer be in the Maillot Jaune at the end of the day, even if it is Bastille Day.

In the meantime here is 2003.

#TDF Stage 11 Sprinters want points

The Pyrenées loom large on the horizon and this is basically one of only three stages left that the pure sprinters are expecting to take line honours on. So this is a stage that you can expect the teams with sprinters to want to bring it all together at the end.

Unlike yesterday there is no climb near the end which can take a bit of a kick out of the sprinters. However, there have been attempts to get away and stay away in recent days. Philippe Gilbert's attack yesterday, then David Millar's counter attack were moves that might have worked were it not for the control of HTC Highroad and them not panicking. They ended up bringing Cavendish to the front where he had to be before the sharp bends in the finish.

Today there is a relatively straight and level finish. If any team is going to take the stage off Cavendish they may have to do what Griepel did yesterday and time the sprint right; he didn't get it right on stage 7. Cav yesterday was saying that he didn't kick hard enough in the initial sprint, maybe he is learning that his former team mate has a turn of speed that he needs to pre-empt. I suspect that HTC are going to be taking Cav to the front with a full train as we enter Lavaur. Cav will be hungry for the last win he can get before Montpellier, then Paris. There will be a couple of sprints he can contend between times but this is his chance for a full 45 points.

#TDF Stage 10 After the rest: Though one will be getting too much recreation

For the stage after the rest day we start with a significantly smaller field than the day before. Alexandre Vinokourox (AST), Jurgen Van Den Broeck (OLO),  Frederik Willems (OLO), Pavel Brutt (KAT), Wouter Poels (VCD), David Zabriskie (GRM) and Amets Txurruka (EUS) all withdrew on the stage that Juan Manuel Garate (RAB) feiled to start.

But over the rest day came the news that Alexandr Kolobnev, the Russian Champion and Olympic Bronze medalist on the Katusha squad failed a drugs test after stage 5 on Wednesday for the diuretic hydrochlorothiazide (HCT). So his team have withdrawn him from the race.

It means that overall there are 19 less riders that we know of starting this stage so 179* will set out from Aurillac towards Carmaux 158 km away.

Today's stage might just see the sprinters' teams try and control the race from the off as the sprint is only 37.5 km into the race. There is a hope that a sprinter rather than someone in a breakaway could get the 20 points on ovver for being first under the green banner.

But even if they don't they will still be racing for it only about an hour into the second period of the Tour. Today's stage is also modestly flat. Yes there are four categorised clims but they are of the lowest two categories the last category 4 is 15km from the end, so this is expected to be another sprinters' day. Mark Cavendish will be gung ho to make it into 18 stage wins (where he will be equal with nobody), Andree Griepel will be trying to time his attack on the Manx Missile better than the run in to Châteauroux, Edvald Boassen Hagen and Ben Swift (SKY) were behind the race that day after waiting to see if Bradley Wiggins needed pacing back to the race, Tyler Farrar is looking for another stage win and Jose Joaquin Rocas is looking to pull points back on Philippe Gilbert in the Green Jersey.

Expect explosions from these guys on the line, but I expect Cavendish to out do them all, once again.

And finally today here's a HTC advert wishing Mark and the team all the best on this year's Tour.



* Since writing this Yaroslav Popovych of Radioshack has also withdrawn making his team ride on with just 6.

Bangor, Bowls and Bells

Yesterday my good friend Michael came out to Bangor for some sea air. The two of us being us of course a trip for him to Bangor did not just involve the normal activities of Bangor. There was a stop of at the Frederick Schomberg, the 1st Duke of Schomberg's camp before he set off to the Boyne where he died in battle in 1690. There was a visit to the old Walled Garden of Bangor Castle, now shortlisted for Britain in Bloom 2011 and open to the public and a walk around town, checking out some architectural history in my Gazeeter of the town, as well as spotting a graphic design error that got both our attention.

The evening rounded off with us actually sharing a little with the other a little of our favourite passtimes. First I took Michael along to see Sylvia Lady Hermon MP delivering the ceremonial first bowl of the Bangor Tournament. After a 10 year absence, while I was over in Scotland, I'll be making my return to the competition on Monday at 9:30am in the Singles. But here is a video I took of Lady Hermon, speaking (sorry very poor sound) and then delivering the ceremonial bowl.



After a few brief pointers about what was going on to Michael as we left the Greens we heard the bells at Bangor Parish start up. So Michael introduced me to his campanology passion and led us up the bell tower. I eventually did get to pull a few strokes on the bell and I can say it is a lot harder than it looks.

What the heck is going on with Tour de France vehicles? #tdf

Earlier in this Tour de France, on stage five, we saw a motorbike wipe out the bike of Nicki Sørensen. The bike disconnected from the motorbike 200m down the road and the rider came to gentle stop after sliding on the crash verge.



The pilot of that motorbike was thrown off the Tour before he had a change to reach Cap Fréhel the end of that stage.

Today we have just witnessed a far worse case. With just over 36km to go a French TV car swerved to avoid hitting a tree. Only problem was it was beside the breakaway, which included Thomas Voeckler who was the virtual leader of the Tour on the road, he only needed 1'30" but was up over 4 minutes at the time, and Johnny Hoogerland who had taken the lead of the King of the Mountains on points and should have been unstoppable before getting to the end of the stage.

However, the car took out Juan Antonio Flecha of Sky who was leading the breakaway who crashed unto the road. The knock on effect was that Hoogerland somersaulted off his bike and into a barbed-wire fence, ripping his shorts completely off and leaving a number of deep gashes. If it had taken out Voeckler as well it would have been a car, not a cyclist that decided the Tour on today's stage.



Johnny Hoogerland looks hurt but is cycling on behind the main pack who caught him. I hope he can make the last 20km or so and pull on the Polka Dot Jersey at the line and does not need to abandon. I hope he can recover tomorrow on the rest day and start in his newly acquired jersey. But he should have been riding conformtable with the other three and Flecha towards the finish as I'm typing this not a minute off the back of the main pack.

As for the driver of the car, he should have applied the brakes not swerved, but I expect he will be thinking about that now as he heads home rather than following the rest of the race.

However, we have a number of cyclists die, or be seriously injured, this year through racing or training accidents. What we do not need is cars or motorbikes that accompany the show case cycling event adding to that number, we have been lucky so far this Tour, that is all I can say.

Update Both Johnny Voogerland and Juan Antonio Flecha have been awarded the Most Combative Rider prize for today. The award for fighting spirit normally goes to the most agressive rider. But having faced a car crash and kept riding well deserved.

Update 2 The car has indeed been thrown off the Tour. With the memory of Wouter Weylandt Hoogerland said to Flecha as they rode together towards the finish "We're still alive and Wouter Weylandt died in a crash."

However, other details of the incident did arise, as can be seen shortly after the crash the team cars came up to pprovide water to the teams. Over race radio the TV car has been told to pull back to allow the team cars past, but instead disobeyed and tried to go past instead.