Category: Tour de France

This is a whole different Tour de France after Stage 7's first Alpine climbs of the bike race sent up five new cyclists to the head of the overall standings.

The stage winner and overall leader, T-Mobile's Linus Gerdemann, is new in more ways than one. The 24-year-old is riding in his first Tour de France, having turned pro with Team CSC in 2005.

Gerdemann attacked with about 6 miles to go on the Col de la Colombière, holding off all challengers on the descent into Le Grand-Bornand to win by 40 seconds. He moved up from 20th at the end of Stage 6.

The pre-race favorites hung on to finish about 3-1/2 minutes back. Among them, injured Andreas Kloden of the Astana team is in the best position, sitting (on a fractured coccyx) in 6th place at 3:39 behind the leader

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In spite of struggling through Friday's Tour de France stage, pre-race favorite Alexander Vinokourov will definitely start on Saturday as the peloton enters the Alps.

The Astana team director was not so sure about Vino's teammate Andreas Kloden, who is suffering from a hairline fracture on his tailbone. …

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Belgian cyclist Tom Boonen ended a two-year dry spell at the Tour de France on Friday, winning Stage 6 in a mass sprint in Bourg-en-Bresse as Fabian Cancellara completed the first week still in yellow.

Boonen hadn't won a stage since early in the 2005 Tour, when he won two (he has 5 career). It looked like the sprinter might win Stage 2 in Ghent, Belgium, on Monday, but he came in second to teammate Gert Steegmans.

“At last another victory. You need so much luck,” Boonen told reporters after the victory.

Meanwhile the riding wounded — Alexander Vinokourov, Andreas Kloden (both Astana) and Benjamin Noval (Discovery Channel) — finished the stage …

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“The race is not lost.”

Alexander Vinokourov answering a reporter's question as he fought his way through the crowd to his Astana team van at the finish line on Stage 5.

The pre-race favorite crashed about 14 miles from the finish line on Thursday……

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Italy's Filippo Pozzato won a hard fought sprint in Autun on Thursday as Tour de France fans saw three pre-race favorites struggling to catch up to the peloton after crashes along the route.

Fabian Cancellara held onto the leader's yellow jersey for yet another day as he raced at the front of the bunch after sweeping up a breakaway on the 113-mile route from Chablis to Autun.

The biggest scare came for the Astana team as both Alexandre Vinokourov and Andreas Kloden hit the ground during the stage. …

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Perfect timing and a good partner helped put Thor Hushovd across the finish line in Joigny on Wednesday, moving him into second place overall behind Fabian Cancellara.

After an early breakaway by five riders, the peloton came together a few miles before reaching the destination of the 119-mile stage. It was a perfect situation for a classic sprint finish, as T-Mobile, Barloworld, Gerolsteiner, Preditor-Lotto, Milram and QuickStep all took their turns at the front or near it.

But when it counted, it was New Zealand sprinter Julian Dean leading out his Credit Agricole team captain who made the right move at the right time. …

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Fabian Cancellara turned the final mile of Stage 3 into a time trial on Tuesday, completely surprising the peloton and driving past a 4-man breakaway to win on the cobblestones in Compiegne.

Team CSC's Cancellara, the world time trial champion, grabbed the yellow jersey on Saturday's prologue and has held it ever since. The 20-second bonus at the finish gives him a 33-second margin over Astana's Andreas Kloden.

Most of the 146-mile race over rolling terrain between Waregem and Compiegne was as exciting as watching paint dry, as a two-man breakaway escaped at about 5 miles and stayed out in front of the sluggish peloton until the final few feet. …

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The Discovery Channel pro cycling team's Tomas Vaitkus broke his thumb in that huge pile-up near the finish of Stage 2 on Monday and will not continue the Tour.

The pileup in Ghent took a toll on two American riders as well, although they plan to continue the race.

Discovery's George Hincapie bruised his knee (New York Times says right knee, CyclingNews said left knee), but is expected to return on Stage 3. Freddy Rodriguez of Predictor Lotto got two deep cuts on his elbow stitched up …

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A Belgian cyclist won Stage 2 in front of his countrymen in the Tour de France bike race on Monday, but it wasn't the Belgian in the script.

Gert Steegmans essentially works for Tom Boonen on the QuickStep team, and Steegmans was leading out Boonen at the finsh line in Ghent. How cool would it be for Belgian sprint champion Boonen to win in front of the hometown crowd?

But Steegmans kept driving toward the finish line to hold off the rest of the crash-depleted bunch, and Boonen was unable to pass Steegmans at the line. Boonen patted his teammate on the back, however, congratulating him on the 1-2 finish for the QuickStep team. …

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Kazahkstan's most famous bicyclist, Alexander Vinokourov, won the “Who's going to win the 2007 Tour de France poll” with 33% of the vote.

The first runner-up was US cyclist Levi Leipheimer with 21% of the votes, followed by Vino's teammate Andreas Kloden with 8% of the vote.

American Floyd Landis won the poll last year, receiving 33% of the votes, equal to Vinokourov. The support Vino received from winning this year's Biking Bis poll will certainly encourage him to do his best over the next three weeks, just as it certainly must have helped Landis. If he wins, let's hope he doesn't run into Landis' troubles. …

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