After yesterday’s bouncing of the Tour lottery balls and the subsequent selections of some unlucky numbers, the Tour heads to more sedate territory today. Today is a classic "sunflower stage"; flat, sunny and relatively calm as the Tour rolls through agricultural country that presents opportunities for photographers to run out into the dirt and manure of the fields of sunflowers and get their shots as the peloton rolls by. There will be an early break (filled with Frenchmen, of course), but their chances of success are about the same as the chances that Versus decides to put our twitter stream back up on the Tour Tracker—note to selves, avoid calling the network announcing teams idiots.

Getting the network boot notwithstanding, after a stage that saw the Tour organizers waging war on the collarbones of every rider in the Tour (and Menchov didn’t crash at all—what is going on here?); we should probably recap what happened yesterday.

Saxo Bank were probably both the biggest winners AND losers yesterday as their cobbles squad managed to drag Andy Schleck to the top of the contenders, but they also lost a valuable member of their climbing squad when Andy’s brother Frank crashed and broke his collarbone, and this Tour, although he cobbles were quite exciting, will be decided in the mountains. Plus, Frank is the one who reads Andy his bedtimes stories every night (Stuey curses too much during the stories and upsets Andy). 

Cadel continues to erase everything we’ve ever known about Cadel. During the race he was well positioned, aggressive and took advantage of the race situation to gain time on his rivals. Whereas in year’s past he would’ve got caught behind the trouble, broken his wheel colliding with a spectator after taking a swing at a race moto and waited 45 minutes for a wheel change. This is a new era for Cadel, perhaps we’ll even see him buy a dog that’s larger than an underfed meerkat.

Astana managed to "flip the script" (I’m so urban!) and took the race to their rivals on what was supposed to be their downfall, the cobbles. Contador took some lessons from Van Petegem, and rode the bumps more like Flecha than Mayo. Contador also had his GC rival faithful lieutenant Vinokourov with him, and Vino held off his late attack final pull until the final meters of the race. Berto had a broken spoke and a rubbing brake and wasn’t able to match Vino’s attack acceleration at the line, losing 9 seconds. I’m sure Berto appreciates having another old fart joining his team with potential GC aspirations, look to see Berto carefully mark Vino’s attacks in future stages.

Ryder Hesjedal had an inspired ride yesterday and managed to claw his way up to 4th in the GC, shifting the man crush to Ryder in 3…2…1…

I suppose we should mention something about Lance, in a nutshell, his team was no where to be found due to mechanical issues and I get the feeling that as soon as we hit the mountains we will see the beginning of the Janez Brajkovic era at Radio Shack.

And let’s not forget Thor’s SMASH to victory yesterday! Thor SMASHed his way to the front group and took advantage of the fact that Fabian had to tow Andy to the line in a bit of tactical SMASHing, let’s get a quote from Thor SMASH after his victory (from cyclingnews):

"For me today was perfect; I was really motivated to ride well. I like the cobbles and obviously Paris-Roubaix and it was a meaningful day for me," said Hushovd.

And that quote run through the SMASH to English translator goes as follows:

"It was a good day to the SMASHing, I made the perfume wearing man into my nanny goat and earned maximum SMASH. Me would like to applaud the Tour on their progressiveness in allowing the lady racer from Saxo Bank to participate."  

Live Race

89k to go. Radio Shack at the front of the race, pretending it’s 2002.

Of course there’s the obligatory cluster of Frenchmen off the front of the race, their chances of victory are similar to those of a Guatemalan Winter Olympic gold medal. 

Today we will see if Tyler Farrar can yanks his bars (mildly dirty sounding) with his injured wrist. I’m feeling a Freire win today.

Phil just said that Lance used to love riding over cobblestones, but Lance avoided Roubaix like the plague. Does Phil remember the last 15 years at all?

85k to go, Phil mentions how the Tour is a big media event, where even "nature breaks" are covered. On a stage like today, a nature break is the only action going on. Other classier viewers will be averting their eyes from any whizzing in the peloton, I will not, of course.

83k to go. Phil explains what a "feed zone" is, which is basically a "zone" where riders are "fed" food. Fascinating.

75k to go. Today’s stage is a preview of the Tour’s final stage into Paris.

73K to go. Radio Shack at the front of the pack, maybe Janez fancies his sprint chances today? 

 65k to go. I give P&P some grief, but today is a day that they really have to pull content out of their backsides. If I were commentating, I’d just be making stuff up. "Damiano Cunego cannot taste anything salty, and has to be restrained from using too much ‘unflavored sugar’ by his dietician." 

 59k to go. Isn’t Radio Shack wearing out all their pensioners by having them ride on the front?

 57k to go. Paul mentions that a tractor is doing a lot of harvesting, but the tractor is actually plowing! I’m calling the FCC! 

Cav and Robbie McEwen chatting, trying to work out a plan for getting crumpled into the barriers.

"Andreas Kloden weeps at every sunset, he won the Freiburg Twilight in 2002, and people thought he was overcome with emotion, but he was just keeping his streak going."

"Did you know kilometers in Belgium are slightly longer than everywhere else? The distance was altered by the King in 1925 in order to make the Germans feel like they were making good time when they were invading France."

52k to go. A shot of Andy Schelck daydreaming about rainbows and ninjas.

Paul tries to explain the MacGruber Fab motor controversy, that was like being the 50th person in a game of telephone at the retirement home. "Stalin rode a Diehard battery on a dirt road to a rouge factory." That should get us back on the VS Tour Tracker page. 

38k to go. First WWI reference from Paul for the day, so if you had 40k on the under, you’re a winner!. There will be many roundabouts on the end of the stage, I’m enjoying my Freire choice more and more. There’s no way Cav doesn’t hit the dirt today, right?32k to go. Paul doing a lot of talking, is Phil taking a natural break?

30 k to go. First argy bargy reference from Paul, if you had 30k on the over/under—that’s a push.

23k to go. Time for the race to start. HTC going to the front to leadout Cav into a roundabout.

20k to go. The break letting the French dangle—another dirty sounding phrase.

17k to go. Cervelo working for the SMASH.

16k to go. So Cervelo has to catch the break before 9k to go, when the roundabouts start.

15k to go. Lampre helping with the chase, hoping that Cav will do another British bowling ball leadout for Petacchi.

10k to go. Break maintaining Frenchness at 16 seconds.

Now it’s going to get good. HTC on the front, able to smell the eau de toilet coming off the break.

Nine roundabouts in the last 6k. This will be like finishing the race in a centrifuge.

6k to go. Pack isn’t very strung out, crashiness anticipated. Will Fabian neutralize the stage?

5.3k, through the Jersey barriers, are they called something else in France?

These are some oddly shaped roundabouts.

 3.2k, break is done.

3k to go, pack clustered, Petacchi tells Cav that his shoe is untied.

Lampre is in the HTC leadout.

1k to go. SMASH time?

Thor SMASH and Cav bumping.

Thor SMASH sitting on Cav’s wheel looking like a horse playing leapfrog with a hedgehog.

Petacchi wins with McEwen in the mix, what is this 2002?

Dean almost won that by accident?