[ritchiebaby]

A very quick report tonight after a very boring tourist cycle ride until the last 12km. Only Fonseca and Voeckler showed any real intent and I'm sure most of the riders have had harder rest days than that. However it all livened up late on with a rejuvenated and focussed Mark Cavendish pipping Andre Greipel on the line by a baw-ha.....er whisker to win the stage with a long-time Marco favourite, Bryan Coquard, doing the same to Peter Sagan to grab third place. Cavendish now is 2nd equal in TdF stage wins on 28 along with Bernard Hinault, both behind Eddie Mercxx on 34.

Tomorrow's stage from Saumur to Limoges is the longest on the Tour, but is hopefully not as pedestrian as today's. It's another fairly straightforward flat stage, well suited to the sprinters, so I'm expecting the usual suspects - the 4 above plus Kittel and perhaps Kristoff - to be there at the death.

Peter Sagan still leads the race by 8 seconds, with the next 54 riders all within 1 minute of him. There shouldn't be much change in the rankings tomorrow, but the first climbers' stage on Wednesday might sort a few out. Mark Cavendish, after 2 stage wins out of 3, is 1'39" behind and is really only interested in the stages he feels he can win, trying to pick up other points along the way without competing hard for them. I'm expecting at least one more stage win from him, maybe even two.