Stage 12 - Thursday

Oh, excuse me Mr. UCI (International Cycling Union), O Wise one who banned race radios in Stage 10. Was there an accident in Stage 11 which necessitated that the race be neutralized for a couple of minutes until everyone could regroup? Oh my goodness, however will you be able to relay that information to all the teams and all the riders??? Race radios maybe?

Ha! One of the inflatable race banners which mark things of significance throughout the tour deflated and caused 20 riders to crash. Included in the melee were big names like Cadel Evans and Christian Vande Velde. The Tour organization immediately used race radios to neutralize the race, informing all of the riders that the accident had occurred and that racing would be suspended until the men in the wreckage could catch back up with the peloton.

Imagine that, race radios useful for something other than intra-team communication. I don't know whether it was the realization that race radios do make the Tour safer or whether the Stage 10 protest proved the point that the riders don't want to part with them, but the UCI agreed to allow radios back in the Tour for Stage 13 which had been the scheduled 2nd non-radio stage. Yea, race radios!

Don't know if any of you have been watching every minute of the Tour but I just heard Paul Sherwin completely plagiarize my road side bingo comment. If you recorded the morning coverage of today's stage, listen carefully about 43 minutes into the coverage and listen to Paul go. I think he's reading my blog.

Hey Paul, if you're reading, tell Phil Liggett that I died laughing when he pronounced the town of Waco, TX as "Wacko". Us Aggies do the same thing. Silly Baylor kids.

Well up until now I've talked primarily about the Yellow Jersey (GC) contenders and haven't spent much time covering another important aspect of the Tour, the Sprinters.

The Sprinters help make the flat stages of the Tour super exciting. It's a whole race within a race. Sprint Points dot the Tour throughout each stage and are marked by inflatable "Sprint Banners" (yea, exactly). Each sprint marker, yields "sprint points" with the finish of each stage yielding the most points. Whoever has the most "sprint points" throughout the Tour wears the Green Jersey.

As far as Sprinters are concerned, I'm a big fan of Robbie McEwen, but he's out this year due to a broken leg and he's left the door wide open for British sprint phenomenon Mark Cavendish. This is Cavendish's third Tour and he's really learned a lot since last year. He's on fire and has won 4 stages so far this Tour. If he wins one more, he'll break the Brit record for most stage wins in one Tour.

And thanks to Tyler Farrar, we finally have an American who can sprint! He hasn't been able to beat Cavendish yet, but this Tour rookie gets closer each time.

Unfortunately, today didn't turn out to be a sprint finish due to the breakaway succeeding in the stage win. So we'll have to wait another race to see if Cavendish can win his 5th stage. Overall GC standings remain the same so instead of listing those, here's your Green Jersey standings...

1- Mark Cavendish - 200 points

2- Thor Hushovd - 190 points

3 - Jose Rojas - 116 points

4- Tyler Ferrar - 110 points