What Does an “Easy” Day at the Tour de France Feel Like?

Another day for the sprinters saw a dramatic finish after a relatively straightforward stage exiting the Alps and cruising through the foothills of the Drôme region. Although Chris Anker Sorensen of Team Saxo Bank took a few hard pulls at the front, he also had the opportunity to rest a bit, spending over 70% of the day’s ride at active recovery pace. Read on to find out what an “easy” day at the Tour de France feels like, and check out Velonews for more on the dramatic sprint finish that ended with Cavendish lead-out rider Mark Renshaw of Team HTC-Columbia being ejected from the race!

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Andy Schleck in Yellow: Power Data from Team Saxo Bank

In another exciting day at the Tour de France, Team Saxo Bank’s Andy Schleck rode his way to the yellow jersey in a dominating performance that included amazing support from team mates like Chris Anker Sorensen, who rode at an average of over 300 watts for 6 hours. With numbers like that for Chris, just imagine what Andy did! Will this be the hardest stage of this year’s Tour? Check out power data from Chris and analysis from Hunter Allen here, and read on for more details below.

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Armstrong Crashes, Schleck Wins Stage 8, Evans in Yellow: Tour Drama Continues

Stage 8 was supposed to be an important day in the 2010 Tour de France, and it certainly lived up to expectations. In an extremely eventful stage, the main contenders saw a dramatic shake-up in the standings as Lance Armstrong suffered several crashes, losing almost 12 minutes against overall leaders Cadel Evans, Andy Schleck and Alberto Contador. Despite strong support from Radioshack team mates Jani Brajkovich and Chris Horner, Lance lost contact with the main group of riders, making Levi Leipheimer the new team leader.

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Tour de France: From Flats to Hills, Saxo Bank Defends the Yellow Jersey

This year’s Tour de France really has gotten off to a dramatic start, with crashes and cobblestones shaking up the leaders in unexpected ways even before the big climbs start on Saturday. Team Saxo Bank’s Fabian Cancellara is still in yellow, but his teammate Frank Schleck has crashed out of the race with a broken collarbone, leaving his brother Andy as the team’s best hope for the mountain stages and the overall win.

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Tour of California Stage 3: No Serenity on Bonny Doon

Stage three of the Tour of California from San Francisco to Santa Cruz was yet another record breaker for Saxo Bank’s Jakob Fuglsang and a very exciting day overall for defending champion Levi Leipheimer, who got away from the pack on Bonny Doon in a break that also included last year’s other two podium finishers Michael Rogers and Dave Zabriskie.

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