Sir Monkeypants is off at ultimate, so I don’t think he’ll mind if I update y’all…

Another flat stage today, but with some interesting twists. First of all, it was definitely a day of crashes — at least six major crashes, by my count. Most of the big names escaped uninjured, but Bradley McGee (a well-known Australian sprinter) had to withdraw, and both Beltran and Rubiera of U.S. Postal sustained injuries that required medical attention on the road, although they did both finish the stage.

Due to the many crashes, several teams set a slow pace in the peloton to wait for their fallen riders, and so an early breakaway of five men managed to get more than 15 minutes ahead of the pack. The five were not highly ranked, and also not good climbers, so the big stars (who all stayed with the main pack) were content to let them go. As the five got within 10K of the finish, there was some interesting jostling and many ditch attempts, but in the end all five came to the finish as a group. Stuart O’Grady, another well-known Australian sprinter who has crashed three times so far already this tour (bad luck), won the stage. The yellow jersey passed to Thomas Voeckler, the French national champion, and man, do they love it in France when a Frenchman is in the lead. The five breakaway finishers are now all ahead of Lance in the overall standings — he’s about 9 1/2 minutes back of Voeckler — but all five are expected to die once they hit the mountains, so probably won’t remain as long-standing threats.

I have Beltran on my online dream team so that does not bode well for me. Sir Monkeypants will probably continue to kick my ass, even though Michael Boogard also had a spill today.