Free Republic

George Hincapie prior to a crash filled Stage 1 Crashes were the order of the day in Sunday’s first stage, Rotterdam to Brussels. Lampre’s Allesandro Petacchi (Ale-Jet) was able to elude the crashes and take the first green jersey. The win was very similar to his win in June’s Tour de Suisse when Mark Cavendish and others crashed causing a pile up that essentially stopped the charging peloton. Thor Hushovd was able to escape the crash as well taking 3rd on the day and positioning him well in the point’s competition, taking 26 points on the day. Tony Martin continues...

Good morning. Nothing too notable this morning other than a dog running onto the course which cause a crash early on. Several riders have been rotating back to get medical treatment including Ivan Basso and David Millar. We have a 3 man break that includes Lars Boom (Rabobank), Maarten Wijnants (QuickStep) and Alan Perez Lezaun (Euskaltel) with a gap of just over 4 minutes. There’s still about 100K or 60 miles remaining. Neither the peloton or the break is working very hard but this is just the calm before the storm. Unfortunately the two riders that crashed yesterday, Mathias Frank...