Stage 12 Overview, Picks and Comment

With 11 stages in the books, here's how the next stage shapes up.

It's a 168.5KM blast along the bottom of France. With few climbs (just one category 4 to even mention), this stage is really going to be fast. It's almost all downhill and should feature a massive sprint near the end.

With Thor Husovd riding well (finishing 13th in stage 11) and Robbie Mc Ewen yet to be heard from, I'm CERTAIN that these two will battle it out in a sprint for the ages.

The stage runs Lavelanet all the way to Narbonne.

In Cycle Sport America Magazine, they say,

A flat transition stage takes the peloton away from the Pyrenees to the mediterranean.

Simple. True. Fast. Fun.

We're more than halfway through the 2008 Tour de France. Coming soon is Alpe d'Huez and other fun stuff. I'm having a blast. I hope you are too.

Not really a spoiler - Abandons

As I'm doing my daily blog posts about the Tour, I figure it might shed some light on how difficult a task it is to ride 21 stages of a cycling race if I give you a list of the guys who dropped out.

By the way, one of these guys was picked by Cycle Sport Magazine to win the Tour this year. Shows what can happen to ANY RIDER at ANY TIME.

Abandons...these four guys either withdrew or are non-starters as of stage 6 (stage they withdrew is listed first):

Stage 6
178 PASSERON Aurélien (FRA) SAUNIER DUVAL - SCOTT non-starter

Stage 5
51 SOLER HERNANDEZ Juan Mauricio (COL) BARLOWORLD withdrawl

Stage 3
176 GOMEZ Angel (ESP) SAUNIER DUVAL - SCOTT withdrawl

Stage 1
184 DUCLOS-LASSALLE Hervé (FRA) COFIDIS CREDIT PAR TELEPHONE withdrawl

And Juan Mauricio Soler was one of the guys picked to win the whole thing. And he dropped out yesterday.