Stage 10 - Aurillac to Carmaux

This was a day for us to ride a 96 km hilly course from Rebastens to Carmaux, to watch the stage finish. We're in Sunflower territory and its always a challenge to get the photo from the right angle, because the little buggers always face the sun and today there was only one filed that offered a good snap. Mark, one of our riders, took this great shot just out of Gaillac.






70 km into our ride we rode into the medieval town of Cordes sur Ciel and took a 30 minute break for coffee and photos. The race will go through Cordes during tomorrow's stage 11.  Here are a selection of photos, again courtesy of Mark.

We arrived at Carmaux with plenty of time to spare, so we had a quick walk through the finishing area to stake out the best vantage point and then headed off to town to find a spot to sit and watch the race on tele....and have a well earned beer. We watched the last 80 km of the race and watched the intriguing breakaway efforts of Philippe Gilbert and Thomas Voeckler, man these two boys are having a big impact at the moment, great entertainment. Genuinely tough riders and with their teams not likely to be contenders for the GC they have free rein to attack the race and promote their sponsors.

The finishing sprint was an absolute cracker and it looked like HTC had it all set up for Cav to take another victory but Greipel had other ideas and shadowed Cav perfectly to just grab the win on the line. He was one happy puppy when I saw him for these two lucky snaps.

One of my other lucky opportunities came when we were walking down through the team buses 20 minutes before the finish. An HTC car pulled up in front of us as we walked along the road and who should pop out to head to the team bus but the great Erik Zabel....so quick as a flash we said "G'day Erick, would you mind a photo with a couple of Ozzies?" And he kindly obliged.

 

One of our all time favourites, Jens Voigt,  also rolled past after the finish and it was great to see the he could still smile after doing his normal mountan of work in chasing down the breakaway. One of our tour group has a T Shirt with Jensies oft quoted "Shut Up Legs" on the front......just love that one.

And now one great little shot for all you foodies out there!! This little patisserie got a bit of a workover when we were taking our little stroll through the town of Carmaux.