By Tick of Cycling4Fans

So Richard Virenque has managed to do it again! I must honestly say that he is not one of my favorite riders, but I respect and admire his athletic performance. And in a year when so many young riders are making their names known, it's great to see one of the peloton's "oldies" stealing the show.

There seems to have been an exceptionally large number of crashes and serious injuries in the Tour this year, with broken ribs seeming to be the most popular. Traffic islands spring up out of nowhere to bring riders down, and TMO's Kessler had a close encounter of the painful kind with a fence post. All of these crashes are sad, but sadder still are the riders' reactions. Two stick in my mind: DVE's Gian Matteo Fagnini's fall into a ditch in an early stage. It was immediately clear that he had broken a collarbone, but what I remember is the look on his face: shock, pain, confusion, the knowledge that it was all already over.

And saddest of all, seeing Gerolsteiner's Sven Montgomery, conceding that he couldn't continue riding with a broken collarbone, pull over to the side of the road, climb off his bike and lean on the hood of a parked car to cry his heart - and his frustrations - out.

On the lighter side, CSC's Jens Voigt has gotten to know the French fauna, whether he wants to or not. First a bee flew into his helmet, couldn't find its way out, panicked, and did what comes naturally. The sting only hurt for 10 km or so, he said. The very next day a dog dashed into the peloton, bringing a number of riders to fall - including Jens...