"I think this might be one of the most inexplicable Tours I’ve ever seen. Between stage three when three guys get away and stay away and Schumacher putting the kind of time into Cancelarra that he did yesterday – like he was holding onto a car or something – it’s all a bit bizarre and really, hard to get a handle on strategically.

The stage today was your typical flat Tour stage; three riders go clear, three riders get with 2k to go and then the sprinters launch. Today was different because Nicolas Vogondy stayed clear until about 20 yards before the finish. In fact the French cameras missed it because they assumed everyone had been caught. In the end Mark Cavendish finally won one and Phil Ligget exploded with joy!

Schumacher kept the yellow jersey which should give him some more energy for tomorrow which is good because he’ll need it. It seems that the French press is a bit down on him since he had a drug incident last year, but there are those who argue that wrecking your car after a late night disco run with drugs in your system is outside the realm of being a bike racer. In a way he’s the worst guy possible to be in the yellow jersey since the Tour is trying so hard to promote a clean image.

Finally we’ll see some climbs tomorrow and I suspect riders like Valverde will  have to attack to get his time back and all  Schumacher has to do is shadow him to stay in yellow."

Bobke’s Inside Line: “One hallmark of the true working man is they he can’t stop for the rain and for the first three stages of the Tour you could feel the suffering of the peloton as they pedaled through the cold, wet weather. But today the sun finally came out and you could feel that the gods must still have a little bit of love for the two-wheeled pilgrims.”