Tour De France: Stage Seven - As It Happened

Preamble: Afternoon folks and welcome to live coverage of stage seven of Le Tour. It's another hilly one, though nothing like as severe as yesterday. We begin in the medieval town of Brioude and end 159km later by the Cère river in Aurillac, and in between we've got three sprints and two leg-sapping category two climbs. The second, up to Pas de Peyrol, is something of a beast.

For a more detailed breakdown of the stage, why not take a peak (do you see what I did there? No? Never mind) at our Interactive guide. I certainly have, and very informative it is too. Equally informative is Will Fotheringham - he's written all about yesterday right here.

Preamble: Afternoon folks and welcome to live coverage of stage seven of Le Tour. It's another hilly one, though nothing like as severe as yesterday. We begin in the medieval town of Brioude and end 159km later by the Cère river in Aurillac, and in between we've got three sprints and two leg-sapping category two climbs. The second, up to Pas de Peyrol, is something of a beast.

For a more detailed breakdown of the stage, why not take a peak (do you see what I did there? No? Never mind) at our Interactive guide. I certainly have, and very informative it is too. Equally informative is Will Fotheringham - he's written all about yesterday right here.

Under glorious sunny skies they're off.

1.35pm: Thomas Lovkvist leads the peloton out.

1.40pm: A five-man break makes an early move and they've put a couple of hundred metres between themselves and the pack. Carlos Barredo, Xavier Florencio, David Millar, Ronny Scholz and Jens Voight are certainly up there and I think I can see the small N0169 on the back of Benoît Vaugrenard too.

1.45pm: At the first climb, Voight takes three points, Scholz picks up two, and Millar a solitary one. " I love the early kilometres of a stage," writes Gary Nayloe. "Riders tootle along swapping stories and bidons, the roadside crowd applaud politely. There must be some amongst the peloton thinking of sending a text or two or sparking up a gitane. And now there's no Jacky Durand to go haring off into the distance, why not?" Why not, indeed.

1.50pm: Team Columbia are leading the group and keeping that breakaway bunch in their sights - the gap is not much more than 20 seconds at the moment. Plenty of the big names are at the head of the peloton - Cadel Evans, Christian Vandevelde particularly prominent.

1.55pm: Why don't Tour riders have their numbers on the front of their jerseys? It'd make it far easier to pick them out, I can tell you. There's a bit of an accident at the back of the pack, with a bevvie of riders hitting the tarmac, Christophe Riblon of the Mondiale team among them.

1.56pm: David Millar, who's in the breakaway group, has a puncture, which is very unfortunate for him. The team car is heading his way, with a bucket of water, glue that looks like it should be used on Airfix models, a little piece of sandpaper and some chalk.

2pm: It's certainly a picaresque stage today, but the roads seem a tad narrow for comfort. Well, the comfort of a hundred or so cyclists anyway. The main group has split and the head bunch has all but absorbed the breakaway.

2.02pm: And now they have.

2.03pm: After working hard to pull the six leaders in, Luis-Leon Sanchez immediately launches an attack of his own. He's got a good 50 yards already.

2.06pm: The CSC, team of Carlos Sastre, Fabian Cancellara and the Schleck brothers, get themselves organised and are hammering out a feverish pace. Sanchez is reined in, and he joins 20-odd riders in this chunky break. Yellow jersey wearer Kirchen is in there too.

2.08pm: A sharp reminder of how brutal a race this is - a rider collides with a tree and he looks in a bad way. It's very windy out in central France, and it looks like he's been blown off course. No word on who it is yet, but I'll let you know as soon as I do.

2.10pm: Stefan Schumacher, yesterday's yellow jersey wearer, isn't in that lead group, by the way.

2.15pm: Oscar Freire takes maximum points at the first sprint, Kirchen is right on his rubber in second and CSC's Volodymir Gustov is third. This group have a 60-second lead over the peloton now - there's some serious damage being done.

2.18pm: "Is David Millar back on the road yet, or has his team mechanic's failure to bring spoons with which to remove his tyre from the rim of the wheel resulted in further delays?" asks my colleague Barry Glendenning, who should really be making more use of his day off. "Can you confirm that the team have been scolded by their mother for using the handles of forks as tyre levers?" adds Mark Crack. Millar is still up there, clearly the team quickly saw those bubbles in the bucket.

2.22pm: It was Lilian Jegou, I believe, who was involved in that crash earlier on. Just a broken wrist for the Frenchman, a damn lucky escape consider the speed of the peloton and immovability of rooted wood.

2.25pm: Plenty of the main men are up in the escape group. Kirchen, Evans, Ricco, both Schlecks, Valverde, Lovkvist, Menchov, Pereiro, Millar and Vandevelde are all there. The Schlecks have three other CSC riders to help them out, so they're looking good.

2.27pm: "So is Barry Glendenning the Mark Kermode of minute-by-minute," writes James Kinsella, "feels the need to butt in with his pithy comments even when hes not supposed to be working." Hang on, we're not going to turn this MBM to a Barry-fest. He beats us if we do that. Beats us so badly.

2.30pm: "Speaking of punctures: did Millar have to push, cut his knuckles, kick and swear at his wheel in order to replace that tyre, or do they have a kicking, swearing, etc specialist in the team car?" writes Mark Taylor. "And less importantly, are we hearing his name so often because he stands a chance of a decent position in the GC, or just because he's British?" Well, he's what fifth at the moment, he's in the lead group, and his affirmed aim is stage wins rather than a tilt at the overall title, so I'd say he's got a decent shout today.

2.32pm: "Just had a look at the betting," writes Mr Naylor. "Cadel Evans is odds on with some bookmakers which is just ridiculous for a man who has never won a Grand Tour (or anyone who has to be honest). At the other end of the scale, a small investment at 100/1 on Riccardo Ricco may pay off handsomely, as might a little nibble at 33/1 each way about Franck Schleck."

2.37pm: The excitement of watching a big-name heavy breakaway group ends, as the pack sucks them back in. Josep Jufre and Luis-Leon Sanchez, who's been in the thick of things today, make their own move, and a flurry of riders attempt to get up to join them.

2.40pm: "My dad used to work for the Dunlop in Birmingham in the 60 and 70s," writes Mick Beine. "Our cupboards at home were full to busting with punture repair kits. My brother Pat used to play with the yellow wax crayons - he's now an animator so it wasn't completely wasted." That's one of the few careers that could sprout out of a childhood affinity with puncture repair kits. The only other I can think of is as a sander of pieces of very tiny wooden furniture.

2.44pm: The pack slows as begin a the big climb to Col d'Entremont. Le Boulanger and De La Fuente have joined the front two, but it's not a particularly emphatic break.

2.47pm: Sweat glistens on sinewy arms as the bunch crawl up the hill.

2.50pm: The pace picks up as the front four hit the top. De La Fuente takes top points for that climb, Jufre is second, Sanchez third. Just 57km to go, but there's the big mountain still to come.

2.54pm: Nibali (067) is up with the front four - not La Boulanger (167) so apologies French fans. They - along with everyone else - are putting the pedal to the metal as they fly down this dramatic, sweeping and incredibly quick descent. The Pas de Peyrol (also known as the Puy Mary) awaits after this downhill bomb.

3pm: Jufre and De La Fuente are team-mates at Saunier, Nibali is withLiquigas and Sanchez Caisse d'Epargne. Nibali is the man closest to the yellow jersey overall - he was 3min 1sec behind Kirchen this morning, in joint 27th. The Italian's got a near-two minute lead over the Luxembourg rider on the road as it stands.

3.03pm: And so it begins. Seven-and-a-bit kilometres of climb lies ahead.

3.05pm: Kirchen's Team Columbia boys are at the head of the chasing pack, just keeping an eye on the gap to the lead men.

3.07pm: Clouds obscure the tops of the hills round these parts - the cyclists climb up to a dizzying 1,588m. The gap us remaining pretty constant, so Kirchen's men are doing their jobs well.

3.11pm: You get tired just watching this stuff. The small hill I have to cycle up on my way to GU Towers is enough for me to get a decent sweat on. These hills are simply terrifying. The gap has expanded to just over two minutes ...

3.15pm: Mikel Astarloza has had enough of the light blue wall at the front of the pack, and he's off! He's not one of the leaders in the general classification, but he clearly fancies his chances today. The Eurosport commentators, rather unfairly, start to discuss his (I'm paraphrasing here) small, ugly, crooked, yellow teeth.

3.18pm: The gap from peloton to leaders is down to just over 1½ minutes, so Astalorza might be wasting his time here.

3.20pm: Ian Bell is nearing a double ton (well, sort of) over at Lord's, so if you fancy hopping over to see how the cricket's going you can join Andy Bull. Not that he'll thank me for it.

3.23pm: As the lead four go over the top, the team cars have their headlights on, the cameras have to get right in the faces of the cyclists simply to see them, and the wind is blowing a gale. Astalorza joins them a few seconds later, and the pack will follow in 90 seconds time.

3.26pm: It's a windy (as in wine-dee, you know, lots of corners, as opposed to the meteorological kind, which it could be as well) descent and quite a long one, which will be a real relief to the riders. There's still a little category three climb to get over before the finish, but in the main it's all downhill from here.

3.30pm: De La Fuente has moved into third in the hunt for the poker-dot King of the Mountains journey, with more points in the offing over that final climb. Just as I type that his rear wheel twitches twice on a damp patch in the road and he's literally a yard from tumbling over the precipice. Holy moly that was close.

3.32pm: De La Fuente, quite understandably, has eased right up and he's miles back from the other three now. He'll be back in the pack before too long.

3.35pm: This slope is a big test of nerve. Van Summeran has come off at the same dodgy corner that De La Fuente struggled on, but he's sprawled on the road rather than tumbling over the edge, which is a relief. Nibali is showing giblets of steel and is tonking down through these curves.

3.37pm: Oh dear. Staring too wide-eyed at the TV, your humble scribe loses both his disposable contact lenses - I do have quite big goggly eyes and they occasionally pop right out. It's a problem, but not insurmountable, I'll just have to get closer to the screen. 28km to go.

3.40pm: From what I can make out from the now rather blurry images on the box, the gap from peloton to leaders is down to 1min 20sec, which is fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

3.42pm: Incredibly, having lost a huge amount of time after his scare on that descent, De La Fuente is back with the lead group. Remarkable stuff.

3.46pm: The front four zip past the 20km mark - can they hold off the ever-encroaching mass behind them? The gap is down to a minute.

3.50pm: The Euskaltel team have massed at the front of the chasing pack - for the first time today - which suggests something is afoot.

3.53pm: Alejandro Valverde's Caisse D'Epargne team are right up at the head of the peloton too. This could be a thrilling finish.

3.57pm: The front four finally hit the last hill of the day and they're all straight out of the saddle and turning on the gas, lactic acid screaming in their legs.

4pm: Nibali leads the front four up, round a very tight hairpin. They are creeping up this short, sharp shock after 149km. Pereiro and Schumacher are giving it a whirl, though - they're haring after the leaders.

4.03pm: Pereiro pushes on, but Schumacher is sucked back in to the group. Meanwhile, De La Fuente hits the peak first, Sanchez takes second, Pereiro is third, with Jufre and Nibali droppping back.

4.05pm: After that testing little climb, there's now a lead bunch of maybe 20 riders. Schumacher, Menchov, Kirchen, Vandevelde, Lokqvist ... they're all there.

4.08pm: Luis-Leon Sanchez puts his safety on the line by shooting down this slope into the finish. It's very narrow, very windy (wine-dee), but he's opened up a little gap for himself.

4.10pm: 2km to go, and it's still Sanchez out in front. He won a stage in the Paris-Nice race, so he knows how to get over the line first.

4.12pm: Liquigas have two riders on the head of the chasers, but Sanchez has 10 seconds as he goes past the 1km mark.

4.14pm: Sanchez cruises over the line, lifting his arms to the sky in celebration. There's a lovely TV shot, with Sanchez, arms aoft, in the foreground, and the pack, absolutely flat out in the race for second, behind. Schumacher and Kirchen cross the line almost together, with the German just taking the first loser's spot.

An absorbing stage, then, albeit one that will do little to alter the leaders in the general classification. Thanks for all your emails, folks. Cheerio.