Tune in at 8:00 AM ET for Stage Two coverage of the Tour de France. Rob Sturney will be liveblogging for your enjoyment.
I'm Rob Sturney here with Stage 2 of the 2012 Tour de France, currently led by Fabian Cancellara of RadioShack.
Today is the last day in Belgium. The riders face a flat, 207.5 kilometre course from Visé to Tournai. It looks to be one for the sprinters.
It may be a flat stage, but there is a single Cat. 4 climb. This has drawn polka-dot jersey wearer Michael Morkov into the three man breakaway. He's been joined by Anthony Roux of FDJ and Europcar's Christopher Kern. They are eight minutes ahead of the peloton.
Yesterday not only earned Saxo-Tinkoff's Morkov the first King of the Mountains jersey of the Tour, it also brought Peter Sagan his first stage win. Cancellara made the attack on the finishing climb. Sagan locked on and refused to work, coming around the Swiss rider before the line.
A reminder of the jerseys:
Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland/RadioShack) - yellow and green points jersey (Sagan will keep the latter warm for him)
Tejay Van Garderen (USA/BMC - white best young rider's jersey
Michael Morkov (Denmark/Saxo-Tinkoff) - King of the Mountains
The laterne rouge, the last placed rider, is Guillaume Levarlet from Saur-Sojasun.
Kern is the best placed of the three breakaways. He's the yellow on the road, but this trio is sure to be pulled back before the finish, maybe before the sprint in Soignies
Tomorrow's stage in France features six Cat. 3 and Cat. 4 climbs in the last 65 kilometres.
Yesterday he picked up a few leftover sprint points after the six man breakaway went through it. Matty Goss nipped him at the line though.
This is Cav's kind of day. He'll keep on eye on German Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano), who has beaten him in five head-to-head encounters.
140 km to go: The Category 4 climb is coming up soon. Morkov will want to absorb that single point, then it'll be the long reel-in.
Sky's priority is Bradley Wiggins winning the Tour de France. Cavendish is focused on the Olympics, so this might not be the Cav Show that we've seen over the past few years.
138 km to go: Two consecutive days in the break for Morkov. Two consecutive days of Europcar riders in the break as well.
137 km to go: Another website says there's a chase just behind the breakaway, but that can't be right . . . the three up front are closing in on the day's only categorized climb.
It's tough to say why Cav joined Sky knowing that Wiggins was the man GC man. I imagine they backed a truck full of money up to his house. Also, Sky is British.
Wiggins has superb form this year and that's why he's the odds-on favourite to win the Tour. Cav has targeted the Olympics for a long time. Maybe he figures Tour 2012 isn't a priority and it'll all come out it the wash next year.
It should be in the little post at the top, but it's Michael Morkov (Saxo-Tinkoff), Christopher Kern (Europcar), and Anthony Roux (FDJ).
Yes, fine stuff. Hard to buy a banana without it, as Granddad used to say.
129 km to go: The race goes through the provinces of Liege, Namur, Hainault and Brabant Wallon.
Cav gets a quick bike change.
129 km to go: The Sky riders are wearing the top team yellow helmets today.
Lotto-Belisol, Argos-Shimano and Orica-GreenEdge men on the front of the peloton as the breakaway starts the climb. Roux was letting his left arm dangle. Still is. Very odd.
126 km to go: Cav gets help latching back onto the peloton from Christian Knees. The citadel that the break is ascending to is teeming with fans. Roux is still dangling that left arm.
126 km to go: The climb is cobbled and rough. It's bothering Roux and that's why he's dangling that sore arm. Morkov should take this point uncontested.
124 km to go: No problem for Morkov. That's four points that he has now.
123 km to go: Morkov will have to be content with having the jersey for a couple of days or get into another break tomorrow that lasts through the climbs at the end of the stage or put a teammate in the break to soak up some of the points.
122 km to go: We'll know fairly soon if the peloton plans on hauling back the escape before the intermediate sprint - which is over 65 kilometres away - or letting it roll on.
119 km to go: It's still Lotto-Belisol, Argos-Shimano and Orica-GreenEdge on the front of the bunch. It's not in any particular hurry at the moment.
118 km to go: It'll be lunchtime soon. The break should be hitting Temploux to grab their musettes.
117 km to go: For all you Ryder Hesjedal fans out there, he came in ninth yesterday to climb to 10th on GC.
114 km to go: Sky had a bit of a bummer yesterday as Chris Froome got caught up in one of the two crashes at the end of the stage and finished 1:25 back of the winner. Michael Rogers crashed too.
113 km to go: But the two notable riders who suffered injuries were Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-QuickStep), the world time trial champion, who broke a bone in his wrist, and LL Sanchez (Rabobank) who hurt his hand.
110 km to go: The breakaway has been resupplied with food and drink. The gap is tumbling. It's now 5:20.
109 km to go: In last year's edition of the Tour, Tyler Farrar won the third day's stage. Could it be on for him again today? The American from Garmin-Sharp hasn't had too hot of a season so far. He's off to the Olympics though.
105 km to go: Farrar will be joined in the Olympic men's road race lineup by Chris Horner, Tejay Van Garderen, Taylor Phinney and Tim Duggan.
Kristin Armstrong, Amber Neven, Evelyn Stevens and Shelley Olds will be in the women's races.
104 km to go: RadioShack is happy to let the sprinters' teams - bar Sky - drive the peloton as the riders simply look after the yellow jersey.
102 km to go: The intrepid trio beats on with hope in its heart. It's still five minutes ahead of the bunch.
98 km to go: There's an Argos-Shimano man at the tip of the peloton. I must say that I do prefer that name to 1T4i, which is what it was called at the beginning of the season. Last year it was Skil-Shimano.
97 km to go: Random Prediction: tomorrow we'll see an Euskatel rider in the breakaway.
94 km to go: Peter Sagan has a slightly different green on his helmet and Oakleys to match the on-loan green jersey.
93 km to go: Kittel, Greipel and Goss's teams are still represented at the front of the bunch. Sky is just slotted in behind them.
