Another three stages down in the first Grand Tour of the season, seeing some brilliant riding, nail biting finishes and a wonderful rememberance of the late Wouter Weylandt from Stage Six winner, Mark Cavendish.
Stage 4: Policastro – Serra San Bruno, 246km
And for the manufacturers this meant:
Stage 4 being dominated by the Italian manufacturers, Pinarello, Cipollini and Bianchi. A rare stage win for Campagnolo too, a sign of a shift in power perhaps?
Stage 5: Â Cosenza – Matera, 203km
A crash affected stage 5 saw John Degenkolb take the win, with 89 other riders sharing the same winning time – because of the crash, the bunch wasn’t that tight 🙂
And for the manufacturers:
Stage 6: Mola di Bari – Margherita di Saviola, 169km
Stage 6 saw Mark Cavendish take the 99th stage win of his professional career – utterly incredible. It will be very interesting to see if he can add any more  to his tally of 23 in this year’s TdF, aiming for the crown of Mr Merckx (34 stage wins!)
The manufacturers fared thus:
A stage win here for SRAM, with Shimano just beating Campagnolo into third. Shimano also drawing with Zipp in the Wheels race, with Fulcrum just 2 points adrift.
So the running total so far for the manufacturers looks like this:
Still a comfortable lead for Shimano in the Groupset Table, with Pinarello fighting it out with Specialized in the Bikes. It’s already looking like a fight for second place behind Shimano in the Wheel Division too! Still plenty of stages left though, and anything can happen in a Grand Tour!