2007 Tour de France, Stage 11 to Stage 20

These are the profiles for the individual stages in the 2007 Tour de France, with Stage 11 on 19 July, and Stage 20 on 29 July.

Stage 11

;2007-07-19 — Marseille – Montpellier, 182.5 km
This was the first of two transition stages between the Alps and the Pyrenees, with no climbs.

Robbie Hunter took the stage when he powered for the line and held off Fabian Cancellara after a number of sprinters crashed in the final kilometre on a tight corner.

French favourite Christophe Moreau finished more than three minutes after the leaders. He was caught napping when Astana hit the front shortly after going through the feed zone in Arles. Despite the best efforts of his AG2R team Moreau could not bridge the gap, which increased steadily as the leaders set a relentless pace. On a day in which no movement was expected at the top of the General Classification, Moreau, who crashed early in the stage, slipped from sixth to 14th after coming in three minutes 20 seconds back.

Michael Rasmussen kept clear of danger on the 182.5 km flat route from Marseille to Montpellier to maintain his hold on the yellow jersey. And it looked as if Tom Boonen would tighten his grip on the green jersey with Erik Zabel off the pace, but the Belgian lost momentum on the fringes of the crash in the final kilometre and eventually came home 37th. New Zealander Julian Dean hit the deck along with Iker Camaño, Sebastien Hinault, Marcel Sieberg and Fränk Schleck.

Stage 12

;2007-07-20 — Montpellier – Castres, 178.5 km
This was another transition stage heading west to Castres, with a category 2 climb just 40 km from the finish. The terrain was expected to offer some opportunities for the attackers but ending in a sprint at the finish line.

The first attack of the day to get away happened at about the 52 km mark when Amets Txurruka and Pierrick Fédrigo broke away from the peloton. A couple of chases, including a solo effort by Marcus Burghardt, briefly got away but were soon reeled in by the peloton.

Shortly after the descent from the category 2 climb near the finish, the pace set by Française des Jeux and Lampre–Fondital at the front of the peloton, in an effort to catch Txurruka and Fédrigo, became so blisteringly fast that some riders willingly dropped off the back of the peloton, knowing that by dropping off so close to the finish line they would not risk being disqualified.

Txurruka and Fédrigo proved much more difficult to catch than first thought; as the peloton neared them within 10 km to the finish line, it was calculated that the catch would occur between 2 and 3 km to the line. The two valiantly fought on and wound up being caught just as the peloton reached the 1 km to go mark, leading to a classic bunched sprint at the finish, where the top three men in the points classification standings were the first three to the line.

Stage 13

;2007-07-21 — Albi, 54 km (ITT)
This was the first individual time trial since the prologue and was relatively flat with a twisty downhill finish.

An early downpour of rain saturated the road and made for dangerous conditions for many of the early riders. Reigning world time trial champion (and winner of the Prologue time trial) Fabian Cancellara had extreme difficulty negotiating a right-hand turn around the 30 km mark and lost most of his speed, before eventually crashing and losing a great deal of time. Others also fell at this turn.

Cofidis' Bradley Wiggins rode through the rain to set the first time to beat, that stood for most of the day. Alexander Vinokourov lead at every time check and shattered Wiggins' final time by more than two minutes. It is likely, however, that his performance was aided by drugs.

General classification leader Michael Rasmussen was expected to lose a great deal of time, having had one of the worst time trials ever for a top-flight professional in the 2005 Tour de France. He finished 11th originally, much better than expected, and was upgraded to 10th when Vinokourov was disqualified, though his own premature exit from the Tour days later casts doubt on this performance.

The rain let up by the time there were about 40 riders left to leave the starthouse, though the course still remained more treacherous than it would have been had the day been completely dry.

Vinokourov originally won the stage in 1h 06'34", but on April 30, 2008, he was officially stripped of the victory due to his subsequent positive test for blood doping.www.cyclingnews.com - the world centre of cycling
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Stage 14

;2007-07-22 — Mazamet – Plateau-de-Beille, 197 km

The race headed into the Pyrenees. This stage started with a category 2 climb out of Mazamet and then followed a relatively calm route via Carcassonne, Limoux and Quillan