2006 Tour de France, Stage 12 to Stage 20

The 2006 Tour de France was the 93rd edition of Tour de France, one of cycling's Grand Tours. The Tour began in Strasbourg with a prologue individual time trial on 1 July and Stage 12 occurred on 14 July with a hilly stage from Bagnères-de-Luchon. The race finished on the Champs-Élysées in Paris, on 23 July.

A positive test for epitestosterone by Floyd Landis after Stage 17, however, has left the results of the Tour de France in doubt, with the possibility that all of his records may be expunged, pending a hearing with the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

14 July 2006 — Luchon to Carcassonne, 212 km (131.7 mi)

Stage 12 started in the Luchon, which held big celebrations because this was the fiftieth time that the Tour de France visited the city. The stage end location was Carcassonne and in between those cities the course featured four categorized climbs:

There were also two intermediate sprints in Caumont (at 76.0 km/47.2 miles) and Mirepoix (162.0 km/100.7 miles).

This being the first stage after the Pyrenees, many riders were hoping to get an easy day, sitting at the back of the peloton; however, there were also a lot of riders who had lost a lot of time during those mountain stages and who knew that they were not going to get a good position in the general standings. Those riders all tried to get into the escape group which led to everyone chasing everyone for the first 100 kilometers and an extremely fast pace which caused the first riders already passing the 46-kilometre mark after just one hour. As a result, 4 riders dropped from the race during the first hour; among those were Paolo Savoldelli and Benjamín Noval from Discovery Channel and the sprinter Isaac Gálvez. Another important fact for the large number of riders trying to escape was the fact that it was the 14 July, in France known as Bastille Day. On this day the French are extra motivated as it is their national holiday, which shows in the results of the latest years with David Moncoutié winning in 2005 and Richard Virenque in 2004 on this day.

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