1 Nicki Sorensen (Den) Team Saxo Bank .4:52:24 .

2 Laurent Lefevre (Fra) BBOX Bouygues Telecom .0:00:48 .

3 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Liquigas

Chris Anker's teammate, Nicki Sorensen, had his best day ever on a bike and won his first ever stage of the Tour de France. Team Saxo Bank now has its second stage victory as it changes focus towards the upcoming Alpes and the battle for the yellow jersey.

This will was the last of the transitionary stages as the flat terrain ends and the Tour heads into the region of the Vosges mountains on Friday's stage 13. Stage 12 was the 4th hardest day when you look at the TSS value of 298 (the highest was stage 7 with 403TSS points). One unique characteristic you'll see in these flatter stages is the maximum values tend to be set within the first hour of racing when the men trying to get away on the day's escape are relentlesly attacking. Today Chris set both his highest 5-minute and 20-minute values within the first hour of the race. This is in contrast to the mountain stages where the max values come on the days hard-fought climbs.

We'll sart to see how well Chris has recovered in these flat stages and how well he reactes to heading back uphill again in stage 13. Although the finish is still a good ways away from the finish, so a breakaway will most likely succeed once again as it did today.

TrainingPeaks File Viewer: Click to view interactive data, and download the WKO+ file.

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