Stage 11 underway

There's a break of 3 riders, and the peloton is only to happy to let them keep a modest time advantage.

They are Egoi Martinez of Euskaltel-Euskadi, David Moncoutie of Cofidis, and Juan-Antonio Flecha of Fassa Bortolo, who won last year's Stage 11. Moncoutie has splintered the breakaway, and looks to have the stage nailed.

The peloton was blocked briefly. It's pretty common for political protesters to try to interrupt the race, but today's interruption was by 6 cows. That will probably give us the photo of the day.