This Bastille Day stage saw a large breakaway with thirteen riders (top-ten plus Giunti Massimo, Stephan Schreck and Giovanni Lombardi) that gained over four minutes on the peloton.
By winning the peloton sprint in Saint-Amand-Montrond ahead of Allan Davis, Tom Boonen (who finished fifth in the prologue stage five seconds down on Bobby Julich) took over the yellow/white jersey due to the time bonus awarded to stage winners.
A breakaway of Lorenzo Bernucci, Matthé Pronk, Pavel Brutt and Jeff Louder formed after 80 km, and stayed free of the peloton until 9 km to go.
During the Alt de Paumeres climb, Jens Voigt, who had earlier been dropped from the peloton, made a solo bridge to the four leaders.
Just a few kilometres into the stage, five riders broke away from the peloton: Koen Barbé, Marcus Burghardt, Niko Eeckhout, Jens Mouris and Luca Paolini.
A group of 15 riders, including amongst others Tyler Farrar, Pablo Lastras and Maarten Tjallingii, formed the early breakaway, but due to the size of the group there were not allowed to gain more than five minutes over the peloton.
Approximately forty kilometres from the stage finish, as the peloton passed through Saint-Chamond, Kivilev collided with Polish team mate Marek Rutkiewicz and German Volker Ordowski of Team Gerolsteiner, although they were not seriously hurt and finished the stage.
In one interview for the BBC, Tyler Hamilton publicly apologized for being part of the peloton that shunned him, saying that he (Tyler) was "100% wrong" not to talk to Bassons.
Rijkaert was active in cycling when EPO was being introduced to the professional peloton by doctors such as Francesco Conconi and his former assistant Michele Ferrari.
Lombardi became the only rider of the peloton to participate and complete all three grand tours of the 2005 season, riding the Giro and Tour de France for team captain Ivan Basso as well as the Vuelta for Carlos Sastre.
Jan Maarten Heideman is also known to be the Willie Wortel (Gyro Gearloose) of the speed skating peloton.
In that year, Danish rider Jesper Skibby broke away from the peloton early in the race and had been riding by himself when he approached the Koppenberg.
The La Vie Claire colors (red, yellow, blue and gray) were based on the artwork of Piet Mondrian, giving them a unique appearance in the peloton during the 80s Tours de France.
He also rode his second Tour de France, and won Stage 7 after counterattacking, having been in a breakaway that was caught by the peloton.
The crash created a six minute split in the peloton which ended the hopes of many favourites to win the race, like Alex Zülle, who would eventually finish second overall, seven minutes after Lance Armstrong.