Welcome to live coverage of stage seven from Le Mans to Chateauroux, a pancake-flat 218km slog into the centre of France which, unlike its start town (thankfully), won't go on for 24 hours.

TRIVIA QUESTION WINNER: Well done Joe91 who spotted that the sequence 3-4-3-10-2 correlates to which stage France recorded their first win in the previous five Tours. Chavanel,­ Voeckler, Dumoulin, Vasseur, Casper were the riders in question. When will France get their first win this year? They have had men in breaks every day, but still nothing to show for it... Perhaps Romain Feillu will break his - and France's - duck in Chateauroux?

Problem for Thomas Voeckler. The peloton came to a near standstill when the road narrowed, and the Europcar man was forced to take a foot out of the pedal. He then stuttered a little before getting back on his way. Nothing serious.

Andy Schleck slips back with Leopard Trek team-mates Jakob Fuglsang and Joost Posthuma to have a word with the team car. The gap is still 5:00. Schleck will have no designs on today's stage - he will just fancy staying out of trouble - especially is there's a split in the peloton. Tomorrow is when it all starts for the 2010 runner-up as the hills of the Massif Central arrive...

Three BMC men - led by the yellow-booted Marcus Burghardt - have jumped off the front of the bunch, but it's more to keep out of trouble on this narrow town road than any ostensible attempt at breaking clear. And that's why: Sky's Rigoberto Uran and Katusha's Yury Trofimov collide on a tight bend and hit the deck. Nothing serious, and they're back on their bikes, but they'll be cursing that.

Meersman is on the front as the four breakaway men continue their surely futile attempt at keeping away on this, the flattest stage on the Tour this year.

Wow, the Tour helicopter has just shown images of the stunning Chateau de Chenonceaux... It's no surprise why there are so many tourists in France - and it's no surprise either that the Tour coverage is one of the main driving factors behind the French tourist industry.

If you have only just joined us, the big news today is the abandonment of Tom Boonen two days on from that nasty spill he took in stage five.

The breakaway - Pablo Urtasun Perez (Euskaltel), Yannick Talabardon (Saur-Sojasun), Gianni Meersman and Mickael Delage (both FDJ) - have 4:44 on the peloton.

TRIVIA QUESTION UPDATE: Gary is very close with his answer: "If yesterday was the first stage victory in the Tour­ for a British team, is this sequence the best stage­ results for a British team in the previous five tours­ that one has been involved in?"

TRIVIA QUESTION UPDATE: Despite the claims below that 'Catherine' has got the question right, I have to say that no one still has the answer. A clue: it is something to do with the host nation, France...

Johnny Hoogerland comes onto the front of the peloton, presumably because there's a slight rise in the road and he wants to have some photos taken of him on a hill in the polka dot jersey. Nice one, Johnny. Yesterday, Hoogerland promised to keep attacking. "I'm not someone who can stay in the group," he said. "It's the Tour de France and every day that you're in this race, there's the chance for a lot of good publicity for the team. If you can also take a jersey, then it's wonderful."

Lunch time - and poor Talabardon doesn't seem to pick up a musette. Word of warning for the the escapees: keep your eye on Euskatel's Urtasun and his musette... don't want it to end up in the spokes of your bike.

Gianni Meersman is wearing a rather garish pair of red sunglasses today - which is very considerate because it's helps us to pick him out from his FDJ team-mate Mickael Delage.

The feeding zone is not far away as the gap dips to 5:25.

That was just a quick shower because the sun's out again now. But the wind is getting rather blustery. Garmin sprint combo Thor Hushovd and Tyler Farrar have a chat on the front of the peloton. The yellow jersey will probably lead out Farrar alongside Julien Dean at the finish today. It's a flat one, so Farrar is the team's best bet to beat the Manx Missile Mark Cavendish.

It's started to rain as the lead drops to 5:50.

Tom Boonen is back with his team car having a chat with Patrick Lefevere. And the car stops and Boonen gets off his bike... and into the front of the car. Game over for the former Tour green jersey winner - that crash on Wednesday just took too much out of him.

The lead is down to 6:17 for the four men out in front. Place your bets - when will they be swept up by the peloton?

Interesting fact: Tour debutant Yannick Talabardon's brother Sebastien rode in the 2001 Tour de France for the Bigmat-Auber team.

One of the favourites for victory today will be stage three winner Tyler Farrar. We caught up with the American at the start in Le Mans, despite his apparently reluctance to chat...

QuickStep's Kevin de Weert needs a back wheel change. The Belgian team's Tour was thrown into disarray the day before yesterday with a series of nasty crashes which left their main riders torn to shreds. Tom Boonen, Gert Steegmans and Sylvain Chavanel are all on the brink of leaving the race owing to injuries sustained in stage five.