How did he lose over 3 minutes. Was he caught behind a crash?

It will explain it. Astana rode today.

Read just about any of the first ten threads in this forum and your questions will be answered.

Basically he was fooling around at the back of the pack when Astana and Disco put the hammer down. The peleton split into three groups and the back 2 groups were unable to close the gap.

How did he lose over 3 minutes. Was he caught behind a crash?

He was in the back of the peloton after he had crashed getting medical attention..... while up front Astana put the hammer down spliting the peloton in cross winds... Quick Step also helped drive the pace as Zabel was caught in the second group as well...

but then Boonen was hindered by a crash in the last 1k and Robbie Hunter won the sprint..... wow...... meanwhile Moreau, Zable and company came in over 3 minutes back... and poor Dave Z... didn't make the time cut... turned out to be quite the stage.

How did he lose over 3 minutes. Was he caught behind a crash?

wreck. He then caught back up to the peleton.

He drifted back to the MD to have his road rash looked at.

He then moved back up to the back of the peleton.

Just as he was hovering on the back, the peleton turned into a hugh crosswind, Vino had Astana attack and took the pace up quickly. This caused the Peleton to break into 3 groups. Moreau was caught in the middle group, as was Zabel, & Hershod

All the other contenders teams worked with Astana to keep the pace high until they got to about 30K from the finish opening a 2 minute gap on the Moreau group. The sprinters teams then took over and continued to drive the peleton.

By the time the Moreau group finished they had lost over 3 minutes.

Len

How did he lose over 3 minutes. Was he caught behind a crash?

I just finished watching the stage knowing what was going to occur. It wasn't entirely clear how he got caught out. Not very long after Astana put down the hammer (interesting post-stage interview Hunter said word had gone thru the peloton that Astana was going to ride before they hit the front), one of the TV motor bikes sped past the detached 2nd half of the peloton which was already a long way back. And eventually came up to Moreau's group of about 10 riders that was dangling a few 100 meters off the back of the Astana group. Moreau didn't looked panic or anything, but the gap just kept slowly inching out until they gave up the ghost. Eventually Moreau went back to the big 2nd peloton.

So to me it wasn't entirely clear that he had missed the first big split, although I guess that is possible, but looked like he may have gotten tailed off well after he had to have known what was going on.

Edit: Just saw this on cyclingnews which seems to back up that Moreau wasn't caught out initially but then somehow got spit out the back.

Simon Gerrans (AG2r Prévoyance)

"One of the toughest days I've had on a bike ever. Along with [Christophe] Moreau, I bit the dust after 40km which put us up the creek without a paddle. Then when Astana threw down the gutter I missed the split, which wasn’t a huge problem until Moreau missed the split up the front and dropped back to my group, so then we rode to the finish so he didn't lose to much time. In whole a day I'd rather forget!"