Tour de France riders take a break after nine hard days of cycling

As the Tour de France enters its 10th stage Tuesday, five things to know:

1. ZZZZZZZZZ: After nine torrid days of riding, on the 10th day they rested. In hotels in and near Saint-Nazaire on France’s western coast, the 182 riders who survived the Tour’s bruising first week were sleeping, eating and sleeping some more Monday to recharge their batteries for the middle section of three weeks of racing.

2. BACK IN THE SADDLE: You can bet Chris Froome will not have been so devil-may-care. The Kenyan-born Briton will wear the leader’s yellow jersey Tuesday in the 10th stage. It shouldn’t be too rude an awakening for riders, as it’s a mostly flat 197-kilometer (122.4-mile) ride across Brittany from Saint-Gildas-des-Bois to Saint-Malo. The next test to Froome’s grasp on the leader’s shirt comes Wednesday with the first individual time trial, up to the majestic island citadel of Mont-Saint-Michel.

3. TIGHT-LIPPED BRAILSFORD: Dave Brailsford, the manager of Froome’s Sky squad, insists his riders won’t collapse again in the mountains as they did Sunday in the ninth stage. Paris-Nice winner Richie Porte and several other Sky riders were dropped on the first big climb. That left Froome, the pre-race favorite, to fend for himself for the next 125 kilometers and over three more monster ascents. But he held on, solo, to keep the yellow jersey. “[Using] a boxing analogy, he’s taken the biggest right hook he could face, and he didn’t flinch,” Brailsford said.

4. DUELING MANIFESTOS: The candidates to run cycling’s governing body used the Tour’s rest day to publicize their visions for the future. UCI boss Pat McQuaid, seeking a third four-year term, insisted the sport has changed for the better during his tenure and unveiled his manifesto for cycling’s future. He wants to “preserve the new culture and era of clean cycling,” develop women’s cycling, and authorize an independent audit to look into the UCI’s actions between 1999 and 2005, the period when Lance Armstrong won seven Tour titles before they were stripped for doping. Brian Cookson, the head of British Cycling who put out a manifesto last month as part of his candidacy, retorted Monday that people will “ask why those things haven’t been done in the last eight years” under McQuaid.

5. RIDERS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN? Cyclists know about pain, sweat and hard work. The Orica GreenEdge team proves it knows how to have fun too. The Australian squad and some filmmaking-savvy helpers created an online video tribute to legendary rock ‘n’ roll band AC/DC in which the riders don wigs, strum on floppy toy guitars and play air guitar on a Tour podium to the tune of the Australian band’s classic “You Shook Me All Night Long.”

Overall standings