2011 HTC–Highroad season

This allowed some 45 riders who had been ahead of world champion Thor Hushovd, the man who crashed, to speed clear of the rest of the main field.

[22] Afterward, Cavendish stated that he had been feeling ill on the day the race was run, and that even if he had not been caught behind the crash on Le Manie, he would not have had the form to put in a successful sprint.

[39] Stage 4 featured a surprise, as the peloton ceded 24 seconds at the finish to a breakaway group including Garmin–Cervélo's Cameron Meyer, who became the new race leader.

[50] At the concurrent Volta ao Algarve, neo-pro sprinter Degenkolb won stage 2 over Tyler Farrar and Michael Matthews, who took a one-second gap over the rest of the field in their sprint.

[54] In the mountainous stage 5, Martin finished with the first group on the road to assume fourth place at the end of the day, ten seconds down on race leader Andreas Klöden.

Degenkolb won the selective stage 2 sprint that was raced so fast, the first 14 riders gained a six-second time gap on the rest of the peloton.

[70] The next day, Martin rode to a strong individual time trial victory in Grenoble, on the very same course set to be used later in the season at the Tour de France.

[71] Degenkolb then made it three wins for the team in as many days by taking a more traditional field sprint in stage 4, one where all but two riders in the peloton had the same finishing time.

Gretsch was fastest against the clock in the 7 kilometers (4.3 mi) time trial that opened the race; his closest challenger was teammate Rasmussen just three seconds back.

Sivtsov and Pinotti, both strong individual time trialists, were named as overall classification riders, with Lewis to be a key support man in the mountains.

[89] The team time trial was a particular goal for the squad; their plan was to have Pinotti cross the line first and therefore claim the first pink jersey as race leader.

Given that the Giro awards time bonuses for the first three riders to finish a road race stage, that made it extremely likely that Cavendish would take the pink jersey the next day.

Cavendish then rode as race leader on stage 3, the day Wouter Weylandt died, finishing well back after repeated mechanical trouble.

[96] Sivtsov, Pinotti, and Lewis remained highly placed overall, staying so after the neutralized fourth stage had no effect on any of the race's standings.

Rival sprinter Francisco Ventoso from Movistar Team claimed that Cavendish should have been disqualified anyway, saying that the Manxman had illegally used the race caravan for slipstreams on his ascent of Etna.

Nonetheless, Cavendish was able to surge past Petacchi, who had been left for an early sprint by his leadout man Danilo Hondo, to claim his first victory of the race.

[105] Pinotti rebounded a bit from a disappointing second half of the Giro to ride to eighth place in the stage 16 individual time trial.

When he, Hubert Dupont, and Christophe Le Mével, all of them within the top 16 overall at the beginning of the day, made the group, that left the onus for the chase on teams like Liquigas–Cannondale, Geox–TMC, and Euskaltel–Euskadi, since their riders could conceivably be displaced from high overall positions.

[113] HTC-Highroad's squad for the Tour de France was centered around Cavendish, back again to try to win the points classification green jersey after finishing second in those standings each of the past two years.

[114] Martin took tenth place on the first stage, ending at the Mont des Alouettes, staying with the first large group on the road but unable to match the accelerations of the day's winner Philippe Gilbert.

The team worked for Goss, and the Australian narrowly missed the day's honors, taking second in the final sprint behind Boasson Hagen.

The sprint ace was evidently quite aware of this, as he mimicked his victory reaction from three years prior, grabbing his helmet with both hands and painting a shocked expression on his face.

The result was HTC-Highroad's support riders had to expend much more effort than usual to ensure that Cavendish was at the front of the race in the finale, and as such their leadout was less than perfect.

He started his sprint later than in past years, due to a headwind coming off the Place de la Concorde, but he was able to surpass Greipel and Boasson Hagen to take his fifth stage win of the Tour, putting an exclamation point on his successful green jersey campaign.

[131] Sporting director Jens Zemke commented that the riders were mostly over the shock of the team folding, and with most of them having signed new contracts by that time, they were prepared to ride out the rest of the season as professionally and competitively as possible.

Cavendish and Goss were unsurprising riders to lose the pace, but a major surprise was Martin rolling in for his own time over a minute behind his teammates.

Post-race analysis found Martin's emphatic defeat of rival chrono specialist Fabian Cancellara a likely portend for the world championships time trial to come.

After making his way into a 20-man escape group, one which the race's top riders were content to let go as it contained no overall threat, Albasini proved himself easily the strongest by dominantly winning the sprint for the line.

Albasini, Velits, Grabsch, Degenkolb, and Howard were the only team members to complete the race, and all were more than three and a half hours down in the final overall standings.

[143][145] In early August, the seemingly inevitable came to pass, and Stapleton confirmed that the sponsor search had proven fruitless and the team would not continue in 2012.