Author: broderic

This has been an amazing Tour. What seemed to be Floy Landis’s time came to an abrupt and stunning end on the top of La Toussuire. This was the first time that the Tour had visited this particular climb, and it will now go down as the scene of carnage.

I haven’t seen the footage, but I can hear Paul Sherwin proclaiming, “This is an utter disaster for Landis.” It must have been something to see. Oh! What could’ve been.

There is still tomorrow’s final mountain stage and with the crowd at the top of the leader board it is still anyone’s race. If it’s not decided tomorrow, then the individual time trial on Saturday will definitely sort things out.

I am bummed out for Floyd Landis. He looked so promising. This is one strange Tour, but exciting.

The name says it all. The Yankee Stadium of cycling, the Orange Bowl of cycling, l’Alpe d’Huez. Franke Shleck takes it at the pinnacle.

Landis makes it back into yellow.

This is just the beginning of a good final week. Two more days in the Alps and a penultimate individual time trial will decide things. Who knows if Landis can keep it especially with the next two days in the mountains.

What a day of racing! An American sandwich of Landis and Leipheimer surrounding the eventual stage winner Menchov. He outsprints Leipheimer to get the stage win, but Landis gets the maillot jaune.

I mistakenly thought that yesterday the GC contenders let it slip away, but they waited until today to, once again, shake things up. It was 6 hours of hard racing, up 5 mountains, and finishing on an uphill climb. The main group destroyed by the hard charging of team T-Mobile, up the Col de Portillon, but they couldn’t maintain the pace which was picked up by Rabobank (I fly their team colors on my helmet!). Team Rabobank lead out the eventual winner of the day. And the race is once again on.

Unfortunately, it looks as if team Discovery Channel have come crashing back to earth. George Hincapie getting dropped early on the Portillon and finishing well back. Popovych finishes later as well. The team that was so good with Lance Armstrong as the leader has broken asundered and will now have to settle for stage wins. Armstrong was their motivator and without him they are struggling. They have regressed back to being spectators in this race. Perhaps, a stage win later, but they are not the monster team like years past.

It always amazes me that men on bikes can average 19mph up mountain passes. I can’t even maintain that for 10 miles on flat land with a tail wind. These dudes are amazing.

That’s it for the Pyranees. Some flatter stages ahead and next week, the Alps. It has been a surprising Tour.

Stage 10 was the first mountain stage of this year’s Tour. And what a Tour it has become.

There are no clear favorites, yet, and today’s stage produced a long breakaway with the finishers climbing right up the podium and into contention for the maillot jaune.

I think the main contenders (Landis, Hincapie, Kloden) let today’s break gain too much time. They are minutes off the lead. It may be too much to regain that and today we may have seen the winner of the Tour.

Tomorrow more climbing!