Le Tour and Training

Finally the Tour is shaping up to be an interesting race. First time trial in the books and there's still 10 or 15 guys who can win the thing. Maybe Landis has a slight advantage at the moment, but his climbing sucked at the Dauphine so it's wait and see time. This one should come down to the final time trial. Also with a lack of dominant teams with clear favorites for the GC the mountain stages could be free-for-alls for the first time in years. Kinda unfortunate Simoni, Mayo, Cunego and Rujano aren't closer in the GC battle as we could surely see some real fireworks but they will probably be thinking of polka dots or stage wins at this point. Anyone of them would have to make up about 10 minutes on the other guys at the top of the GC to erase their current deficit and have a shot at hanging onto the podium in the final time trial. Simoni has always been one to attack and Rujano is supposed to be one short of a 6-pack so these guys might still throw a monkey wrench into things. I'm throwing my weight behind Gonchar, I've been pulling for that guy at the Giro for years. With another time trial and relatively easy mountain stages this year he could very well take out the GC, he's probably a solid bet for the podium. It's a two-up battle for most disappointing performance this year. Boonen can't get out of his own way to take a stage win and Levi, what the fuck? Getting beat in a time trial by Rujano, Simoni and Mayo; losing over 5 minutes to Gonchar? Reports are that he was looking distressed before the stage? What, did a certain "package" not arrive on time? Is Oddessa sitting in a Spanish jail right now and we haven't heard about it yet? Boonen's got yellow at least to show for his efforts, so you do the math for who's been the biggest bust so far.

I did 5 hours on Saturday in unseasonably cool weather, mid-60s when I went out at 6am, probably not even out of the 70s when I was getting home around 11. The slight chill in the air turned my mind toward cross. Although all this riding I'm doing is for cross so it's never that far from mind. Eighteen hours on the bike last week, plan is for 20 this week. It better pay dividends come October. Good audio interview over at http://www.missingsaddle.com/ with Vervecken. Seems likes there are plans for a couple of world cup races in September of 2007 or 08 on this side of the pond. One in the US and one in Canada. World's are in Belgium this year, anyone up for a long weekend trip to the motherland of cross in late January?