back in yellow

The general consensus among the commentators all along has been that the three hard days in the Alps will determine the winner of this year's Tour. After the first of these today--a mountain top finish on Alpe d'Huez--once again it looks like the Tour de Floyd. Frank Schleck won the stage, proving to be the strongest of a 20 man break that was out in front most of the way. Floyd's strategy seems to be to let the contenders set the pace and he just rides behind the one who goes out the fastest. Today that was Andreas Kloden. The two of them rode up the last 5 km together, having dropped Cadel Evans, Carlos Sastre and, most significantly, Dennis Menchov. So Floyd's back in the driver's seat and it's up to the others to attack. There will be plenty of opportunity for that over the next two stages. But the way Floyd is riding right now, that looks like it will be a tall order to gain any significant time on him. Look at his face compared to that of Kloden in the picture above. It's almost as if he's just crusing along singing himself a Skynyrd song in his head. Maybe Gimme Three Steps or perhaps Am I Losing? No Floyd, you're not losing. You're about to win the Tour de France! See the brief post-race interview with cyclingnews.com.

Top 10 on the GC now reads as follows:

1 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak - 69.00.05 (41.535 km/h)
2 Oscar Pereiro (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne-Illes Balears - +0.10
3 Cyril Dessel (Fra) AG2R-Prevoyance - 2.02
4 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank - 2.12
5 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Team CSC - 2.17
6 Andreas Klöden (Ger) T-Mobile - 2.29
7 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto - 2.56
8 Michael Rogers (Aus) T-Mobile - 5.01
9 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner - 6.18
10 Haimar Zubeldia (Spa) Euskaltel-Euskadi - 6.20

The biggest concern of the day is the fact that my cable cut out with about 5 kms to go. Nothing but static. Fortunately, LeAnn came through as a backup so that we could catch the finish. But it appears that the TdF headquarters will be out of commission for a while. Shaw says they'll get right on it and have someone out Friday afternoon. Great. Thanks for the concern, guys. Given that I only have cable hooked up for one month out of the year, this is shaping up to be a rather sour customer service experience.