Vicarious Fleche Wallone

Cousin Adam strikes again. This time on the strength of Gilbert, De Waele, and the winner, Cadel Evans, who demonstrated that the curse of the rainbow jersey isn't a given. 645 points and a third consecutive victory for the VP Road. And he moves all the way up to 5th place. Not bad. The Fraggle is showing no signs of letting up her torrid pace. She finished second again, with 550 points. Her overall lead is now almost 1500 points. But she's still behind the pace that Mike set last yet. After Fleche Wallone, he had 7070 points. The Fraggle has 6175 points after the same number of races this year. At this time last year, King Andy and Rachel had 6410 and 6535 points respectively. Not to take anything away from the Fraggle, but its not so much that she is doing something special as the rest of us suck. If this were last year, Jonny B would be sitting in 12th. As it is, he's clinging to the second podium step. Wierd. Prince Dan finished third on the day, with 325 points. He remains in third overall, just 110 points back of Jonny B, who will need Andy Schleck to deliver if he wants to hold onto his second place.

That finish is probably worth watching. Another nice thing about Evans' victory is that it saved us from having to see another one of Contador's pistol waving victory salutes. He's pretty good at going up hills. But he needs to find a wider range of celebratory gestures. Either that or stop winning so much.



Full results and standings here.

The season wraps up on Sunday with the final monument of the season, Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Big numbers at stake once again. The overall title may be all sewn up. But there could still be a significant shakeup to the standings.