Stages 8 and 9

Sorry I didn't have time yesterday to make a post on stage 8 so I will group the final to Pyreneian Passes together.

Stage 8: Featured three categorized climbs 1,2,1 in that order out on the road. But these came early and in the middle of the day, leaving a long flat run into the finish allowing a peloton which stayed mostly intact up the mountain a long time to bring back any breakaways. But the 4 rider break featuring the veteran rider Sandy Casar and Vlad Effingkim, and the upstart star Luis-Leon Sanchez was able to build up a 2 minute lead to seemingly hold off a charging peloton with 10k to go. With the break confident they would stay away, the attacks starting coming, the most convincing from Effingkim who gapped the others 4k out. But a chase lead by Sanchez calmy clawed there way back, catching Vlad with only 500 meters to go. Casar took this oppurtunity to go for the long sprint, but Sanchez had none of this, catching the old Frenchman's slipstream and powering around him in the last 20m meters for the W. Just a minute and a half later the peloton, containing all the contenders even the surpising yellow jersey bearer Rinaldo Nocentini rode in meaning the GC standing would go unchanged another day. But there was a major change in the points, Green jersey classification asThor Hushov, who hung with the climbers was able to snag some points at the finish. Just enough to pass Mark Cavendish, the anti-climber, proving again that the green jersey is about more than stage wins but consistent high finishes.

Stage 9: Another stage that features to huge climbs midday but offers a large flat run in for the peloton to reel in any attackers. Obviously there were many breakaways but surprisingly none of them feature GC contenders who seemed satisfitied to wait til the Alps to make decisive attacks and put the Astana team under pressure. With 70k to go after the last climb it seemed impossible to any GC riders to put any serious time on their competition, this left the duty of the breakaway to the climbers daring enough to go for the stage victory. And with 10k to go this left only Franco Pellizatini of Liquigas and Pierrick Fredrigo of Bbox trying valiantly to hold off the peloton with only a minute and 20 second advantage. But the techincal city finish allowed Fredigo just the time to strike a violent attack in the final 200 meters gritting past Pellizatini, giving France yet another stage victory and team Bbox their 2nd win.

As we hit the rest day tomorrow and move to 4 flat stages through central france after that, we see how undeciesive the Pyrenees really were. There are many questions that still need answers, Where is Carlos Sastre and what kind of shape is he in? Will Schleck and Evans ever be able to make moves that can make up time? Can Christian VDV rep it for Chi-town? Who is the team leader for Astana? Is Nocentini Legit? Who will win the Tour de France? We will just have to wait for the Alps to find out.