Tour- Preview for Stage 7

If I am a betting man i completely agree with you matt, every tour team that johan bruyneel has assembled i the last 9 years has come out sporting the yellow jersey. Astana has Contador, the odds on favorite, Lance the and spotlight that comes with it, and levi and kloden two other podium finishers and well as a crew of domestiques that will go to the end of the earth to protect them. You cant bet against that because no one else has it in their arsenal or anything close. This is why the TTT was unfair, it essentially spotted 4 of the top 9 riders in the world 2 minutes because they were allowed to work together. Astana has an all-star team that maybe i would like if they were from america. But no the 2 best american riders the best spaniard and the best german say lets go out a represent kazakstan, i mean i like borat and all but come on. Though it probably will happen i dont want to see domination by those ugly torcoise jerseys, its like cheering for the USSR on the miracle on ice. Like i said if levi, or lance wins, great i would love to see an american in yellow. Or even if contador wins fine i wouldnt mind he is a great cyclist. But by no means am i cheering for these guys. Going into the pyrenees i am rooting for the schlecks, sastre, evans, sanchez, kreuziger, and especially vande velde, any and all of these the strong climbers that can make this thing a race. All these guys have legs going into the mountains and i hope to see them bring back some serious time. hopefully the distraction of who will be the team leader will preoccupy Astana just enough to give one of these guys an opening, so when we hit the flats again next tuesday we will have an even playing field. I can only hope, all i want is a race, and the first 6 days havent disappointed. I just dont want it to turn into an Astana fest.

As for the stage tomorrow the road slowly climbs upwards with some mid categorized climbs before the big beyond category (HC) climb to the mountain top finish in the principality of Andorra. There will be some climbers that break away early, look for the spaniards both from eskadel-eskadi the basque team in the orange jerseys and the black jerseys of Caisse D'parnge to be on the attack looking for a stage victory in front of a home town crowd. It is very hard to predict winners of mountain stages but what i can guarantee is that there will be a major group of GC contenders riding together. Look for names like Armstrong, Contador, Sastre, Evans, Kloden, Schleck, liephiemer, and vande velde (and the other guys on my GC list) to be riding together, sorry not you Cancellara. Whether they will catch the early leaders and have a chance at the stage win or be just behind the breaks is yet to be seen. But there should be some attacks by GC guys and the others will be forced to counter to stay in race. Valuable minutes that win tours can and will be lost on the slopes of the pyrenees and i cant wait to see it happen. Remember Lance is like a hundredth of a second back right now and Cancellara isnt much of a climber, so tomorrow night look for the Texan to be back in yellow.