Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

The Tour de France starts Saturday with no prologue, but a 19km time trial. That is around 13 miles to us Americans. With the stage being this long there will not be the usual close time gaps where someone like Lance Armstrong can simply give up the jersey. So what would Lance, Jan, Ivan or other contenders do for the first stage?

Lance has the luxury of going last, so he can get a good idea of everyone else’s time splits along the way. He is going to be very close to Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso at between 2 to 10 minutes for starting intervals. My guess is that Lance will try to make a statement by trying to win the first stage. He will not want to stress out his team much for the first half of the Tour, so by Stage 2 the Discovery team will let a breakaway go for a little extra time, so that Lance can “give away” the jersey.

What if Lance does not win the Stage 1 Time Trial? If Jan Ullrich wins and gets the Yellow Jersey, will T-Mobile try to keep the jersey as long as possible just to try and get comfortable with the fit? What is David Zabriske shows the great for he had in the Giro and wins, will Bjarne want to risk his team with Ivan in contention? Probably not, but those are some interesting possibilities.

One likely winner of the Stage 1 TT is Santiago Botero. Santi has had a resurgence this year after some lost years at T-Mobile. He looked great in the Tour de Suisse, almost pulling off an upset. He won two stages and looks to be om some great form coming into the Tour. The only drawback is that he may go out early to set a time for team leader Floyd Landis. Floyd seems to have the form this year, and he may want to show the ol’ Boss that he can give him some trouble too.

Can’t wait for that first TT…