Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Tom Boonen unleashed another powerful sprint to take his socond stage in a row. The powerful QuickStep sprinter beat out a hard charging group of about six sprinters at the front. Robbie McEwen was relegated to 186th place because of some irregular sprinting. He was basically leaning right onto Stuart O’Grady.
The pack finally caught the dwindled reminants of the day long break away with only about 3 km to go. Eric Dekker and Nicholas Portal were fighting with every last bit of speed they could generate to keep at the front.
They were able to danlge out in front for a few kilometers before the pack finally reeled both Dekker and Portal into the pack with an attack from Cancellara.

You have to be impressed by Eric Dekker, he is one of the toughest riders in the peloton with an amazing lookign scowl. The scowl is further accented by the Rudy Project shades, but he does look intimidating.
It is fun to see riders of Dekker’s caliber in a break, you can learn much from the subtle movements, and looking at their form. In the end I was hoping that the break would survive, but when you have 186 rider barreling down the road, a two man break cannot generate the same speed or momentum, expecially with the flat and straight run in to Tours.

Anothe rider that impresses is Robbie McEwen. Even though he wa srelegated today, you have to be impressed with his tremendous bike handling skills. During a furious sprint he is basically wrestling with Stuart O’Grady. That takes skill and some steel cajones.

Tommorrow is another major showdown for all of the Tour contenders. The top teams to watch will be Discovery Channel for obvoius reasons, CSC, T-Mobile, Gerolsteiner and Phonak. One possible dark horse is Liberty Seguros. You remember Liberty Seguors best when they were known as ONCE and dominated the TTT. But the last few Tours de France have not be so kind to Liberty. They have been practicing on the TTT course in the week leading up to the Tour de France start and they cannot afford to have their main man Roberto Heras lose more time if he wants to seriously put up a fight in the mountains. Looks for them to give a little bit of a surprise.

As for the top teams, it will be a fun battle to watch as CSC and Disco are especially loaded. Even Disco’s climbers are good Time Trialers. Look for a tight result between these two. Gerolsteiner and Phonak will be in the mix for a win. Gerolsteiner has some god engines from riders like Michael Rich and that may help keep Levi Leipheimer near the top of the standings. Phonak need to get a good time to help propel Landis and Botero to a good overall spot.

T-Mobile may be the odd team out. Word is out that there is a split camp with half the riders pledging to support Vinoukorov, and the other half pledging to support Der Kaiser Jan Ullrich. Hey Jan, why didn’t you go to CSC when you had the chance! That is one of the most boneheaded tranfer moves since the Portland Trailblazers picked Sam Booey over Michael Jordan in the NBA draft way back when.

Look for either Discovery or CSC to take the top spot tomorrow. I cannot pick one team because I think it will be very close at the end.