Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

Floyd Landis is fresh off wind tunnel testing that helped him improve his Time Trial position. This is the first time that Floyd tested the tweeked position that is similar to last year’s extreme forward motion position. Looks like the hard work paid off as Floyd Landis claimed the important Stage 3 TT win ahead of some strong CSC riders such as Julich and heavily favored Zabriske. The “Flying Proctological Exam” took the win in convincing fashion by besting second place David Zabriske by 26 seconds. George Hincapie proved that he is a good Time Trialer as he placed fourth in the TT and is fourth in the GC.

Levi Leipheimer pretty much “gave up the ghost” in the TT today falling down the standings to sixth place overall after getting a ninth place in the TT. It wasn’t Levi’s day as kisses from the Specialized Angel did not help his legs pump any faster on the wind swept course. Don’t worry Levi it is only February, don’t get the engine running too hot just yet, you have bigger fish to fry in July. (So does Landis, but hey…)

CSC showed that they have a very strong team by taking over the team competition. They lead Discovery by 1′40″ overall. CSC has Zabriske and Julich breathing down Floyd Landis’ neck with four stages to go. As each CSC rider passed the finish line today, they would set a new best time. It started witn Lars Bak, then even sprinter Stuart O’Grady showed that he can claim the number one spot for a while only to be beaten by teammate Cancellara.

Nathan O’Neil of HealthNet Maxxis was the only non-ProTour rider in the top ten as he is lying 5th overal at the moment. Will this mean a move to a big ProTour team next year?

With two strong teams breathing down Landis’ neck, will he be able to keep the lead in the next few stages? Discovery have shaken out most of their riders from the top ten overall, but Danielson could work his was back up the standings in some of the hillier stages to come. Landis showed yesterday that he was already in great form being one of the first three over the tough Cat 1 climb.

The Amgen Tour of California site is improving each day. Sure there were a few glitches at first like no results three hours after a stage, but he they need to shake out some of the the bugs right? Today, the results are all there including some other overall standings such as “best team” and “best young rider”. The videos seem to be snippets taken from the ESPN2 production crew. They are raw, but they give you all you need to know. The only oddity is watching some of the videos with someone yelling random words or hearing commentary of the race that does not have anything to do with the current camera view (check out the “Guse going hard” video). At least I don’t have to stay up to 1am, I have to work tomorrow! (And train for my races too)