Velochimp: Astrochimp on Cycling

(pic from Yahoo!)

The Tour de France finally had a major shake up that revealed the top contenders for the Maiilot Jaune. The top guys included Floyd Landis who is now in Yellow, Denis Menchov and Levi Leipheimer. The first major mountain stage provided some surprises as T-Mobile collpased after a very dominant first week of good results and a spell in Yellow. Andreas Kloden let his legs do the talking, but all they could do was whisper as Klodi was shot off the back of the lead group. Cadel Evans and Carlos Sastre performed well, but could not match the accelarations of Menchov, Landis and Leipheimer.

Here are some random Larry King style comments:

So American viewers not get two for the price of one. Armstrong is retired, but we get Leipheimer and Landis as two of the three top riders.

Rabobank have lots of confidence in Menchov, so much so that Rasmussen is not going for the Polka Dots this year and being a super-domestic. His climbing form must not be that great since he did most of the flat and lower slopes pulling while Boogerd pulled on the final climb.

Boogerd is in the best form of his career as he almost latched back onto the lead group after pulling everyone up the climb.

Where is the killer instinct? Landis seemed to want to bid his time and got the Yellow jersey somewhat reluctantly. His Phonak team will have to work for the next few undulating days. They will probably be keen enough to let a break go down the road as has been the MO of the peloton in the past few days.

Landis is sitting pretty in yellow, bad hip and all, but his Phonak team was not nearly as strong as Rabobank who look very formidable. Not only did they have Flecha in a break all day, but Skeltor Rasmussen did some major pulls while “Best smile in the peloton” Boogerd was better than most of the contenders for Yellow.