The Tour de France is about battles large and small. The biggest battle is for the Yellow Jersey. Then there are stage wins, then battles for other jerseys. Each of these plays out in front of the TV everyday and provides for some drama in it s own way. Today Bradley Wiggins the Londoner who “hasn’t shown much in road racing” put in a day long break that looked utterly painful. Ashame about the race radios and split times. The peloton was simply toying with Wiggins allowing him to cook in the sun as long as they absolutely needed to. The peloton was in a restful mood. This is what you get when there is no more doping, or at least not much more doping in the world of pro cycling. Speeds are slower, finishes drag out to around the noontime (6pm French time) and not a great deal of action in these transitional stages.
Wiggins was just hoping some team would simply get on with it and catch him already. After many kilometers out front the peloton finally got down to business and dueled out a nice sprint for the fans sitting at home. The action was worth the wait with Boonen going all over the road to get a clear position and winning. Boonen looked possessed as he sprinted home. He wanted his Green Jersey back and a stage win for this Tour de France before the mountain stage on Saturday.
The other big news was the struggle of Astana. The heavy favorite team from Kazakstan, very niiiiice had massive troubles yesterday on stage 5. Today’s piano pace helped the likes of Vino and Kloden cruise along and nurse their wounds.
Vino looked like a mummy wearing all of the bandages. Too bad they don’t make gauze bandages in teal. At one point Vino motioned to the camera by moving his hand across his neck. The universal symbol of death might mean that Vino’s 2007 adventure could be coming to a quick end. But then again if he can get through the next two mountain stages he may be able to buy enough time to make a match of the Tour. That is a very big IF.
Andreas Kloden meanwhile has a hairline fracture of his tailbone meaning that life is probably not too comfortable for the German at this point. On Versus Frankie Andreu noted that as the Astana team bus pulled up to the start that the mechanics brought Klodi’s and Vino’s bikes into the bus to see if they could actually sit on them. Once that was determined to be acceptable they all came out and were ready to ride. This cannot be a fun time for either Vino or Klodi to ride bikes, so all eyes will be on them to see if they actually sign in tomorrow.