The Cycliste Moderne, July 13, 2005

Geoff is on the road again but had the following thoughts:

I think I was wrong

I may have been a little harsh on Discovery Channel. Tuesday's performance was completely unexpected. It is not that I expected the team to perform poorly; I expected them to put in a workman-like performance and not show weakness. The European Press was salivating over the team's performance on Saturday and had marked it as the end ofthe line for Armstrong's team.

Tuesday's performance by Discovery and Armstrong was unexpected for two reasons. First, although the climb to Courchavel is long, it is not the most difficult climb that the riders will face. It is not particularly steep and it has some relatively flat areas. This is especially true since the peleton only faced one other climb on the stage. Coming as it did after a rest stage, I really did not think that it was the type of stage that would shake up the general classification like it did. It was not particularly long, not particularly difficult and just did not seem like it would be an epic day in the mountains.

Second, I expected the team to ride defensively on the first mountain stage coming as it did after the rest day. I expected them to make a strong showing but was amazed when the team regrouped after the first climb and had every rider at the front leading Armstrong to the base of the climb to Courchavel. I did not expect the team to expend the resources that they did shattering the peleton at the base of the final climb. The fact that George Hincapie was taking pulls at the front with Jose Azevedo and Paolo Savoldelli was nothing short of impressive. You did not see other sprinters like Tom Boonen up there at the front. With team leaders falling out the back of the main group with Hincapie setting tempo, it was an amazing sight.

Although Armstrong historically attacks hard on the first mountain stage, and with the exception of 2003, has put big time into all his challengers, I did not think that the team would follow that same strategy yet again, especially in light of the aggressiveness of theother teams over the weekend. Armstrong showed his strength, however, by riding the final 10km by himself. I am convinced that if he had to, he could have dropped Mancebo, Valverde and Rasmussen and won the stage.

Vinokourov's collapse today was shocking. He has always been an aggressive rider and had improved his skills in the high mountains over the last couple of years. He rode to victory on Mount Ventoux during the Dauphine Libere in June. Less shocking was the performance of Roberto Heras. Since leaving US Postal Service to ride for Liberty Seguros, he has done nothing at the Tour de France. He won last year's Vuelta a Espana but history is proving that success at the Giro or the Vuelta does not translate to success at the Tour. He is a great climber but like Gilberto Simoni, Heras really does not seem to perform when given the responsibility of the team leader.

Armstrong can still lose the Tour de France. However, as one of Cyclingnews.com's columnists wrote, it will take an injury, illness or incident for Armstrong to lose the Tour de France.

Fashion Review

I have to give Illes Balears extra credit. Their jerseys are bad but you can wear bad clothes when you ride as well as their leaders did on Tuesday. I will increase their grade to a C even though their kit looks like what you get when your kids leave their crayons in the back seat of your car on the hottest day of the year.

Fashion Review, Part Deux

(Since Kristin is left to post the blog, she gets to add her own fashion comments.)

Geoff has been sharing his opinion of the team kits featured in this year’s Tour. What I think is most impressive is how the shorts match the jersey which matches the helmet which matches the socks (case in point: Rabobank). However, besides the team jerseys there is a certain Yellow Jersey (general classification leader), a Green Jersey (points leader), a Polka Dot Jersey (King of the Mountains), and a White Jersey (best young rider). As the leader of one of these distinct competitions, you not only get a stylin’ jersey with your team’s logo, you get a whole outfit. If you are wearing yellow, you get coordinating shorts, helmet, and sometimes even a wristband. Tom Boonen managed to wear coordinating sunglasses. The Tour’s Fashion Police are certainly on their toes.

However, I’m wondering if they don’t like Michael Rasmussen of Rabobank. David Zabriskie had a complete ensemble for his first day wearing yellow. Tom Boonen had his Jolly Green Giant suit the next day as well. So why did Rasmussen have to spend his first day in polka dots looking like my five-year-old daughter dressed him? Apparently, someone must have complained because Tuesday he was looking fine, right down to the matching, polka-dotted helmet. Someone must have put in some overtime on that one.