Out Goes Another One.

First off, some good news.  Most of you have probably figured it out, but I emailed Toby to confirm...

He got his bike back!  Yeah Toby!  I hope it gives you many more miles of pure pleasure.  It's funny, I was thinking what happened was, since the tour was in town, you're bike probably got thrown in with the rest of the bikes that were coming through.  You've got that bag the pros use (me too!) so it was easily confused.  Then it went onto a team truck, taken to the start line, pulled out, and when the mechanic opened it...

I'd like to think that was the case.  Plus I could have sworn Cavendish was riding it to the win on Stage 5...

...

Sorry Kevin.  Thibault Pinot has dropped out.  Sore throat.  DNS stage 16.

This shuffles up our pool a little bit.  But not by much.  See the column on the left for the current standings.

I thought today's stage would be relatively uneventful.  But had some good moments in it.

It was nice to see Contador on the attack.  I don't think he's trying to catch Froome, but trying to distance himself from Mollema to move up into 2nd place.  He still has a jump, which was nice to see.

I can never tell if he just slows and drifts back to the peloton, or if Porte and Froome raise the tempo and drag him back.  If that's the case, then once they catch him, it doesn't seem like they slow back down.  Maybe I'm just not watching close enough.

Interesting to see Contador misjudge a corner and then take out Froome.  I could tell Froome was mad about having to unclip after running off the road for a spell.  Why was he mad?  Because someone is attacking at a point that most people wouldn't attack?  Shouldn't he expect to get hit from every direction all the time from the people who want to beat him?  And then to try and wave Contador forward to make him take a pull on the flat run into town?  Why should he?  Froome's the Malliot Jaune.  Why would Contador want to help him.

And while we're at it, what was with the thumbs up from Contador to Quintana?  I don't think Quintana attacked.  They were going downhill, Contador was risking it all and missed to corner.  Was everybody supposed to stop and wait for him?

I get the gentlemanly fair play that goes on in the sport, but I think that pulling over and waiting because someone crashed should really be for the yellow jersey wearer and a rival close enough to unseat the leader.  That's why I think waiting for Lance Dopestrong back in 2003 (it was 2003 right?) when he was hooked by a spectator and crashed makes sense.  He in yellow, the crash was no fault of his own so the riders waited.

Contador is not in contention for yellow.  At best, he's trying for 2nd place so I don't think in they should have waited.

And besides, Quintana didn't attack.  Contador made an error in blaming the young phenom.  Let's see if it comes back to bite him in the ass.

Which it might in terms of a possible "Spanish Armada".

Rodriguez was active today.  He put in a couple of digs to put some of the G.C. contenders in trouble.  The big looser of the day was Laurens Ten Dam.

I think everyone is out for their own placings now.  The fight is for 2nd place (and 3rd, for us).  You could throw a blanket over the 2nd through 6th place riders.  Quintana will have the help of his team, Contador his, and Rodriguez will be a wild card.  And none of them will work together to dislodge Froome.  It's too bad.  It would have been nice to see them all hitting at him until he cracked.

Time trial tomorrow should be another chance to sort out the top of the G.C.  I can't wait to see.

Happy riding.