TDF 2006

The tour has crossed the Alps and in those 3 days the race turned upside over its head and then came back straight up again!

On Tuesday on the legendary L'Alpe-D'Huez climb the top contenders separated themselves. All of them made it through without much damage and Floyd Landis regained his overall lead. But on the next day on Wednesday Floyd Landis cracked. On the La Toussuire climb Floyd gave up 10 minutes. And Oscar Pereiro had the yellow jersey. Floyd and his team Phonak will be ruing the day when they let Oscar Pereiro, who was 28 minutes behind at one point, gain 30 minutes on a flat stage. The 10 minute loss put Floyd roughly about 8 minutes back from Pereiro.

In any case on the next mountain stage Floyd redeemed himself. He broke out around the 50 kilometer mark and rode all by himself through about 5 climbs and about 150 kilometers. He won the stage and pulled off one of the most amazing rides. He showed real courage and managed to pull back almost all of the 8 minutes. Floyd had managed to do the unthinkable.

Now only the individual time trial (TT) remains (on Saturday) as a stage where the lead can change. Going into the time trial the podium places are almost decided. Only Andreas Kloden who is about 2 and a half minutes behind has an outside chance to upset the top 3 riders who are: Oscar Pereiro (leader), Carlos Sastre (12 seconds behind) and Floyd Landis (30 seconds behind).

Floyd is good at TTs. The other 2 are not that great but on that day anything might happen. It is going to be a very exciting day...

This tour has been really topsy turvy. There have been 7 wears of the Maillot Jaune (means the yellow jersey, 'my-oh jhohn') and it has all been terribly exciting :)