The Tour Day 5

“It’s like Woodstock on wheels.” Bob Roll

Spectators lined the streets in the rain for today’s Time Trial event, umbrellas unfurled, cheering the riders as they passed. Watching the spectators is almost as interesting as watching the riders. Some come decked out in costumes, others construct large displays to support their favorite teams. Even the rain does not daunt their enthusiasm. They travel with the tour each day to pick a favorite viewing spot along the course and with the costumes, music and displays, it is, as Bob Roll so eloquently stated, like Woodstock on wheels.

US Postal, the final team to start, rolled out of the starting line in a blaze of blue and red on their special Team Time Trial bikes, in their special Team Time Trial uniforms. I wondered if in addition to the team director, coach, and chef, they also have a team fashion designer. They looked great. This is the last year they will ride under US Postal sponsorship. The dark blue and red looks so good, I hope their new sponsor The Discovery Channel will keep the same color scheme.

The rain caused havoc for some of the other teams on the 65 kilometer course today. Phonak, Tyler Hamilton’s team, lost three riders before the second time check and finished with only six men. They still came in with a strong second place finish. Iban Mayo’s Euskatel Euskadi, who started first as the lowest point ranking team held first place through nearly half the race. T Moblie with Jan Ullrich came in fourth. Even though technically Armstrong took a minute and nineteen seconds out of Ullrich, under the new Team Time Trial rules this year Ullrich lost only 40 seconds. Disappointing were Liberty Seguros, the reorganized ONCE team.

The new Team Time Trial rules state that at the most time any team could lose would be three minutes. It’s a complicated ruling which I barely understand so I won’t try to explain it. My only comment about it is how it affected the standing between Armstrong and Ullrich. It is definitely in Ullrich’s favor this year. I suppose it keeps the competition strong between the top contenders.

At the end of the day, Armstrong had the yellow jersey for the first time in this year’s race. The GC shows the top three riders as Armstrong, Hincapie and Landis. I haven’t seen it stated anywhere so the following statement is speculation, but I do believe that it’s the first time three American riders have held the top three spots in this race.

Speaking of Floyd Landis, is it just me or does he resemble our fearless leader? How about it Tim, do you have a famous bike racing cousin or something?

I’m going to fire my fact checker. There were two inexcusable errors in yesterday’s blog which I need to correct. Of course I could have gone back and just edited it, but I though I’d own up to the errors in the spirit of the sport.

First of all, Ekimov’s first name is Viatcheslav, not Vladimir. Sorry, Viatcheslav, you may smack me soundly about the head and shoulders with your sweaty bike shorts.

The second correction is that Iban Mayo DID crash in yesterday’s stage, I misunderstood the announcers and thought he was just held up because of the crash. Apologies Iban, and I hope you can pick up some time in the mountains.

Any errors readers find will be cheerfully corrected.

Great shots of today’s event here. Just look at that smile on Lance’s face in the last shot!

Today’s shameless plug is for the Lance Armstrong Foundation’s Wear Yellow campaign. The proceeds go to benefit the foundation which supports cancer research. Hey, it’s only a buck they are asking for.

Today’s Tune to the Tour contest word is “Time Trial”.

CKS/bl Tridiot Rating today was calculated by counting the number of revolutions of the rear bicycle tires of the US Postal team during the 23rd kilometer of today’s race and dividing by their collective heartrate during that period of time for an absolutely astounding result of 97.8395%