The Tour Day 6

Grey skies, wind and rain brought good luck to Team Cofidis today. I have considered them the unluckiest team so far in this year’s tour. They have had many riders crash and flat, and one rider (Frederick Bessy, who was in that nasty crash in stage 3 with Marco Velo of Fasso Bortolo) retire. Cofidis was lucky even to get into the tour though, having voluntarily retired the team from racing for several weeks before the Tour because of drug allegations. David Millar who performed so brilliantly for the team last year was found with empty EPO syringes right before the Tour started. Though not scheduled to start in this year’s tour, this effectively ended Millar’s racing career and he retired from the British Olympic Racing Team. Now we know why he was so good in the Time Trials, I guess.

Armstrong made no attempt to defend his yellow jersey today amid the wind and rain on the long flat stage. An early breakaway of five riders which included Jacob Piil of Team CSC kept between a 14 and 17 minute lead on the peleton from about the 22nd kilometer of the race. Piil has been in every breakaway so far this year. There were at least four crashes today, one of which involved four US Postal riders. Fortunately no one was forced to retire because of injuries today.

Fdjeux.com team leader Bradley McGee, the spunky Australian rider, retired after falling off the back of the peleton early on and failing to regain it’s protective cover. Today’s stage was not a good day to be riding alone in the crosswinds. McGee started the Tour with strained muscles, allegedly due to “moving heavy furniture” in a house move right before the start of the race. (Gee, Brad, you don’t make enough money to hire a mover?) McGee was a real surprise in this year’s Giro. Known as a sprinter he surprised everyone as he rode close to the front in the mountain stages of that Tour. He took the stage win in the prologue and finished eighth in the GC. Brad will continue training for this year’s Olympic Games, where he will be a strong contender. Good luck, Brad!

Today’s favorite television moment was a helicopter shot of Johan Bruyneel, Team Director for USPS, launching one of the downed Postal riders. He had one hand on the back of the rider’s bike seat, with the other hand he was holding the downed rider’s damaged bike aloft. He was running along trying to get the rider back on the road, shouting his encouragement. Bruyneel has the same type of dedication and strategy I admired in Tony LaRussa when he was coaching the Oakland A’s to world series victories in 1989 and 1990.

In my first Tour post I mentioned how much I dislike the “Messenger” ads. There are two commercials running that I DO like though. One is the US Postal service ad. Lance and his team are shown riding around delivering the mail in record time. There’s a great shot of one rider opening the mail box, another rider just behind shoving in the mail and flipping the door closed. The ending is brilliant.

Starbucks have put together a great advertisement featuring Jimi Jameson. (Who? You mean Hendrix? Nope, Jameson.) Jameson is lead singer of the ’80’s group Survivor. The lyrics in the ad are a takeoff of “Eye of the Tiger.” The look on Jameson’s face at the end of the commercial, right when “Roy” steps on the elevator, is priceless.

Stuart O’Grady of Team Cofidis sprinted for the stage win today. He was in the breakaway group of five and gave Cofidis a bit of hope for the rest of the tour. Thomas Voeckler of Brioches Le Boulangerie took the yellow from Lance, but not for long we hope. BLB is an all French team, so we imagine there is much national pride in the host country of the Tour tonight.

Today’s shameless plug is for this entry on my husband’s website. Follow the links for an interesting pictorial history of the Tour de France.

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

cks/bl tridiot rating was determined by calculating the number of bottles of water used in today’s stage, multiplied by the number of times Ullrich has come in second in the Tour de France, divided by the number of yellow jerseys Lance has won, to result in 99.9%.