The break earlier today saw six riders, four of whom were rookies at the tour, work together marvelously to stay away for the entire rest of the stage. Eventually the peloton did reel in most of them, but Frenchman Thomas Voeckler managed to stay ahead just long enough to beat the field by a few seconds.
Unfortunately, all of the general classification contenders (Cancellara, Armstrong, Contador, Leipheimer, etc...) all finished with the pack and as such received the same finishing time and no changes were made to the top ten standings.
Upon closer inspection of the General Classification Standings (above) I noticed that Lance is listed as being second with a gap of 00:00:00 to Fabian Cancellara (as is highlighted by hexidecimal BADA55, of course). Needless to say I was sort of confused about how they could be tied, for one, and how they determine who they call the GC leader in the event of said tie...
Researching the rules and regulations of the UCI while the middle of the race sped along in another tab, I heard the announcers explain where the discrepancy arose. Apparently Lance is back from Cancellara, though by a mere 0.22 seconds (that's less than a wheel length at race speeds).
This means that unless something goes horribly wrong for Lance tomorrow, he'll probably have the race locked. He's arguably the worlds foremost climber and time trial specialist, giving him quite the edge in the coming middle portion of the race, where the riders will race over the Pyrenees Mountains after tomorrows flat stage finishing Barcelona. Following that are a smattering of different courses, with the Alpe d'Huez somewhere toward the end of the race.
This in mind, I thought this might be an opportunity to refresh ourselves on some of Lance's accomplishments in the seven times he's won the tour.
First, the most famous 'Lance move' that you may hear cycling fans refer to is "the look". It was given by Lance to his rival in the 2001 tour, Jan Ullrich, while ascending the slopes of the (aforementioned) Alpe d'Huez a 'beyond categorization' climb (aka steep as shit and piled higher). lets watch:
That's what I call bicycle-gangster. Looks him in the eye to give him more than fair warning, and then takes off dropping the rest of the race on a road so steep they don't have a good way of classifying it.
Then in 2003, again battling Ullrich to retain the yellow jersey, he shows his true grit:
To fall like that, have a mechanical malfunction, fix it, stumble again, and then go on to destroy the lead group and win the stage is downright superhuman.
Finally, we can't exclude his famous cyclocross X Road racing collabo after getting forced off the road on a fast descent:
Personally as much as I love the 'Dish's victory salutes, I am rooting for Lance to do it again. An eighth victory at the tour would be a nearly insurmountable record that would reinforce his already cemented claim to cycling immortality. As I said before, the next stages being rather hilly; I expect my fellow Texan to pull ahead of the other GC contenders by Friday, and hold onto the yellow jersey for most if not all of the rest of the race.
Thats right, Lance is a machine... He will win again. Remember, you heard it here first, so place your bets.
Speaking of machines, and lacking much humor in the above writing, I present for your general amusement this recently discovered ad for the Murray Street machine, which according to the ad is faster than a Star Trek transporter. In the words of one Vincent Vega, "...that's a bold statement, my friend..."
Stay tuned to JSYNYC tomorrow for a gripping tale of cyclists' rights being abused and the dislocation of my most-used finger!
Pedal softly friends...
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