Stage 3

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Stage 3

July 7 La Ferte-sous-Jouarre - Sedan - 195 km

Before I start with today's stage in the Tour, there are a couple of things I forgot to mention from yesterday's stage. First, when you see a strong GC rider like Sven Montgomery riding very hard as a domestique in the first stage on flat ground, that should raise a red flag. You should know their team is not going to support him for an effort on individual GC and you should know they are putting their efforts behind other riders. From what you have seen, you should be able to guess with reasonable effectiveness that they are racing for Petacchi for the Points Jersey and Ivan Basso for GC. Montgomery is just riding this Tour as a domestique. If you were hoping he would win the Tour or finish top five, you were wrong.

Always learn to read the little things because it takes a lot of little things to make a big story.

Second, the unfortunate crash in yesterday's stage causing the withdrawal of Leipheimer and Lotz is one of the reasons it is so difficult to predict the top five finishers in the Tour much less the top ten. If any of you had been expecting Leipheimer to finish top five or ten, your guess just dropped by one. If you had placed him in your top ten guess for the million dollar contest with Bicycling Magazine, you just lost one million dollars.

In 1985, my top five guess was at 100% with everyone in place with only six days to go in the Tour and they were riding the last day in the mountains when Arroyo Munoz crashed, broke his collar bone, and quit the race permitting Sean Kelly to move into fourth place. Once again, I had to settle for only 80% on my top five guess because you just can't anticipate everything. Get used to it. This is bike racing.

BTW, I consider any rider being hurt in a crash as being unfortunate but crashing is one of the ugly realities of bike racing. We who live in bike racing must live with crashing. We do try our best to decrease its potential which is why I so strongly stress working on bike discipline. It cannot eliminate crashing but does greatly decrease the amount of crashing and potential for injury.

You should have marked both Leipheimer and Lotz off of your teams list showing that Rabobank is already down to seven riders. At this point, I would expect them to start riding for Boogerd for GC and Wauters for Points. It is also a double hit to the team when you realize they will start the team time trial down two riders or two pairs of legs. Expect them to lose considerable time in that stage. It will take a monster effort no to lose much time.

Today's Stage

Today's stage started as I predicted with a small break heading up the road being used by the peloton to keep the attacking to a minimum, keep the early pace slow, and keep the racing for road primes and KOM primes to a minimum. This shows a concern for safety.

In spite of this, there have been far too many crashes in the race this year. It is only the second stage and there have been close to half a dozen crashes already with at least four today. I feel it will only be a matter of time and the riders will get fed up enough that they will demand some kind of professional racing course be passed by a rider before any rider can race as is the case with other racing sports like car racing, motorcycle racing, and horse racing. In those sports, you can't just buy a piece of paper, show up, and hurt people.

I think the time is long past due for cycling to catch up with other sports in the area of racing safety.

The two riders who went on break today, Finot and Jegou, were clearly going after a stage win plus anything else they could get. Finot should be wearing the Combativity Jersey tomorrow with his very long break.

Fassa started the chase and was bringing the break back in when USP showed up and the time between the break and peloton grew. The Tour commentator stated that USP was helping work at the front but you have to ask why then did the time split between the break and peloton begin to grow again? Obviously, they were not adding to the chase effort. I believe they may have started blocking to keep the break out until after the last two road primes so there wouldn't develop a big team battle for those road primes increasing the possibility of another crash, especially since Lance has already hit the road once this year. We are seeing USP take some unusual steps to protect Lance from crashing and this may come back to haunt them when the team needs those tired legs later. Remember that stage racing is a race for energy efficiency. You can't get back energy wasted. Keep an eye on this.

When the break was still big and they were closer to the finish so that there wouldn't develop a big team battle for the road primes, a number of teams got into the chase to bring the break back in for the stage win and the battle for both the Yellow and Green jerseys. The delaying tactics used by USP almost caused Finot to win the stage and he was only caught with 2.5 km to go.

I told you in my race analysis that the racing in the flat stages will be very aggressive this year because there are so many mountain stages making fewer flat stages in which to contest the Points Title. It is already proving to be true. This could turn out to be a very fast Tour though the extra mountain stage will bring the average speed down a little.

There are some more of those little things you needed to notice today and keep an eye on them. First, Hamilton rode today's stage with a cracked collar bone. I have seen others try this but never from the start of the race. The continuous road vibrations and hard use will make the pain worse each day until he is finally forced to quit. I seriously doubt if he will make it half way to the finish. One reason he may have decided to continue is because his team will need his legs in the team time trial. Another possible reason is because of the film documentary being made around him. Him dropping out now will waste a few million dollars in film production so I would expect that the film crew would pressure him to continue for at least a while so they can have some footage.

A second thing you should have noticed was Millar attacking and racing so hard to get the Yellow Jersey in an early flat stage. This should raise a few red flags for you. It should tell you that he and his coach feel he doesn't have much of a chance of finishing high on GC because he loses too much time in the mountains and there are so many mountain stages this year. Therefore, he should ride hard to get the Yellow Jersey before they hit the mountains so he can wear it for at least a few days.

Petacchi getting dropped in the last few kilometers of this stage was foreboding. If he can't hang in on those little hills, will he even be able to make cut off in the mountains? Probably not. Don't expect him to complete the Tour and don't be surprised to see him do a Cipo, quitting the day before the first mountain stage. It definitely puts him out of the running for the Points Title but another battle is forming there between a couple of Aussies, McEwen and Cooke. This could be a fun battle. Don't count Zabel out either. He has won this title six times and I am sure he didn't show up this year to lose it.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow, the battle for the jerseys continues. Tomorrow's stage will be a very flat 167.5 km with three road primes and only one KOM prime. The KOM prime will be a very significant aspect for the stage. This is because it will take place in the first few kilometers of the stage and Mengin and Beneteau are only four points apart for the KOM title. You can bet there will be a really tough team battle for that little prime because it will decide very quickly which rider will get to wear the KOM jersey in the next day's stage. Watch for this because it will happen very fast.

Now you are the coach in the race. How do you use a little piece of information like this? You first have to ask, "Is there any way this can benefit my team?" You could use the battle for this prime to launch an attack early in the stage to go for a stage win, pick up points or time bonuses for the Yellow or Green jerseys from the road primes, earn points for the Combativity Title, or just to have a rider in the break as a control so your team is not expected to help chase the break later in the stage. You may want to sacrifice one rider's legs in the break to save the rest of your team's legs for the team time trial the next day.

You should also know that this will be the last flat stage before the team time trial which will be the first major sorting of riders in this Tour. This will be the last chance that most riders will have to wear the Yellow Jersey this year. This means the stage could be very aggressive or it could also be very passive with most teams trying to save their legs for the team time trial. If the stage is ridden very passively, a break could not only stay off to win the stage but could finish far enough ahead to make it easy for your domestique to wear the Yellow Jersey well into the mountains as Simon did a few years ago because he gained over 17 minutes in a stage like this. As a matter of fact, that huge time lead and his individual determination got him a top five placing. Probably the only top five placing he will have in his career. This stage could be an opportunity for another Simon. You must always look for potential opportunities or you will probably miss them.

Hey, if you can't win the race, why not look good? :-) As a professional racer, you get paid by how good a show you put on for the public. Put on the best show you can.

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