Stage 10

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Stage 10

Day 11 Grenoble - Courchevel 192 km

Analysis

First, I was reminded by one of my readers last night that I had mixed up stages and that today's stage was only the third most significant mountain stage in the Tour this year. The first and second most significant mountain stages are 15 and 14 respectively. That bodes poorly for today's big losers.

Second, Wow, what a stage and what surprises. There are going to be a bunch of riders and coaches fired at the end of this year. We are witnessing a massive changing of the guard this year and only one of the expected top rivals for Lance is still in the top five on GC, Basso. But even he lost significant time to the first four riders today. There were huge surprises today with a huge shake up in GC.

Vino, who even Lance considered to be his best competitor for this Tour, dropped big time and is now 6'32" down on Lance and out of the race for GC. Ullrich and Kloden are both over 4 minutes down and almost completely out of the race. I feel that T-Mobile is now racing for a top 5 to 10 spot on GC. They are probably stunned beyond belief.

The revelation of the Tour has to be Rasmussen who is only 38" behind Lance after losing 3'12" to Lance in the time trial. He made up all of that by being permitted to go on long breaks for the KOM Jersey. He has ridden very strongly in the mountains for three stages in a row. My concern is that all this really aggressive riding in the lesser mountains stages is bound to catch up to him sooner or later. You can bet Discovery won't permit Rasmussen to go on any more long breaks in the mountains but he has a 70 point lead for KOM anyway. Watch for other riders to take advantage of this and try to grab the KOM Jersey from Rasmussen with long breaks in the remaining mountain stages.

Mancebo and Valverde also climbed very strong today. Valverde is currently only in fifth because he lost 2'22" to Lance in the short time trial and Mancebo is in 7th because he lost 2'29" to Lance in the time trial. I expect all four of them to gain more time in the mountains unless Rasmussen's previous mountain efforts catch up to him and then he should be expected to have at least one bad day in the mountains and lose time.

In the longer time trial coming up, I expect Rasmussen to lose at least 5 to 6 minutes unless he was sandbagging in the first time trial. I also expect Valverde and Manceb to lose from about 4 to 5 minutes each in the time trial. But even with that, the only riders I think will be close enough to finish ahead of them on GC will be Basso and Leipheimer who are climbing well enough to stay close to the quartet but time trial much better than Rasmussen, Valverde, and Mancebo have so far. Kloden, Landis, and Ullrich all lost quite a bit of time for it being only a cat 1 climb and should be expected to lose more time on the remaining cat 1 and HC climbs in stages 14 and 15. Vino lost huge time and, probably to the surprise of Lance, is out of the race at 6'32" behind Lance. The entire T-Mobile Team went down the toilet today. Moreau did well and is in 4th on GC but he lost enough time that I expect him to lose more in stages 14 and 15 and have trouble staying in the top five on GC.

Today, Lance showed that he is dominant among the top GC riders in both the time trials and climbing. His only potential weakness has to be keeping his team strong enough to defend the lead in the lesser mountain stages. This is very significant because there are still seven stages left with climbs of cat 2 or higher before the last time trial. If his team breaks in those stages, he won't be able to rely on his climbing ability to save himself because team tactics are far more important when it is flat enough the teams can race together. If he takes care of his team so his team can take care of him, most likely, Lance will win the Tour....again.

Interestingly, Rasmussen has a really big lead for KOM but there are a lot of climbs left in this Tour and nobody will let him go to pick up a lot more points with long breaks. As a matter of fact, two of his top five contenders are now also too well placed to expect anyone to let them go on long breaks either so it will be interesting to see how this works out in the race for KOM.

For the White Jersey, Valverde has moved into a comfortable lead ahead of Popovych and will most likely win it.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is another mountain stage that will tear on tired legs. It is moderately short at 173 km and has two HC climbs and one cat 1 climb but has a 40 km down hill following the last climb that should bring things back together for some packs and riders. Expect to see attacks for a long break to gain KOM points and there may even be one or two GC riders try to get some lost ground back by making the long break tomorrow.

Expect most of the riders to get dropped and there to be a small pack finish and maybe even a solo finish but probably not by a GC rider. The attacking probably won't start until the bottom of the first climb. If Rasmussen tries to get in the KOM break on the first climb, it could shatter the peloton to pieces. This stage could really break a lot of legs and, if Discovery is forced to do a lot of chasing and peloton control, it could break theirs or set them up for broken legs later because the next day is also in the mountains with a couple of cat 2 climbs though it is mostly descending.

Some of the former GC contenders could easily lose more time on those two HC climbs. It will be another hard stage for many.

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