Stage 18

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Stage 18

Day 20 Saint Jean de Maurienne - Morzine Avoriaz 199 km

Analysis

What a Tour and what a stage. It just keeps getting better and it isn't over yet. In the race for GC, the first three riders are within 30 seconds and the race for the White Jersey has the first two places only 5 seconds apart. Wow, wow, wow!!!

The KOM and Points titles should be settled but the GC and White Jersey are extremely close and I don't think anyone can call them at this time. How tired will Landis be from such a long and hard solo effort just two days before the time trial? Will he have given up time in the time trial or will he be able to recover in time?

You could hear the sound of legs breaking in the Tour all the way to the US. As I told you, one rider had a great day and turned the Tour up-side-down.....again!!! Will there be more surprises in the last three stages?

The stage started out a little weird. As expected, De La Fuente made the break but, for some reason, was sent back to the pack, possibly by the riders in the break refusing to work with him because he would only cause RAB to chase the break down. The break went from 14 riders to 11 as De La Fuente and two RAB riders went back to the pack. After that, things seemed to be OK.

The break went up the road and CEI settled down to their normal control chasing to keep the break honest except that they really didn't have to do so much patrolling because everyone in the break was over 20 minutes down on GC.

Then, at the bottom of the first climb, PHO went to the front in force and set an extremely high pace do shatter the peloton. Their strategy was simple and obvious. They would force the pace so high at the start of a really long stage that no one would want to try to race that hard that early and they all went back door except a few team leaders who tried to stay with Landis for a while. Landis was trying to turn the race from a team race into an individual race because he knew he was the strongest rider there.

You have to understand that when a rider breaks like Landis did the day before, he drops down in gear and "rests" his legs while everyone else is riding hard to put time on him tiring their legs out. It is not that unusual for a rider who breaks on one day to ride really strong the next day pending recovery. Landis knew this and decided to take advantage of it with a risky move which paid off for him today but will it pay off in the long term?

The team leaders with Landis realized that Landis' legs were now fresher than theirs because of the previous day and did the right thing, they dropped back to regroup their teams to use them against Landis for the long haul and they were able to bring back almost four minutes from Landis' eventual longest lead. But, while they were dropping back and regrouping teams, Landis was gaining time fast. He hammered in the break and used it to his advantage.

When he caught and decimated the break, some of the riders worked with him for as long as they could stay with him. Sinkewitz of TMO didn't do any work at the front but made a mistake that cost his team leader. He stayed with Landis as long as he could and then dropped but continued to chase.

You have to undertand that having a rider on your wheel increases your speed by at least 2 to 3 mph with the same effort and it denied Kloden another team mate to help him stay closer to and gain ground on Landis during the stage. Sinkewitz should have dropped back to help Kloden as soon as Landis caught him.

CSC had put two riders in the break so they wouldn't have to chase the break late in the race. As soon as Landis caught the break, they went back to help Sastre chase Landis. Towards the end of the stage, after Landis built up a 9 minute lead, CSC and TMO chased back in some of that time. Then Sastre and other team leaders on top of GC attacked the peloton to use their own legs to bring Landis back in. Only Sastre was able to regain the time lead over Landis with CEI being able to bring back Pereiro enough to barely keep the lead.

I told you to watch out for the battle for the White Jersey. Cunego took advantage of all this action and confusion to attack and gain enough time to take the lead for this title by only 5 seconds. Now this battle has gotten really hot and expect to see both LAM and GST commit their entire teams to winning this battle because it is the only battle either team is still in contention for which has not been settled.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow is the next to last road stage and is a moderate 197 km and mostly down hill. There are three KOM primes of cat 3, cat 2, and cat 4 respectively at about 2/3 of the way through the stage. Expect to see a lot of attacking early with large breaks forming to get one of the last two road stage wins for this Tour. I don't expect to see any action for the KOM and Points titles because this stage could easily be won with a break.

But watch for GST to try and keep the breaks in until the first road prime and try to get Fothen across the prime line first because the 6 second time bonus would put him back in the lead for the White Jersey by one second. They may not be able to hold off a lot of attacking riders on a lot of different teams.

It is normal to think that Landis is now invincible and will just keep riding strong forever but don't. There are still questions to be answered such as how tired he will be tomorrow. If he is tired enough and the tempo is kept high enough from the start, he could get dropped on the little cat 2 climb towards the end of the stage and loose some time.

Remember that I have been pointing out the riders who rode strong one day and got dropped the next day because their legs were tired and they couldn't hold pace. Will this happen to Landis tomorrow? Will CSC and TMO try to keep the pace high to force Landis' legs to break tomorrow? Will CSC and TMO try to find a way to take advantage of Landis' obviously tired legs or keep them tired for the time trial? Remember that Landis just did about a 175 km time trial through the mountains.

Above all, keep an eye for any more surprises because the teams are starting to grab at straws in an effort to win. The racing has become some what unconventional. Definitely keep an eye on the battles for both the Yellow and White jerseys because one can and probably will effect the other.

I don't think I have ever seen both GC titles so close this late in the Tour. We still have a few days of fun left. What a race.

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