Schmalz sees his chances at a suicide break go by the wayside.

‘Great. Now I’m going to get chased down like Simeoni.’

Stage 8

July 9, 2005 Due date plus 7. Doctor says if the baby doesn’t come this weekend, we’ll induce on Monday, which just happens to be the rest day. I swear I had nothing to do with it.

Hilly, maybe rainy day today, shouldn’t be a day to win, but if someone has a bad day, it could be time to go home.

Vino will attack at some point; let’s just paste that sentence into the clipboard for the next few stages.

Since I spent the morning at the farm with the goats and rabbits, I get to use the Tivo for this stage. I give the pre-stage show the triple arrows.

Thor is up the road, and he gets the max points at the intermediate sprint. THOR WILL SMASH!!

Mengin is a no-start this morning, France kinda feels bummed, but not so bad, really.

Jan stops for a potty break, as an added touch there’s a large crowd where he stops. Someone’s going to get a great souvenir!

Included in the break at 5-ish minutes are Flecha and Commesso! This is too good to be true! I’m going to quickly go back to the other day’s write-up and begin cutting and pasting.

Flecha must just love having Commesso as his shadow. I’m sure he’s looking forward to towing his tank-ass around again!

Odds for a fist fight between Flecha and Commesso might be pretty good.

Ahhh, there’s the horse along the road shot. Just waiting for Dieter the devil to show up now.

Sal and Flecha are fighting out the intermediate sprints, Commesso takes the first one. Bravo Salvatore!

There’s Neil Stephens! He works for Liberty Seguros. Still flying the mullet!

I expect Flecha to drop Sal like a bag of wet manure on the last hill.

54.5 k to go Sal is complaining to this fellow break members. He’s spreading the love.

Frankie A. just did a 5 minute spot on the Discovery Team’s Trek’s water bottle screws.

Nick (no, I’m not Laurent) Jalabert is in the break.

Phil keeps saying there’s 6 guys in the 7-man break.

The climb is coming soon, in the meantime amuse yourselves as there is nothing going on in the race. Here, look at the storks.

The break is on the hill, with the peloton at about 3 minutes. The Rabo guy jumps.

Splits all over the peloton.

And in the remnants of the break, Sal is stuck to Flecha’s back wheel as Flecha chases Weening (that name sounds dirty, doesn’t it?) the Rabo guy.

I think Flecha will attack Sal on the hill if only just to hurt him.

Levi is off at the worst possible time with a mechanical or something.

Flecha’s group isn’t pulling Weening back, Sorenson is just sitting in, Commessso is able to pull through, not a good sign.

(cut and paste) Vino attacks! Salvodelli runs it down. Moreau attacks, and no one cares.

(cut and paste) Vino attacks! Lance is on it, and they’ve caught Flecha and Sal’s group. I can’t wait to read Flecha’s post-stage comments.

Lance is covering moves. Valverde jumps.

(cut and paste) Vino attacks! He gets covered again. Kloden attacks and it looks like it’s a T-Mobile gang up.

Basso attacks. Lance is the middle of a poop sandwich. I don’t think he’s buying into Kloden being the leader of T-Mobile.

The lead is 20 seconds at the top of the hill, looks like they will be caught on the downhill. Floyd appears out of nowhere. Cadel Evans is in the front group, I can almost hear his collarbone starting the break.

Weening keeps on trying because he probably doesn’t know any better.

It will probably be a non-sprinter group sprint, Boogerd and Valverde are there.

If they stay away, how pissed will Weening be if Kloden wins?

Weening is setting Kloden up, good boy. It’s close at the end, but I think Weening has it and I get to type Weening more. Vino doesn’t get the time bonus for third and Lance dodges a bullet. With no Disco guys around at the end of the race, it should be a soothing dinner table at Discovery tonight.

Valverde is third and curses his team’s weakness. Horner is 9th – I thought I saw him there, is that the happiest 9th place of his career so far? Levi made it to the end in the front group also. No big losers on the day.

Let me take advantage of this opportunity and type Weening, Weening, Weening, and Weening.