Stage 15 brought high drama in the mountains, with Tommy Voeckler continuing the dominance of the French riders and Andy Schleck losing his chain and the yellow jersey to big meanie Alberto Contador. Alberto got booed at the Yellow Jersey presentation, so it’s obvious that France has a thing for the young stuff.

Today’s stage has two cat one climbs and two HC climbs, with the last one, the Col d’Aubisque coming 61k from the end of the stage, which means we will have a scenario much like yesterday with a long descent and a relatively flat run in to the finish. Tomorrow is a rest day, so there may be some desperate moves.

139k to go, I login to the Tour tracker and see that none other than Lance Armstrong is away in a break for the Stage Win™, it’s still early so Phil and Paul haven’t woken yet to commentate, and this is good as I imagine they would both need defibrillator paddles if they had to remark about 138k’s worth of a Lance breakaway.

Cunego and Fedrigo argue between themselves and then still have enough energy to catch Lance

137k to go, Contador’s getting his bike checked in the pack behind, they check his chainring. Attack Andy!! 

Fredrigo is not pulling and he has a chat with Cunego and Lance, there’s no way he doesn’t get cancer for that is there?

Moreau is catching up to Lance, Cunego and Fredrigo, and will soon begin complaining. This is going to be delightful! 

136.4k to go, Andy and Berto chatting in the pack, Andy calls him a poopy pants and disinvites Alberto from his birthday party, and that’s too bad because Bjarne said he could have a pony there.

For some reason Lotto was setting the pace at the front of the race, I suppose they are riding for Van Den Broeck—and maybe they love Alberto?

Thor SMASH jumps on the Tourmalet, no that’s not a typo.

135k to go, Horner bridges up to the lead group with Lance, they have 2 minutes on the field.

There are two sprint points in this race, but Thor SMASH will have to be away over the Tourmalet and the Col d’Aubisque. Optimistic SMASHing there.

I take a nature break and see that The Break™ is still away. P&P have begun their commentary, and they are pacing themselves. Paul calls Horner’s yellow shoes lime green, I think he’s either color blind or the haze created by the combination of liniment and misconception has tinted the air in the commentary booth.

131k to go, Thor SMASH has been caught by the pack, he exhales mightily and nearly blows three Euskaltel climbers off the side of the climb.

Astana at the front of the pack, they probably won’t have to work hard to catch the Break™ until the Aubisque. There might be a crowd of teams volunteering to help chase down Lance. Filippo Simeoni just bought a AG2r jersey at the mall and is going to slip into the race at the Col d’Aubisque.

There’s 1k to go until the summit and there’s 5,000 Euros for the guy who crosses the line on the Tourmalet here. Is Lance trying to make money for his defense fund?

Moreau gets the money at the line—tips to soon be refrosted.

126.7k to go, we’re on the descent, Lance puts on his right blinker, and it will stay on until they finish the descent.

Paul just said something about Moreau tickling someone’s back end.

124.9k to go, Lance descending, he looks a bit gapped, he has to pay attention or he could accidentally run his car through a farmer’s market.

108k to go, the break is in the valley and has a 3:45 advantage, we’re going to be treading water here until the Aubisque, Charteau is holding his position in no man’s land between the pack and the break.  

104.6k to go, Vino and Berto having a chat, Vino tells Bert his shoe is untied and attacks! 

100k to go, the Break™ passes the Chalkbot messages, after they pass the bot shifts its chalk reservoir over to mustard and coats the entire road.

34k to go, Andy Schleck at the team car and we see his teammate in the background whizzing all over the road—good times. Andy tells Bjarne that his SRAM Lego derailleur need one more piece to be finished.

Here comes the feed zone, time for Schleck to gun it.

89.1k to go, we’re on the climb, Moreau leading the break, the graphic says that Cunego is sitting in.

OK, that’s as far as I got before I had to go live with Creed and Cosmo, but had I continued, you can bet I would have made the following jokes.

20k to go, in exchange for everyone letting him win, Lance offers everyone in the break a coupon for half off an early bird special entrée at his favorite restaurantn.

10k to go, the Hog radios to Lance to tell him that the ebay auction for the LiveStrong recumbent didn’t meet the reserve price, so they have nothing to bribe the other racers with.

8k to go, Barredo is off the front, attacking this race like a sleeping Costa.

1k to go, Barredo is caught

Fredrigo comes around and takes the win, unaware that Frenchmen are supposed to love finishing second, nose cancer soon to spread across France.