What’s Schmalz doing at the medical checks?

Stage 4 Team Time Trial

July 5, 2005 Today may be the day for the baby to arrive. We shall see.

The Tour is keeping their wacky TTT time format that limits losses. Or, as I like to put it, “the format where climbers (especially Spanish) can’t lose too much time to Lance.”

We will see if CSC will try to keep Dave “Mellow Yellow” Zabriske in the yellow jersey.

Still waiting for the rainy day when FDJ wears their “clear” jerseys.

Quick Step begins and now Michael Rodgers will tow them around for the rest of the day.

I get the feeling if they ever had to get OLN’s two audiences in the same room (cycling crowd and killin’ stuff crowd) there would be a lot of wedgies.

Gotta love the Tour, they have the podium-type girls holding the riders before they take off.

Euskaltel has the provisional lead so far (because they went first), I can’t see any scenario where that time holds up.

I would think the favorite for this stage are Discovery, CSC and Phonak. I know, I’m really going out on a limb there.

I like the TTT much more than the ITT as far as watch-ability goes. It’s fun to see the climbers go cross-eyed and try to not fall over at the back of the train.

One of the AG2R guys forgot his aero helmet. Nothing shows your teammates you mean business like forgetting your equipment.

Oh, no! Euskaltel is knocked out of the provisional top spot by Liquigas!

Gerosteiner needs a good time here, where else are they going to pick up time?

The Phonak helmets look like a bad USFL helmet design for a team that would be named “The Accommodators.”

Could the Phonak curse continue? We got a text message saying Floyd would test positive unless we sent 20,000 Swiss Francs.

Briske update, it looks like he’s getting tired of the attention.

Lance update, we have live pictures of him getting out of the port-o-john.

Lotto takes the provisional lead at a checkpoint, riding for Cadel Evans, who is due for a broken collarbone any moment now.

I think Lance will go for the hour record at some point, He said he would no longer race, but who said the record was a race?

I’m thinking that Phonak will win the ugly helmet prize, with Bouygues Telecom taking the prize for “Most French.”

Liberty has the best time at 25k, Beloki has just put Heras in his jersey pocket as Jaksche and Gonzalez de Galdeano push at the front.

I just saw a commercial for the Chris Thater race in Binghamton – I don’t know what to say about this.

It’s the All-Star BBQ showdown! Only on OLN, really, this could only be on OLN. Next week the chili-cooking, beaver-hunting biathlon!

I wonder how much Keith Bontager has to do with the development of his aero wheels, being he got his start in mountain biking, and that the team rides Hed front wheels. Is there a sticker-over situation going on here?

The Trek Lucky sevens spots are ok for the first time, but after the millionth commercial break, they get a little old. It makes me want to bang Roll over the head with that horseshoe if I were to ever meet him (even though the media buy isn’t his fault). Thank God for Tivo.

Looks like CSC is going for the win, should Lance let them get it?

Illes Balears has the new best time and now Gerolsteiner comes in fifth. Maybe Levi can get a stage win somewhere?

Phonak is losing about 43 seconds or so and is in 4th place, but with the new TTT time splits they will actually win the stage because they have a Frenchman on the team.

T-Mobile has the lead at this point, look for CSC to spank them.

Benjamin Noval must just love getting reminded of how he finished last year’s TTT in tears, that shouldn’t bother a macho Spanish dude too much…

Supposedly, each Phonak bike is worth $25,000. Money well spent!

Gerosteiner is fifth, I have no idea what that means. Maybe they lose 50 seconds or maybe 99.26 seconds.

Phonak comes in third. So by my calculations they will lose 23.56 seconds.

So, if George has won a TTT stage, would that make him a stage winner in the TDF?

The real time difference between T-mobile and Discovery is 35 seconds, I wonder what it will be when they do the voodoo to it?

Damn! Briske falls! And a French cop on the barriers isn’t taking pictures and actually avoids a crash by hopping over him!

The Briske quote machine will now have to shut down.

Now they will get out the slide rules and do the magic with the numbers so some teams get free time bonuses. AG2R’s 5:23 deficit will now magically become 3:00, according to the rules I believe. That’s over 2 free minutes!

“Hey, Sheryl, I won!”

“That’s great, when’s dinner?”