Tour day Schmalz Stage 2

Preview
Stage 1

The Tour is a day old and what have we learned so far? Well, not much. Contador won the race to be best of the Borats and Cancellara can ride a TT. Nothing too earth shattering there. The biggest news to me is that Lance is talking to Frankie Andreu. This is akin to the Crips and Bloods having a jeans party or a slug and a salt lick having a slow dance together. I’m not sure that I’m buying the fact that Lance has moved on and forgotten about the fact that Frankie and his wife testified against him. My friends in low places have said that Lance will only talk to Andreu at the Tour, so if I were Frankie, I would be waiting for some sort of hijinks to happen, maybe a swirlie in the Astana bus toilet or an international conspiracy to devalue the currency of Uzbekistan. I don’t blame them of course, the sum has always seemed tantalizingly susceptible to manipulation.

Today is a sprint stage, and Cavendish is an overwhelming favorite. Everyone will be rested today so teams will be chasing, so it will be a matter of the fastest man prevailing – and that’s Cav. The only way he loses today is if the route he takes to the finish suddenly turns to glue.

Here’s the pre-stage show, it’s all Lance, Contador and the Hog. Did they even mention Fabian’s win?

I’m just going to zip past the pre-stage stuff as it’s been a long weekend, and really, what is there to learn there?

Looks like Frank Schleck got involved in a crash, he follows the team car back and almost gets clipped by who I’m assuming must be Bjarne. That’s a subtle reminder to put your dirty laundry in the proper bag, Frank.

95 k to go and we’ve got 4 away with two Frenchmen, a Dutch guy and Fin. They have lead of 5:15 and a chance of absolutely none.

92 k to go and Stuey O’Grady is at the front of the race checking out the local penny saver.

It’s good to see Boner bitched his way into this Tour – that will give him an opportunity to watch Cavendish finish ahead of him about 6 times or so.

89k to go and now we get to the interesting stuff, Rast is picking up bottles for Astana, but who will he give them to?

Time to jump ahead, I will stop if anything interesting pops up – it’s been a long partially sober weekend.

79 k to go, they have an actual diagram of drafting on VS, the art looks like cross between Spy Hunter and the diagrams of kick ass WWII fighters I drew on my notebooks in the 3rd grade.

Here’s a Tyler Farrar interview. He’s cut his hair – yes, sadly I take notice of these things. I have to Google Uzbekistan’s currency, but if Tyler Farrar ditches his Prince Valiant look, I’m all over it.

Ugh, here’s another Lance recap, let’s play the Richard game again shall we? He’s sitting at 98 right now. The cancer deflector shields are up on that one, so no points deducted.

Fabian interview – does it seems that Specialized weren’t quite ready to make his yellow bike? Is it just covered in tape?

Time to jump ahead again. Ah, sweet Tivo, where were you when I was trying to catch the semi-naughty scenes in Duran Duran videos?

Here’s Lance talking to Frankie again, this is so odd. There’s no Richard points deductions there, pretty bland stuff other than the fact that Lance is probably talking to a guy he may despise.

Meanwhile, on camera two, about 8 guys go down in a crash.

Lance says that Rast is his guy, and that Alberto has a “couple”, does Levi count as a whole guy?

Let’s jump ahead again, here’s a canned Cavendish interview. Nothing too controversial there, I like Cavendish, he’s not afraid to be straightforward or even partially delusional, qualities I like in athletes, drinking companions and lawyers

Here’s an interview from Cav today, he seems like he’s been taking Hincapie lessons.

OK, enough, let’s get to the last 10 k. Is there anything better than the last 10 k of a Tour sprint stage?

It looks like Columbia is in control. The f-ed four have 20 seconds.

10 k to go, a Katusha rider attacks, he wisely jumps up to the carcass of the breakaway and drops them like a Jim Nabors album. Did you know Jim Nabors wasn’t dead? It took me a search. You’ve definitely hit a strange point in your career when you are the subject of Google searches trying to find out whether you’ve passed away or not – let’s call it the Abe Vigoda syndrome.

It Garmin and Columbia at the front of the race, so that means Cav against Tyler, and that mostly turns out Cav.

5 k to go. The Katusha rider is back. Milram trying to bring Ciolek up so he can thrust his head madly up and down, keep an eye out – you can’t miss it. He’ll be the guy finishing fourth.

I see the Boner rising through the pack. That’s an odd sentence.

Oof, Phil just confused Ballan with Grabsch. Here’s a quick hint, one is shaped like a barrel with kneecaps, the other is Ballan.

3 k to go. Wow, there’s a lot of very hopeful guys milling near the front. Crashing seems pretty inevitable.

There’s some fool in the road taking a picture, I’m assuming he got himself a blurry shot of an obscene European hand gesture. I smell Christmas card!

2 k to go, Milram doing a great lead out for Columbia.

Cav and the Columbia boys are now rising to the front, it looks pretty cut and dried.

Let’s see if Tyler can bounce shoulders here. A Columbia guy bumps Dean – that’s not going to do much.

Whoa, a Milram guy almost eats it. The get squirrelly in the final turn and lots of guys bail and go straight.

Farrar is on Cav’s wheel coming into the final, which is great because Cav gets about as low as mole genitals when he sprints.

Cav has three guys in the mini split of four at the front, there’s no way he loses that one. Tyler is second.

It’s shocking that no one ate it in that finish. Where’s Abdu when you need him?