Official SJ.com Tour de France running thread

Hey, if Landis doesn't already have a nickname, I'd like to submit "The Barber."

 

I was stunned to see this because Landis had seemed so solid, though his team doesn't appear to be bringing much to the table.

Still, as crazy as this race has been, I wouldn't be stunned if Landis had a big day tomorrow and got himself back in contention.

 

Landis answers strongly.

The stage isn't over yet, but he's kicking some serious arse right now and will be right back into serious contention.

 

What a ride. Down 8:08 going into today, dominates the stage and is now just 30 seconds off the lead heading into Saturday's time trial. Should be a helluva finish.

 

Floyd just said: "Let's pretend that yesterday didn't happen." That was epic. What courage by him today.

Updated standings:

http://www.letour.fr/2006/TDF/LIVE/us/1700/classement/ITG.html

And here is my new list of podium candidates, with everyone from Dessel on back pretty much just dreaming at this point
1. Floyd Landis, USA -- Should be able to wax Pereiro and Sastre on Saturday in what is a pretty long (and hilly, too) time trial. Unbelievable comeback from the dead yesterday.
2. Oscar Pereiro, ESP -- Showed great resolve again today and was able to hold off Kloden at every turn.
3. Andreas Kloden, GER -- Apparently suffers from a mean case of Ullrichitis, where you sit on your main rivals' wheels all tour and are happy to finish one step to either side of the top step in Paris.
4. Carlos Sastre, ESP -- Made a great push toward the end of the Joux-Plane, but he'll lose time in the time trial.
5. Cadel Evans, AUS -- Could pass Pereiro and Sastre on Saturday to sneak onto the podium, but he'd need to have a spectacular time trial of LeMondian proportions.
6. Denis Menchov, RUS -- Looks like he could be a future winner, but hasn't shown any killer instinct this year.

 

If Landis wins the Yellow, today's ride should go down in sports history as one of the greatest individual performances ever.

[/landisfanboy]

 

Bob Roll is always a goofball, but following today's stage he was practically bouncing out of his chair and calling it the best bike race he's ever seen. I would be inclined to agree with him, though some of Lance's mountain efforts where he made everybody wilt one by one are pretty close.

 

Roll's hand gestures when he talks are the strangest I've ever seen.

 

Interesting development from T-Mobile

 

Worst of all, they fired the guy by fax. After one tour win and a bunch of second-places finishes, T-Mobile didn't even have the nerve to call him

 

Maybe they couldn't get a signal.

 

Landis regains yellow jersey with solid performance in today's time trial. He has a 59 second advantage heading into tomorrow's final stage, so it looks like eight in row for Americans.

Where do we rate George Hincapie's weak performance in this year's tour? Touted as a possible winner, he's in 32nd place, more than an hour behind Landis in the overall standings.