Tour de France - Stage 5

Good news, nothing is broken on Zabriskie. So, get over it and let?s move on. It?s not like he was a contender to win the Tour anyway. Lance even shows some sportsmanship by not putting on the yellow jersey until he finished the ?parade? route at the start of the stage. This has been done in the past by other respectful riders when crashes involved the leaders. However, please don?t be confused by Ullrich?s ?I just slowed up and am not really waiting? when Lance went down after being hooked by a spectator. All in all, David is racing but must be hurting mentally and physically.

Attacks came and went by a variety of no name racers but Flecha seems to have the staying power. He is eventually joined by three others and they get out front by 4min 14s.

It seems like more crashes happen in the feedzone with everyone slicing and dicing. Then, they swing those musette bags around that could deliver a knockout punch if they landed in the right spot. Hmmm, O?Grady and McEwen come to mind. Oh yeah, there was a crash and once again, CSC was unlucky. This time, Basso went down but he quickly was surrounded by teammates and was back in the saddle. Another CSC teammember then got tangled up with some killer musette bags. It reminded me of the old, old days when I was a kid and my shoestrings or pants leg would get caught in the chain. Mom never liked me tearing my new jeans all the time!

To make matters worse, rain is coming down. Jose Gomez made the news wire when he ran into the back of a motorcycle when he was trying to put his jacket on. He eventually has to get a new mount from the team car. Sometimes, I think there are more motorcycles than bicyclists in the race.

The remainder of the stage consisted of the escapees being caught and increasing nervousness as the sprinters position themselves. Another crash takes 5 riders down but all get up. After about 3 and ? hours, there?s always a little excitement in the race. Boonen, Cooke, McEwen, Hushovd and O?Grady zoom up to 39 mph. Inches really do matter as McEwen has a couple more ahead of Boonen at the finish stripe.

The power of these guys is unbelievable. I?ve tried to go that fast but for old guys who get fat in winter there?s no chance. I have to brag by saying I can surpass that on downhill runs due to my waistline ballast. Just ask anyone on the Black Hills Domestiques team and they will tell you I win all the downhill coasting races!

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