TDF Stage 6: Ride Fast, Crash Hard
Category: Sports (Pro/College/HS)...
Posted Friday, July 09, 2004 at 05:29 PM [GMT-6]

I had a hard time getting motivated to post anything about today's stage in the Tour de France. As I predicted yesterday, nothing major happened. There's was the usual small breakaway that lasted up until the final kilometer, at which point about half the peloton crashed because the guy they chased down was too pooped to ride as fast as everyone else.

Lance was among the crashees (giving him a two-fer; he also went down early in the stage), but lost no time due to one of the scores of relatively obscure TDF rules that provides for no loss of time if an accident occurs within one kilometer of the finish.

I do know from first-hand experience that falling off your bicycle will yield some residual soreness in subsequent days, so Lance can't be happy about these accidents. I think everyone in the race is beginning to weary of the frequency with which the accidents are happening, and yet there's not any specific cause that can be identified and addressed (although Armstrong does seem to think that the sprinters are acting dangerously at the end of the races...but, hey, that's their thing, you know?).

Tomorrow's stage is again relatively flat, but with a lot more rolling hills than the past two days, including two rated climbs. Each day thereafter appears to get a little more mountainous, so look for the non-climbers in the group who want to solidify their standings to try to do so tomorrow.

Look for Lance to try to keep the rubber side down.