Rest Day, Overview, Look Ahead

July 20, 2009

Here it is 5:50AM near Boston, MA on the east coast of the United States. The 2009 Tour de France has a much-needed rest day and the overall standings have been shaken up with a Stage 14 that showed the world who can really ride a bike.

1 – Alberto Contador looks strong. Really strong. As in, if he wanted to this guy could have been in Yellow from day two of the race.

2 – Lance Armstrong looks strong. Really strong. As in, if he wanted to stay with Contador on the attack yesterday he probably could have.

What does that mean to the rest of the racers and about the final stages of the Tour?

It means either Lance or Contador will win the race

It means if Contador puts another minute into Lance, the race is probably sealed up.

It means if the lead stays at around a minute, the race will come down to the final mountain stage before Paris – that’s Stage 20. And there’s an Hors Category climb to finish the race that day.

Because with a lead of one minute, Alberto Contador could end up behind Lance Armstrong after the individual time trial on Stage 18 on July 23. That’s a 40KM TT that would allow Lance to put up to two or three minutes into Contador.

What do you think is going to happen? My predictions from earlier have been shot slightly out of the water. I had believed Contador would have crashed out – but that happened to Levi Leipheimer instead.

If you remember – here is my post from early on. I didn’t have Contador or Schleck in there at all. I had Hincapie in fourth and Denis Menchov was there too. I was wrong to a degree, but we still have a week of racing to see how it all shakes out.

Enjoy your rest day, see you tomorrow.