Stage 9

Bitter Sweet

Evans is going to be on the show Biggest Loser, of time that is. What did he do on the rest day? Yeah, he took a nasty spill on stage 8, but he still rode well and stayed with the bunch. I wanted Evans in there as a wild card, emphasis on the Wild, maybe even crazy. Well say crazy card and move on. BMC is the Bad News Bears of le Tour, and they would have made it interesting. Evans, love him, hate him, love to hate him, made for a good show. So I say Thank you.

ASO is officially changing the name of le Tour. It was unofficially change years ago to the Tour de Lance, but to get the younger audience they are going to change it the the ANDY & AL SHOW. If those two don't systematically destroy each other, no one will touch them. So the Race for Third is heating up?

My man Jens. What a total machine. The freak of nature that he is, gets into the break (old Jens from Credit Agricole days) comes back to Andy and Al and sets a pace that the motos had to shift gears. The guy rides himself so far in to the pain cave he had to stop and ask for directions, but could not understand Chinese. The last dig he put in to try and catch back on at the summit almost made him stop. Who does that? If this were a Hollywood made movie, there would be exploding legs, imploding lungs, and Jens would be riding around with a necklace of ears from riders that he destroyed.

Speaking of Biggest Loser. There was some shuffling of the GC, but even though guys moved up they still lost time. Yeah, I moved up three spots, but lost 2:10? I'm telling you that the race for Third is going to be a barn burner.

Who knew Van Den Broeck could climb? Who even knows who Van Den Broeck is? Look him up, that's your homework for today.

July 14, Bastille Day. Look for every Frenchman in the peloton to be gunning for a stage win. I have no predictions, Sandy Casar was a day early.