There were two very entertaining days of racing so far in the Tour de France this year. Stage 6 (results) had the earliest mountain top finish we have seen in the Tour, and then today’s stage 7 (results) had a nice little climb right before the end that got a small leading group of top riders away. The first week of the Tour has been the most interesting first week in a very long time. With the top riders all being listed in the 10 in GC from the first stage on. This sort of course has been seen commonly in the Giro and Vuelta for the past 20 years, but not in the Tour. I know I like to see this racing then the totally flat stages of with a small break out all day and then caught 10km from the line and then a big pack finish (2 minutes of excitement packed into 4 hours)
So far the only big surprise has been Cuengo. The last 2 days really should have been perfect for him, but he has been in the 2nd or 3rd group. I thought his TT was solid and he expected him to do better the past 2 days. Valverde, Menchov, Evans, the Schleck bothers, and Sastre all have all ridden strong. Sammy Sanchez, Oscar Pereiro, and Stijn Devolder are all in the top 11 and ready to take advantage of any chance they get. American VandeVelde is looking great! Nice to see him doing so well in the Tour. For some reason he was never on the USPS teams tour selection after he crashed with Heras in the TTT one year.
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