The Tour is underway and there is a lot of action already.
I know, I know, Lance is gone, and Floyd is kinda history.
But there is much more to this sport than those two guys.
I am going to track the Americans of the 2007 Tour de France.
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Last Update July 18th 10:53 pm

• Several riders had some very good results in the prologue. The results were very near the form you would expect for the very short, initial ride.
• Stages 1 and 2 have been the flat, sprint rides, which are not expected to be stages that the individual American riders are focused on.
• Stage 3, another sprint stage, won by Cancellara, the yellow jersey holder, with same times for most all riders. But there is time lost for the riders, due to time bonuses.
• Today is the rest day and the last two days in the alps have been hard on the riders. The pace seemed almost frantic throughout the peloton for the entire day.
• Lots of action today as stage 9 featured the highest point in this years tour, Col d’Iseran, and finishing with ‘hors categorie’ Col du Galibier. This stage did have the terrible crashes that marred stage 8, but it a rider did fly over the bars after hitting a dog. The dog and rider are both ok, though the front wheel did not survive.
• The peleton finished Stage 10 in a mass group as they all seemed to be content to let a break go and just get through this stage. So, no changes in any times today.

Overall Results so far:

13. Levi Leipheimer DISCOVERY CHANNEL TEAM + 00:03:53

• Levi has had very good results in the short prologues early in the year at the Tour of California and Tour of Georgia. Not as well at the tour though. This is ok, as he is in the race for the long haul.
• Drops from 30 to 32 and loses 20 sec due to time bonuses
• Dropped spots, but lost no time on stage 4
• Finished towards back of main field today, plainly saving his energy for more important days. He lost no time today yet moved up to 22nd
• The Alp stages is where Levi expected to begin his move. While he hasn’t been outstanding, he has done what he needed to do. He has lost little time to some of his rivals, and made time on others. In stage 8, he was consistently near the front portion and remained strong throughout the day, finishing 12 on stage 8 and moved up to 13th.
• Levi had a very good day in the Alps in stage 9, where he kept pace on all the big guys. His overall time did not change for the day.
• Sunday Levi was given a 10 second time penalty because he received inappropriate help during a water bottle exchange with the team car. Look close, and you will see every rider get that little extra push when they are taking bottles from their cars. The officials don’t ever say anything, but maybe they thought they should now. Hope that doesn’t prove to be critical later.
• He continues his move up the GC ranking, having moved from 13th to 9th
• Levi is sounding confident for the Tour’s decisive second half, but L’Equipe doesn’t rate his chances very high. The sports daily gave him a 0.5/10 chance of winning this year’s race, the same as Yaroslav Popovych
• Levi is pleased with his performances over the Alps, telling VeloNews before Thursday’s start: “I didn’t feel great on the stage to Tignes, but yesterday I was right where I needed to be. I’m happy with how things went in the Alps.”

25. Chris Horner PREDICTOR – LOTTO + 00:09:11
Our man Chris is from Bend, he has been in a lot of races this season and we are hoping he does real well here.

• Chris had a respectable prologue, as he is not a strong time trial rider.He has managed to stay in it through the early stages.
• Rises from 70 to 69th despite losing 20 sec of time bonuses in stage 3, then back to 70 the next day
• Chris continues to ride really well, and is still in contention. Finishing 14th in stage 5 and losing no time.
• He finished 27th on this very difficult day, losing about 6 minutes. This is a very good showing for Chris.
• Chris has rocketed up to 25th, just 6:29 back. Ya, there is a couple of time trials that are going to be difficult for him, but with more mountain stages, he can be a top 10 finisher this year.
• He is riding really well now, this is turning out to be a great tour for Chris. Finishing 17th in the very tough stage 9 and retaining his 25th spot in the GC
• Chris admits he schedule hasn’t allowed him to ride the stages earlier in the year, as many of the riders have done. He seems to be doing pretty well riding the course for the first time, during the race.

39. George Hincapie DISCOVERY CHANNEL TEAM + 00:26:21

• George rode a great prologue. He very nearly won the prologue in 2006 so it is not a surprise he did so well this year. This year he finished 3rd, 23 seconds back.
• George went down hard in the stage 2 crash and at first thought he had busted up his knee. “It’s better. I thought it was really bad because when I landed, I couldn’t move it. But once I got back on the bike and started pedaling, it just got better.”
• Holding on to 4th spot
• Think George fell again today, and got a few more cuts and bruises. Slipped to 5th, but lost no time, after stage 4, only due to Hushovds win, but Thor will slide out when the mountains come.
• George made a real effort to win todays stage 5, making a bid at the end, but fading slightly to finish in 6th, losing no time.
• George is continuing to ride well as he remained in the lead chase group for much of yesterday. Although no one is talking about him being a leading GC man, through stage 7 he remains up in the standings and has shown great strength.
• Stage 8 was a hard day for George, after spending a good portion of the race in the front portion, he faded in the long climbs near the finish, losing 17 minutes on stage 8 along. Falling from 5 to 45, now 20:19 back.
• George didnt figure into the action today having made some attacks in earlier stages, finishing in 44th, moving up to 39th but loosing 6 more minutes. He stayed up near the front until Valverdes attacks put so many riders under stress. But George stayed calm, and will be back to fight for another stage later in the tour.

47. Christian Vandevelde TEAM CSC + 00:32:46

• Christian is riding well so far and has done a lot of work to help protect the Yellow Jersey for CSC. Plus, unlike many of his teammates, he has avoided all the falls, including the big crash at the end of stage 2.
• Rises 1 spot to 73, with same time at Chris Horner
• Worked to keep CSC in yellow, and then finished slowly and lost many 100 places in stage 4, to drop 3 minutes to the leader.
• Still working hard though CSC let others work more on stage 5. Continues to lose time due to the efforts, another 11:05 today.
• Chris has done some great work for CSC, and in the process still not lost a ton of time. Actually rising from 171 to 61
• Rode will in stage 9, finishing 25th, rising to 47, but time gap is up to 32:46 today.Vandevelde was fantastic, doing some hard fast pulls to keep CSC team leaders in the front groups.

134. Fred Rodriguez 47 PREDICTOR – LOTTO + 01:29:36

• Freds job is not time trialing or winning races, it is helping Robbie McEwen win them.
• He was involved in that huge pile up 2 kilometers from the end of stage two, and was holding his arm in a way that suggested a shoulder injury. Tomorrow we will wait to see how that affects him. Fred stepped out of the Predictor-Lotto bus with a grimace and bandages on his left arm and knee. The 33-year-old was the last rider to cross the line Monday at more than 8 minutes behind the winner, although he was credited with the same time as the winner. Rodriguez hoped to suffer through Tuesday’s stage to be able to help team captain Robbie McEwen in the sprints. X-rays revealed no broken bones, but he did receive stitches in his elbow as a souvenir. “It will be hard today. The main goal is to stay in the race,” he said before the start. “One more time, it’s an example of the Tour de France not being concerned about the riders’ safety.”
• His standings rose 6 spots today.
• Fred helped Robbie today in his effort win the stage. That didn’t happen, but apparently Fred feels good enough to finish 23rd in stage 4
• Freddie finished in the very last group today, basically hanging back with Robbie McEwen who did not make the time cut today. With Robbie gone, expect Freddie to continue to fade, and likely withdraw from the race

170. Dave Zabriskie TEAM CSC + 01:42:49

• Dave had a pretty good prologue, although we would expect maybe a higher finish than 11th from the American Time Trial Champion.
• He lost almost 3 minutes on stage two, having done a lot of pulls to keep Cancellara in yellow, so he faded at the end of the stage. But Dave has climbed well earlier this year and could be competitive later in the tour.
• Dave lost more time today and is now 186 out of 187 riders. His goals for this tour are definitely as a team rider, helping teamates win stages and retain their jerseys. Which seems to be working, given that Canellara won yet another stage to day to keep CSC in yellow.
• Dave continues to work, and to lose time
• the Alps were not kind to Dave today. Despite his earlier successes with climbs earlier in the year, the work protecting yellow, and working for Sastre has drained him. Finishing in the last group on stage 9 has set kept him in the very back of the standings.
• He told VeloNews on Monday’s rest day he’s in the “pain house” and complained of sore just about everything. Zabriskie’s been riding conservatively to try to save his legs to help the team in the climbing stages, often times soft-pedaling into the finish in the final kilometers. Zabriskie started second-to-last at 1:14:40 behind Rasmussen and finished stage 9 1:42:49 behind.
• Dave is seeming to get a little more tight lipped about his condition and team strategy. He sounds discouraged to me.

Team Discovery:
Thomas Vaitkus

• Thomas has been forced to withdraw. At this point, Vaitkus is the sole victim of yesterday’s crash forced to pull out of the Tour. Thomas underwent surgery Monday evening in a Waregem hospital to repair his right thumb broken in five places. Vaitkus was at the team bus Tuesday morning with his hand swollen after doctors placed two titanium plates around his thumb to stabilize the wound. It will most certainly hurt the team’s efforts in that he’s quite a workhorse. Recall he’s a former world U23 TT champion (2002) and a Giro stage winner (2006). That said, it’s not something they can’t work through.

Vladimir Gusev

• The Tour’s best young rider, went down at the tail-end of the pileup, but wasn’t seriously injured

Spaniard Benjamin Noval

• He had a wicked and unfortunate crash in the final very fast, narrow descent with 4.8 miles to go. He ran into the back of a team car that was apparently stopped, or at least going very slow.  He was taken to a hospital for X-rays and stitches on deep cuts in his chin and on his right arm. He lost 9 minutes. Benjamin is toughing it out, finishing pretty will in stage 18

Yaroslav Popovych

• ‘Popo’ has been riding well. He was on a great downhill break in stage 7 till he overshot a corner which had wiped out the gap he had created between him and the peloton. He is looking strong, and seems to be trying to win a stage before this is done.
• Popo was on form for stage 9 in the Alps, making several attacks and keeping pace with the others that were trying to make their moves for a stage win. For cresting the highest point of the Tour first, Popovych has earned a 5000-Euro bonus known as the Souvenir Henri Desgrange

Alberto Contador

• Alberto is looking very good. This is not a surprise, as he has the potential to be very successful, especially in the mountains. He has an incredible acceleration on the climbs.
• Alberto flatted on the final 2 miles of stage 8, or he would have been much closer to the Great Dane stage winner Michael Rasmussen, than the final gap of 3:10 indicated.
• Again in stage 9, Alberto showed he can climb with the best of them, finishing 5th in stage 9 and moving to 5th overall.
• Levis says “I’ve never seen an acceleration like he did yesterday on the Galibier. He’s riding phenomenal. It’s better for the team to have two options.”
• Plus, he has now regained the White jersey as the tours best young (under 25) rider.