Now, about that Tour

OK, sort of curious radio silence here since Landis bonked last Wednesday. As you all now know, he proceeded to perform one of the most stunning rides in 103 years of Tour history, in one day helping people to forget 7 years of Lance moments. As impressive as Floyd's ride was - and it was an almost superhuman effort, the kind Leipheimer kept trying to pull off to get himself into contention, but kept being unable to follow through on - what thrilled me was the way Team Phonak shattered the peloton as a launching point for him. This is what USPostal/Discovery always did for Lance, but rarely so dramatically, and never so early in a ride. All 8 of Floyd's teammates sacrificed themselves for him, riding as hard as they physically could extremely early in an extremely hard stage, absolutely blowing apart the peloton and giving Floyd the leadout he needed to develop an escape that no amount of chasing at the end of a long day could reel back in. One team member had to quit the Tour that day, so spent was he by his effort for his leader. But his reward will be great: not only does the Tour winner give all his winnings to his teammates (he's got more money coming, thank you very much), but also the team - and no doubt his compatriots - will not forget that effort.

So, everybody loves a winner, and after what Floyd did, I'm over my initial unenthusiasm about him. Meanwhile, my boy Klöden did just fine (3rd place), thank you. And the enigmatic and invisible Cadel Evans finished off the posium, so screw him. It is now the official policy of anarchitect to ignore Cadel Evans.