Menchov conquers ventoux

[creekster]

Good and iuntersting stage today in the dauphine. mencho wins by a 1/2 wheel length over Moreau. Moreau is an interesting guy. he is good for one or two great stage perfromances in every big tour he is in and then he usually stinks it up in a couple of others and so never quite meets his apparent potential.

Leipheimer was third and took over the overall lead. He openly stated that he wants to win this race to show his form for the TdF.

I didn't se the stage, so it is hard to know what happened, but lANDIS MUST HAVE CRACKED AS HE FINISHED 9:30 back. That is trerribloe and may mean that he spent too much on the ITT tog et his good result there.

Gorgeous George H. and my favoritre Valverde were both top 20 finishers.

Hard to read too much into this, as ventoux has always been a tough stage that has created strange results.

[Quisqueyano]

I think you're right about Landis. he must have blown it all yesterday which doesn't bode well gor him come TDF. Unless he is slowing down in preparation.

[bluegoose]

The article I read on velonews said that Phonak was taking Dauphine very seriously and had every intention on winning the thing. With that said, it makes it all the more disappointing that Landis does appear to have blown up on the climb.

Leipheimers performance was very impressive and in my mind solidifies him as a contender for the GC at TdF. My only concern is that he seems to be riding awful hard right now, to make a point as much as anything that he will be a competitor come July. I'm glad he's riding hard and riding well, I just hope he saves enough for the tour.

Moreau is a bit of an enigma isn't he. Creester analysis of the guy is right on. He'll make some noise and get some good tv coverage for the sponsors for about 3 days in every grand tour and high profile stage race and then shrink into obscurity and disappear all of a sudden. Like 2 years ago in the tour when he held the yellow jersey for several stages early and then dropped something like 20 minutes on a single hard stage. He's proven he can TT, and he's shown he can climb. He just doesn't seem able to put it all together for 2 or 3 weeks.