We had a sense in the first stages of the Tour that Boonen was going to be the fast one, this year. Steegmans and the other Quickstep's provided a textbook leadout. All this came at the expense of the two-man breakaway which contained a guy that really won me over, Txurruka. He is a scrappy little fighter with a never-say-die attitude and a smile on his face (when he's not grimacing). Big props to him as he was actually having fun out there, drawing the battle lines on a day not taylored for him.

It's official, the nickname of Soler is 'The Eel'. Our text voting confirmed it as the peoples choice. DeFeet will be notifying Ligget and Sherwen directly.

Tomorrow is a decisive stage. Tinkerbell is going to have some jitters going into that one. Most of the guys behind him, at least up to 8th on GC, are capable of erasing their deficit and then some. After tomorrow, it's going to be an even tighter race.

Someone asked if I have a distaste for Eric Zabel, in predicting he would not win another stage. That is absolutely not the case. I remember when he was a rookie. There was a lot of talk of his great potential. I would look at him at mealtimes and think he didn't have the stuffing to be a great sprinter. He seemed too soft, too quiet, too GQ modelish. Field sprinters usually have some really ugly features. Like hockey players that get chequed into the wall too many times and fight too much. I was wrong. Zabel did have the stuffing.