A Note to David Zabriskie

David,

You rode a great prologue time trial. You did a great job defending the yellow jersey the four days you got to wear it.

You were a good race leader, humble to the cameras and from what we hear from the TV talking heads, a well liked teammate.

David, you need to find another team to join when your contract is up.

Yesterday while wearing the race leader's yellow jersey you had a bad luck crash and on orders from your team captain, Bjarni Riis, your entire team rode away and left you sitting on the road, bruised, battered and left to get yourself to the finish line.

Sure the team has a couple other riders who may have a stake in the overall race later on, but they were not the race leader at the moment. It was important at that time for the five strongest riders who were still in the saddle to keep riding. But one or two of the other riders should have stopped to help you.

Today, at the feeding station, one or two of your fellow riders had a small spill while picking up food. The entire team stopped and waited for them to get back on their bikes and helped them get back into the peloton.

Earlier you said you were surprised at how much respect you got from the other riders while you were wearing yellow. It's too bad you couldn't get the same respect from your team Captain Bjarne Riis. Riis himself a former tour winner apparently forgot what it's like to wear yellow. Maybe you should remind him that the year he won, he had a helper on the team named Jan Ullrich who finished the tour in second place that year and several times looked fully capable of taking the yellow jersey off Riis's shoulders. But didn't because Riis was wearing yellow and therefore it was everyone elses job to support him.

To Bjarne Riis, you made a tough call ordering the team to ride on withour Zabriskie. But was it the right call? YOu should have left a rider behind to help him. To bad you don't respect the yellow jersey as much as the guy who was wearing it and the man today who is reluctantly wearing it today.