Tour de France 2006 Stage 11

Ok, one last Tour de France posting before I leave on vacation. I should be sleeping but I can't. Choas and I and her two friends got home from the volleyball camp in Bakersfield that my daughter and her friends were at all week. I didn't get to see today's result until I got home and watched the OLN coverage I had TIVOed.

This was a great day of racing in the tour. 206.5 km of mountains. The climbing started with the col de Tourmalet. I think Lance Armstrong had the best comment concerning the Tourmalet when he said that he really didn't like that mountain.

Following the "beyond catagory" Tourmalet the race climbed over 4 more catagory 1 climbs.

This was the kind of stage that Armstrong used to use to take over and eventually win the entire tour. Floyd Landis used to ride for Armstrong on the Postal Service team and he learned his lessons well.

When the day ended Floyd Landis is the 5th American to ever wear the yellow jersey in the tour de France. The two Americans who have won tours have both retired - Armstrong and LeMonde. The other three are all still racing this year - Zabriskie, Hincapie and Landis. Now we will have to see if Landis, who is going to have his hip replaced after the tour can join Lance and Greg as the third American to win the tour. But that is still 10 days away.

Landis took over the yellow jersey by a slimmist margin. The 8 second time bonus he received for finishing the stage in third place.

So how are the remaining Americans doing?

Pos.  No.  Name                  Team   Nat.     Gap
1     071  LANDIS Floyd          PHO   USA   
13    041  LEIPHEIMER Levi       GST  USA  05' 39"
28    016  VANDEVELDE Christian  CSC  USA  13' 41"
40    003  HINCAPIE George       DSC  USA  23' 01"
71    018  ZABRISKIE David       CSC  USA  41' 33"
102   064  HORNER Christopher    DVL  USA  55' 47"

Levi Leipheimer who finished second on the stage is probably really kicking himself for the 6 minutes he lost in the first time trail.

The next three days, are smaller mountains and some sprints then there are 3 days of big Alps mountains.