Winner, winner, chicken tender dinner!

Damn you, Nicole Thomas and your Pierrick Fedrigo/Thomas Voeckler tandem of stage winners!  And don't even get me started about your boy, Contador.  Anyway, congratulations on your big win here on the second rest day, yada yada yada, blah blah blah... Come by and claim your prize when you get a chance.

So, debate swirls around Contador's actions when Schleck's chain came off.  Rather than debate the action, I'd like to offer my two cents on Contador's reaction.  Contador clearly sees Schleck in trouble, Contador clearly drives the attack and continues to drive it on the descent.  Why claim that you "didn't know" or whatever nonsense?  Please be a man and and clearly state your actions rather than contradicting with words what your actions clearly were.  There really isn't anything wrong in saying that you were capitalizing on the situation because every second is going to count in this tour and that is bike racing.  Much hay has been made of the sporting gestures of Armstrong, but ultimately Armstrong knew that he was head and shoulders above his competition (reasons why are an entirely separate debate) and he could afford such gestures.  The battle going on now is not so clear cut and it is apparent that Contador is scared of Schleck this year.

A couple of interesting notes on the tour so far:

1. the current gap between first and second place is 8 seconds- Greg LeMonds winning margin in the closest Tour ever, 1989.  That tour was won on the final day in a time trial duel between Lemond and Laurent Fignon, who the day before, congratulate Lemond on his second place finish in the tour (a move which Lemond reacted to by thinking "you just lost the tour").

2. This tour is being fought out by two riders on different teams who are riding the exact same equipment: Specialized bikes, SRAM components and Zipp wheels (which are all American companies, too).  So this Tour will really be a test of man vs. man without the added mechanical advantage battle to complicate things.

Winner, winner, chicken nugget dinner!

As of Monday's rest day, Mr. Steven Boike's Think Pink Cancer Fighter's team was in the lead of the Luna Cycles virtual Tour de France making him our first winner!  Steve needs to come on down and pick up his cash prize.  Savor it well though, as my team has now taken control and should prove difficult to unseat by the next rest day.  Thanks to huge performances by my domestiques - Sylvain Chavenal, Jerome Pineau and Sandy Casar I have gotten some massive points and now thanks to a yellow jersey by Cadel Evans and eventual Tour winner Andy Schleck, the points just keep coming.  Throw in some strong riding by Mr. Vino', some strong climbing by my guys Gadret and Lloyd and the Oooooooooooooohhhhhhhhh Nnnnnnoooooooooooooooo's are gonna steam roll this thing like you wouldn't believe!  And what is even more thrilling to contemplate is the bottle of Smirnoff Ice that awaits our lanterne rouge!  Get ready Max, it's coming!

It's Fantasy Tour time, baby!!!!!!!

The short and sweet of it is that this year the Fantasy Tour will be done through Velogames. The sign up is free and they have a very thorough scoring system that will make life easy for me (important) and oh so satisfying for all you Fantasy Directeur Sportifs (very important).

So here's the deal: entry is $10.  $5 will go into the pot for a winner take all payout.  The other $5 will be split between the 2 rest days with a prize awarded to the leader of our fantasy tour on each of the two rest days.

So what do you need to do?  Register your team at Velogames.  Once you have your team registered, go to your team roster page and at the bottom you will see where you can join 3 mini leagues.  Here is the mini-league info for our Fantasy Tour:
League Details

League Owner: dirtboy1970
Owner Email: shawnmoore1@gmail.com
League Name: Luna Cycles NC
League Code: 01190650


After you have registered and joined, drop by your ten bucks at the shop (or mail it in if you are out of town).  That's it, but you need to hurry since registration will close at 1600 CET on Saturday.  Good luck!