I will get to my theory of how Floyd Landis should ride the Alps but first a brief vent about George Hincapie. There is a photo on cyclingnews.com of big George. The caption reads, “Hincapie tried to get in an early break but failed.” A cursory look at the picture shows Commesso also in the frame. So what happened? George attacks once and then gives up? Commesso keeps hitting the front? And then the finale. Popovych rides like a demon and pulls the break back to ten seconds but couldn’t get it any closer; when no one seemed to help…why didn’t big George hit the front and take the risk that he could pull it back himself. Instead he sat up with everyone else. Then finishes fifth in the bunch sprint. I simply don’t get it.

On to the Alps. Three brutal stages and all effectively mountain-top finishes. The plunge into Morzine won’t matter much after the carnage of the three days of climbing.

The contenders all probably figure that the first day’s racing won’t really happy until L’Alpe d’Huez. After Phonak gave away the jersey to a former teammate and friendly rival I had brief hopes that Phonak might have had plans to attack hard on the very first day and shatter the peloton before getting to the bottom of L’Alpe. But then I heard Landis’s quote in which he said, “So long as I have the yellow jersey in Paris, I don’t care if I haven’t won any stages.” That’s not the mentality of someone planning to attack in the first instance.

My prediction is that the Tour gets mostly settled on day 2 in the Alps. There may be hints after day  1 but the approach to the Croix de Fer via Glandon is the hardest of the three approaches with a very steep last pitch on the Gladon before a modestly steady rise over the Croix de Fer. The descent is then very technical before running onto decent roads below St. Jean d’Arves. There really isn’t much room for those who’ve been dropped on the Glandon–Croix de Fer to catch back on before the final ascent. Contrary to my previous posts…this is the stage I think Landis is most likely to win. On day 1, I bet he rides well but that an early break on non C.G.s riders stays away until the end.

Back in yellow and with a couple of minutes lead, Landis won’t need to be offensive on day three. The right break will go up the road and Phonak will use the remainder of its energy to protect him until the bottom of the final climb…where Landis will allow Menchov and others to take the lead and merely cover the moves.

Having written this, I hope it plays out very differently. Nothing would make me happier than to see Rabobank go on the attack on Tuesday or T-Mobile or both…and watch the carnage unfold.