The past three days of the Tour have been the most exciting I have seen since the last really epic Tour of 1987. Since then, there have been great Tours, such as Lance’s first and unexpected victory in 1999, and his dominating follow up in 2000, as well as the famous first-stage-mistake-Tour of 1990. But other pundits (who apparently don’t have to be at work all day, and have endless hours to blog) have already beaten me to pointing out that Floyd’s decline, fall, and resurrection point all the way back to Merckx in 1969 and Charly Gaul in 1958–and Jesus Christ before that. Certainly, there were very few folks watching yesterday’s stage who can say they had ever seen anything like that before.

As much fun as it is to make predictions (and we make them recklessly here at Velorant, just for the heck of it), I did not see Floyd’s implosion coming. Everyone has been cagey about not saying exactly what happened. Robbie Ventura was hysterical on OLN, positing a list of things that could have gone wrong with Floyd–as if Floyd hadn’t said to him the night before, “Robbie, it was just (fill in the blank).” My guess is not particularly profound: heat stroke. The assiduousness with which Floyd hydrated and cooled off yesterday was almost absurd. If he finished with a fever on Wednesday, then he could be easily cooled off and recuperate by the next day; heat stroke, in my experience, is not “fatal” in that way. Of course, it was probably more than one thing, but I suspect that was at the heart of it.

On Wednesday night, I was bumming along with all other true fans of cycling–not just American fans. Let’s be honest: going backwards ten minutes on the last climb while wearing the yellow jersey does not qualify as “panache.” Yes, I know that Floyd–of all people–would have gone harder if he could have, but the yellow jersey is supposed to show some mettle, even in distress (Simon, Voeckler, and Pereiro are just recent examples). The saddest part of Wednesday was the feeling that Floyd has just sort of given up. He had ridden well, but he hadn’t won a stage, and then he took the maillot jaune on a backwards ride to ignominy. Floyd was destined to be a mere footnote in Tour history. An American who wore the jersey for one pathetic day.

Thursday fixed all that. And the ironic part is that Floyd ended up almost exactly where he wanted to be: safely ahead of all his real ITT threats, and safely behind a couple of non-ITT threats; it is as if Wednesday never happened and Floyd had executed exactly the plan both Frank and I had for him: win on Wednesday, sit tight on Thursday, and rest up for the ITT on Saturday. Instead, Floyd died on Wednesday, won bigger than anyone could have predicted on Thursday, and then started resting up for the ITT. Oh, well, better late than never!

What’s the lesson of all this? First, Thursday is what a bike race looks like when no team is strong enough to control the race, and no rider is strong enough (without doing a once-in-a-lifetime ride) to scare the others. In other words, the era of Lance and Discovery is over. As Menchov said of why he did not go after Floyd’s early attack, “I don’t play Russian roulette on the first climb.” And he was right: there was no reason to believe the peloton could not bring back a suicide break. Perhaps we will now enter an era of grand tour cycling where riders have to be a bit more open to the idea of Russian roulette. Good.

Second, the idea that only lowly riders, or riders going for the KoM points, can do successful long solo breaks has grown like a cancer in cycling. Most great champions, or near champions, of the Tour have a risky break somewhere in their resume. The Lance formula of only attacking on the final climb works only if (1) you are already the strongest rider in the Tour and (2) you are well rested from being protected by a strong team. Let’s hope we see more real attacks from real contenders in the future. Why there wasn’t one today, I really cannot say. Are Pereiro and Sastre really planning beat Floyd in the ITT? Is that their strategy? Good luck. Attacking is not the answer to everything in cycling, but it is the answer to most things.

Which brings me to my final notes on my favorite whipping boys. Through all of this drama, Levi Leipheimer managed to conserve energy. You would think that after yesterday he would have hung it out today like man possessed, but instead he rode a conservative break that netted him nothing. Yeah, I guess he can do well in the ITT tomorrow; maybe finish top five. Great. As for George Hincapie, well, you know the drill: yesterday he was in the early break that Floyd went through like a hot knife through butter. He’s over an hour back. Does he have something to lose that I don’t know about? With a few exceptions (Lance’s machine-like dominance being one of them), you have to be willing to finish last if you hope to finish first. This rule does not change much in long-distance sports.

As I said earlier, it’s like Wednesday never happened. Floyd is the winner on paper tomorrow–and that’s not thin paper: he was second in the first ITT (with a bike change), far enough ahead of all rivals to be sitting pretty tonight. The threats to win the ITT over him (always Gonchar, Rogers, Karpets, maybe Zabriskie, if he’s not fried) are not rivals for the final maillot jaune. But I would be remiss–and ahistorical–if I did not point out that traditionally the maillot jaune who is not dominant in the ITT tends to ride an amazing final ITT. Chiapucci did it in 1990, Pantani did it in 1998–heck, even Virenque did a half decent job in 1996 to consolidate his one podium finish. Pereiro and Sastre are both excellent cyclists. They will push Floyd to the limit tomorrow. It will be very close. Floyd could win–or lose–this Tour by seconds. As few as eight seconds? As the French say, “On verra.”