TdF 2013 Week 2 Preview (and week 1 final recap)

Stages 5, 6, 7
7 stages under our belts this year, and we've had just about everything.  A bus crash, a peloton crash, uphill attacks, breakaways (and a short-lived Jensie breakaway), photo finishes!  And now, over the last 3 stages, wins by each of the big men in sprinting.  Cav took stage 5, and wasn't even really challenged.  Greipel took stage 6, perhaps aided by a crash that caught Cav earlier on.  He caught up and was part of the sprint, but he may have been hurting and a little worn from catching up.  And in stage 7, after another second place finish, Peter Sagan finally got his.  Using the hills to drop the sprinters that can't climb as well, his Cannondale team kept up the pace and kept them out of the mix.  He also got ALL the sprint points today, putting him well ahead in the points.
Blel Kadri managed to take enough mountain points, and with an assist by a teammate to keep Pierre Roland from scooping up the remaining points on the second climb, puts on the Polka Dots today.  Hard to say if he'll be able to keep it with big mountain points coming up in the next couple of days.

Congrats on making history, Daryl Impey.  Sorry you'll be losing it again tomorrow.

In a somewhat planned moved by Orica Greenedge, Simon Gerrans passed the Yellow jersey on to the shoulders of Daryl Impey, making him the first African to wear the leader's jersey in the TdF.

Here's looking at the next 7 stages...

(Again, stage profiles from letour.fr)
Stage 8 (7/6)
This is the first stage of this year's tour where the climber's really get to stretch their legs.  Fully in the Pyrenees now, this stage ends with an HC (beyond categorization), and steep drop, and an uphill cat 1 finish at Ax 3 Domaines.

Hope they're ready to climb

The long flat start and spring point at Quillan will make the first half of the race interesting though, and I expect a good battle for those sprint points.
How to call a winner on this stage?  I'm not sure the main GCers necessarily want to ride with the Yellow for 2 whole weeks (it's adds pressure), but this is the opportunity to show the rest of the pack how well they're riding.  I expect a mountain goat from, say, Europcar to win the stage from the dying remnants of a breakaway, but Froome to beat the rest of the pack up and stake his claim (mmm, steak).

Stage 9
No mountain top finish today, but they did manage to pack in 4 cat 1 climbs in a relatively short course.  I see this as less of an opportunity for the big GC contenders to show off, but will definitely splinter the peloton and a breakaway of the right riders could stay off.

It's a pack of camels?

I think the sprint point is early enough that the breakaway will steal the points, but with a rest day the following day, you could see some strong attacks, and maybe even someone like a Sagan getting up in the break to get those.  Guys wanting to get a move on in the Mountains classification will attack on Col de Peyresourde, given the relatively short distance between that and the following ones they might be able to nab 2 or 3 with a gap there.  It seems like the climbs will destroy the peleton, but with 30km descent, I think a regrouping of the top teams will occur before finish, and a "sprint" will occur.  Let's give it to Phillipe Gilbert.

REST DAY!
Which probably means riding more.  Can't let the body think it's recovery time!

Stage 10
Rest day, plane transfer, sprint stage.  GC guys are gonna be feeling real relaxed after stage 10.  A tiny cat 4 in the 197km stage to Saint-Malo won't disrupt the sprinters.  Assuming no more crashes, Cav takes his 2nd stage of this year's tour, but still finds himself 100 points down for Green.

Stage 11
First ITT of the TdF, at 33km this is a much shorter event than last year's 41 and 53 km jaunts.  First half has some bumps, second half is downhill-ish.  This should favor the traditional TTers.  Of course, with multi-time world TT champion Tony Martin nursing injuries from the day 1 crash, it's anybody's guess.  Depending on how stage 8 and 9 placed the GC leaders, this could be prime battleground for Chris Froome and Cadel Evans, both excellent TTers.

Stage 12/13
Stage 12 is perhaps the flattest stage of the tour, Stage 13 has a cat 4, but these are part of the transition from Pyrenees to Alps.  Both very long, both aimed at the sprinters.  There's nothing here calling me to pick someone in particular, so, you know, one of those bigwigs.

Stage 14
Getting back in to some mountains, but still not a climber's stage exactly.  Perhaps another good opportunity for Peter Sagan, the hills might drop the other sprinters.  No single climb is very big, but there's 7 (7!) categorized climbs, which means some points up for grabs for the Polka Dot jersey.

Stage 14.  No clever caption.

The giant time gaps are coming next week still, as we tackle some really crazy stuff in the Alps.  However, after the 2 big Pyrenees stages and the ITT, I think the person wearing the Yellow at the end of this week will be Chris Froome.

Parting Thought: It was I who put bop in the bop-sha-bop-sha-bop.  But I swear I'm not responsible for the ram in the ramalamadingdong.