Apologies - Jeannesson will be in white by the looks of things. Indeed, given how much further ahead of Thomas he finished, I would say that Thomas has no chance of getting that jersey for the rest of the race. Chapeau to both though.
Contador seems to be paying the price for trying to ride the Giro/Tour double. The time for playing games and bluffing is over now and he didn’t come up with the goods in the last K. Not that it would be too smart to write him off just yet.
Basso looks strong, Cuddles was up there at the pointy end and the Frank and Andy one two can really put the hurt on the other big names. Our winner will come from these four and, if I was a betting man, my money would be on Basso.
My understanding is that Contador has hit the deck 3 times already in this Tour. In my personal experience, hitting the deck (even if it meant no lost skin) always took at least “something” out of my performance the next day - if only due to wasted nervous energy.
If you’re carrying bruising and other soft tissue soreness, it’s gotta take a toll on you in the mountains to some degree.
Having thought about your question a bit more, I’ve decided that in the three Grand Tours, 30 seconds flat time bonus for the first 25 riders over every Cat 1, Cat 2, and HC climb would be best - perhaps Cat 3 climbs too.
It wouldn’t be necessary I don’t think on Summit finishes - by definition those sorts of finishes naturally have all the GC contenders fighting our for a Stage win, or very close to one because that’s how you win overall.
One thing’s for sure however, it would absolutely bring the racing alive on the climbs which presently seem a little bit processional. Think of this year’s Tour for example where Cat 3 climbs have featured near the end? You’d use the same logic as a “same time bunch finish” over the climb - if there’s more than 1 second gap, it’s a real gap. If you’re in the Top 25 on overall GC time, every Cat 3 climb or higher, BAM! You’re gonna get to the front to avoid the penalty of missing the 30 second time bonus. No more sprinter’s trains with 15km to go! You’d be seeing the GC guys going for broke. I’d love to see it happen.
Out of that forced imperative to always be in the Top 25 over every climb Cat 3 or higher (and there’s a lot you know) you would have one hell of King of the Mountain’s jersey competition.
Will the last RadioShack rider please turn out the lights: Klöden abandons mid-stage today. Hope Levi can find the legs for a stage win.
For you Eurosport viewers: I can’t be the only one that wants to stick an icepick in my ear when Sean Kelly starts talking? The Eurosport announcers overall are pretty good - nice mix of knowledge and entertainment - but Sean’s low, monotone voice is just atrocious. Hard to hear, hard to understand, boring to listen to, and I don’t really think he has such unique insights to make up for it.
Sean kelly was awesome yesterday, mind you. A thorough discussion of “cow shite” in the middle of the afternoon. Not language you usually get away with on daytime TV.
Wow, Hushovd won a mountain leg - very impressive run from what is suppoesed to be a sprinter 
Sad to see that Klöden is out.
Kudos to Hushovd for a superb ride!
To be fair, he’s a pretty lousy sprinter the last couple years. 
Well, that’s an opinion of course. And arguing about opinions on the internet is like trying to draw a smell - that is, an exercise in exasperation.
What is fact is that Thor Hushovd won the World Road Race Championship in Geelong last year, on a very tough circuit, in a bunch sprint.
True true 
I think he said as much himself - he couldn’t hope to beat Cav in a flat sprint on most occasions, so he sort of had to work on his climbing and other abilities to be more of a jack-of-all-trades.
Thor’s my favourite guy in the pelaton, but even going back to his last green jersey he hasn’t dominated sprints, at least in the Tour. Instead he went on that monster solo break in the mountains to score a bunch of intermediate points, and generally monopolized all available points that were out of reach for Cav and the rest on account of being on the wrong side of hard riding. Monster ride from him yesterday, and exactly the sort of thing that makes me like him.
I think I might just have to root for Voeckler to actually win this thing.
Well, I’m scratching my head. The usual elite can’t seem to shake Voeckler at all, or each other, by much. Samuel Sanchez got a few seconds but he has to get more to have a chance.
I still don’t rule out AC but the longer it goes on without him making any kind of decisive attack the more I’m thinking he’s not his old self this year. Unless he’s still struggling with his knee and it comes good by the Alps, I’m not seeing him winning it.
The rest of the GC elite all seem to be much of a much and on paper (leaving Voeckler to one side) that puts Cuddles in the lead because he has the best current combination of lowest time and best ITT ability.
But Voeckler? If he keeps this up and goes into the ITT with 2 minutes, it’s his for the taking. I had a look at his previous ITT times and they are all over the fricken’ place. Sometimes he’s way off the pace but sometimes he’s only a couple of minutes away from the GC elite. And he’s clearly in the form of his life. If the GC elite can no more shake him in the Alps than they have been able to shake him in the Pyrenees, and he goes into the ITT in yellow, and if the yellow gives him wings, I think he could go the whole way. Think about this: this year’s ITT in the Dauphine was on the same course as for the Tour. And he was 118 seconds ie about two minutes behind Cadel. So substitute that into the current gaps and Voeckler wins…
+1
..and by my reading we’re closer to the end now then is obvious:
Stage 15: One for the sprinters - NO GC Movement.
Stage 16: One Cat 2, sprinter/breakaway win - NO GC Movement.
Stage 17: Lumpy, but the Cat 1 climb is 60km from the finish - NO GC Movement.
Stage 18: Extreme, everything must happen here.
Stage 19: Hard, but only 110km with about 50km down hill - a few seconds here or there among the GC guys.
Stage 20: ITT guesstimate: Contador (fitness?) > Evans (:30) > A. Schleck (1:00) > F. Schleck/Voeckler (2:00) > Basso/Sanchez/Cunego (3:00+) …but who the hell knows?
Stage 21: One for the sprinters - NO GC Movement.
I think the problem is that no team is strong enough in the mountains–even Leopard Trek–to risk putting it on the line before the final climb. So, in both the big climb finishes–Stages 12 and 14–we’ve seen big groups at the base of the final climb, with the elite group only forming during that climb. Therefore there hasn’t been enough time/distance for attacks to wear on the riders.
That scenario could very well happen again in Stage 19 given the long downhill section and short length.
Therefore, surely Leoprad Trek/Saxxo Bank will have to go from the start on Stage 18. That will be the whole race there. The elite group will form on the first massive climb, and the whole race will be decided in the 100km between Col Agnel and Galibier-Serre-Chevalier.
…or we could have more crashes. 
Bit cagey from the top boys today - lot of chat on the cycling forums about lack of bottle, riding like girls, the good old days of champions shattering the field etc. The riders are probably a lot cleaner now, though, so I guess it comes down to what we want to see.
Funny quote from AS in this piece on today’s action.
It was impossible to make a difference today,” said Andy. “The climb wasn’t hard enough or steep enough. It wasn’t possible to make a gap even though I tried several times.
Exactly my thought…this is a Tour with “normal” human beings competing. 
Beginning to remind me of the 2008 Tour in which Sastre won with a single climbing effort + a good ITT and apparently pissed off Lance enough for him to come out of retirement.
So if you can’t gap them, set the pace high enough they fall off the back. Jeez Andy, if you’re really the strongest, show it! At the start of the race I was kinda rooting for him, but now if Voeckler can’t hang on I think I’d prefer to see Cuddles win.
Leipheimer won’t win a stage in the Tour. He never has except for that one ITT and Spartacus is in the race this year. In order to win a stage you have to either attack (which he never does) or be strong enough to outride everyone else up a mountain or in a time trial (which he isn’t).
Personally I can’t stand his passive style. I think it was a real shame that he won the Tour de Suisse. Hopefully it won’t encourage others to sit behind riders AHEAD of them on time on the final climbs of a stage race in hopes that they can pull ahead in a time trial. Gimme Vino. Gimme Voeckler. They have style. Give me a reason to root for you. If he weren’t an American we wouldn’t hear Phil and Paul ever mention his name since he never does anything.
RadioShack is done. The only other strong rider they have is Haimar Zubeldia. Another vanilla rider wasting his talent safely and cautiously avoiding obstacles on the road to mediocrity. At least when Lance sat on wheels forever you knew he was going to break out and grab big chunks of time on mountaintop finishes. And when he no longer had the strength to do so he got into a breakaway to try to grab a stage win.