Smithers MINNEAPOLIS

Tour de France analysis

Big winners after today’s short 29.5km time trial:

Stefan Schumacher, holy crap dude.

Cadel Evans, put some time into his rivals. This will be valuable when they attack him and he only follows the wheels.

Denis Menchov, stayed up there and in contention.

Christian Vande Velde, nice job.

Not as good as expected:

Damiano Cunego, lost a minute to Evans.

Andy Schleck, will need to do better in the mountains.

Disappointing:

Alejandro Valverde, did not do himself many favors today.

Frank Schleck, not good enough.

Yaroslav Popovych, uhhhh…maybe he is just riding support for Evans?

Riccardo Riccò, waiting to light it up in the high stuff? I hope?

Bernard Hinault shoves George Hincapie off the Tour de France podium after yesterday’s stage.

Here is the 2008 route in Google Maps with Street View.