Great stage again today. It's hard to read too much into pure performance levels as it was as much about bike handling as watts per kilo etc. As Smutchin said, Saxo Tinkoff blew it with the bike strategy, otherwise I think we'd have seen a Bertie win by a 20-30 second margin.
The Spanish riders do seem to be getting better as the Tour unfolds. I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt in terms of doping, but in terms of preparation, and knowing how tough this last week was going to be, did they leave room in the tank to improve and ride into peak form for the last 3-4 days? It wokd make sense. Relatively speaking (looking at time gained vs distance) Froome's performance advantage was much greater over AX3 compared to Ventoux for instance. Anyway, my point is that performance is possibly levelling out and we have a potentially epic and incredibly tough stage tomorrow, so don't be surprised if Froome doesn't smash it, or even loses a bit of time, or perish the thought really cracks and blows it( personally I doubt the latter).
Looking forward to future Tours, I think we are seeing some changing of the guard in terms of
Evans and Schleck, but I wouldn't write off Contador or some of the other contenders yet. I really believe that Froome is an incredible talent, but I also believe that Sky are capitalising on a more developed sports science approach. In short I buy the Kerrison "cycling was retarded" theory. So the other teams are playing catch up, but catching up they are and will continue to do. It all makes for fascinating times ahead I think. But in the short term... Roll on tomorrow!
