Pony Up, Vaughters You Cheapskate!

It's the Thor de France, Baby!: here's the scoop: we love Jens "Shut Up Legs!" Voigt is now on Twitter, and he sez Thor Hushovd's hotel room is a cramped, tiny piece of crap. What the hell is wrong with you, Vaughters? The man is world champion. He wore the maillot jaune for a week with your sponsor's logo all over his rump. He deigned to lead out (the great,to be sure, but jeez!) Tyler Farrar in a !@#damn sprint, for !@#$'s sake. And now this most unlikely of climbers has bagged you a Pyreneean stage win off the Col d'Aubisque, and this is the best you'll do for him? Pony up for a decent hotel room for the boy already, you oppressor pig! And no, I don't care if Jens *was* being tongue-in-cheek and Thor *was* already staying in a decent pad--you can freakin' pay up for an *extra* palatial suite for just his dirty socks and the pile of fawning sycophants you owe 'im. Don't take any more guff, Thor--and Jonathan Vaughters, Garmin *gave* you a damn Visa card, right? So use it!

GC Deep, Mountain High: let's cut to it: (1) Contador clearly ain't just "psyching out" the Schlecks at this point and (2) relative to his own freakishly high norm, at least, and barring some miracle renaissance tomorrow (which to be fair, Alberto being Alberto, is certainly possible), he looks like hell. So what's this mean for GC? Well, for my money, if the Schlecks successfully continue to tag-team him through the Alps, and Cadel doesn't crack, it's over, because there ain't near enough room in the time trial for Alberto to recover the time over even the sucktastic Schlecks, so we're basically talking about a battle for 2nd. And Andy, give it to Frank, while we're at it--you can't blame Chaingate for this one, your big bro just looks a bit better than you this year! Oh, Alberto, I can't stand the whining, promise me you'll pull it back for the Alps...or heck, if Thor Hushovd can take a mountain stage, maybe you can at least kick Cavendish's !@# in the next sprint!

Radio Silence: and, in further bodily-damage news, RadioSkank has now lost the stalwart (and darned on-form) Andreas Kloden, leaving just Levi Leipheimer--without the aid of Klodi, Chris, Jani Brajkovic, or Popo--to hold down the fort for the squad's Tour de France dreams. Luckily, Lance Armstrong is apparently due in France shortly to torment Alb--um, support Levi, which should provide, if massive annoyance to those of us at home who will be subject to the nails-on-a-blackboard 24/7 media whorefest, a big mental boost to our lovable RoadID tough guy. Aw, Levi--if they won't let Lance in to domestique, maybe you could buy up a few of yer old Gerolsteiner teammates to help you along...

Euskalteeeeeeeeeeeeeel!: finally, no post would be complete without a replay of the fantastically humble and exceedingly smashing we love Samuel Sanchez taking the stage to Luz-Ardiden, with half his key lieutenants crashed out, no less: Woo-hoo Samu--aupa Euskalteeeeeeeeeel!