This is not a comprehensive list, nor the order of importance, just a stream of consciousness thread

1. Lots of Crashes. It isn't who has hit the deck, but who hasn't. Only Jan Ullrich has remained upright through 9 days of competition. Poor Marco Velo not only breaks his collerbone, but additionally falls on a broken bottle in the ditch, bleeds seriously and has to have surgery to stop the bleeding.

2. 4000 meters of Pave makes a difference. In rushing to get to the front of the peleton, Iban Mayo takes a tumble, and the rest of the GC contenders motor ahead to the first section of Pave, paced by Hincape and Landis. They break the peleton in half, with Mayo in the trailing peleton, who loses almost 4 minutes on the stage. While Eusketal-Euskadi did well in the Team time trial, Mayo is now 5 minutes 27 seconds behind Lance Armstrong, and will have to take some major chances in the coming days.

3. Team Time trial. While the Posties won the day with the fastest time, Phonak with Tyler Hamilton had the most remarkable day by placing second with the absolute minimum of 5 riders. Saeco made a huge mistake by crossing the line without Gilberto Simone, so Simone loses a full 2:52. Had Saeco stopped, and waited for him to rejoin, the team would have lost a mere 10 seconds in real time, but Saeco probably would have arrived at the same place, so the team (and Simone) would have lost no time according to the TTT rules.

4. The Weather -- The mostly wet and windy conditions is quite a contrast to the heat wave of last year. It certainly has been a contributing factor in a few crashes.

5. France has the Maillot Jaune for 4 stages so far, although Thomas Voekler is a German sounding name. Good times for the host country. Will some young French rider make a mark in the next week?

6. Excluding Filippo Pozzato's win in Stage 7, and Fabian Cancellara (both of Fassa Bortolo) win in the Prolouge, Italian cycling has not distinguished itself so far in the TDF. The sprinting prowess of Fassa Bortelo and Domina Vacanze that was anticipated after the Giro simply did not materialize. With their respective leaders Allesandro Pettachi and Mario Cipollini both withdrawing after stage 5, some of the air went out of the balloons of the Italian teams. Stefano Casagranda (Saeco) has just been disqualified. And Simone's whining about the TTT rules added to the week's bad news.

7. The Points jersey (Maillot Vert) is being traded between the Aussie pair of Staurt O'Grady and the fiesty Robbie McEwen. Eric Zabel is hanging around the leaders in this competition.


Stage 10 is going to be brutal. Lots of climbs, and the longest stage of the tour. If it's raining, it will be a long day.