(Photo courtesy of Graham Watson)

Stefan Schumacher wins stage 4 of the TDF. No significant changes have been made to the overall GC, Cadel Evans has put more time into his GC rivals.

(Photo courtesy of Graham Watson)

Samuel Dumoulin from Cofidis wins the 3rd stage of the TDF. However, the biggest story of the day was that of William Frischkorn from team Garmin-Chipotle going away with a small breakaway early in the stage which made it all the way to the finish. Frishkorn podiumed 2nd and gave some great air time to the teams new title sponsor Garmin. This has already been a great showing for the wild card american team in its first Tour.

(Photos courtesy of Velonews)

Shimano, the components power house continues to bless the cycling world with their innovative ideas. Today you’re looking at what is potentially the future of cycling, the next big step; electronic drive train components. Whats the big deal? Faster more accurate shifts, less weight(?), no messy cablesto deal with, cleaner lines, and in my opinion a necessary innovation to push the envelope of product evolution. Shimano for life.

(Image courtesy of Graham Watson)

Thor Hushovd wins a frantic sprint to the finish in stage 2 of the TDF. A flat stage, all of the GC favorites finished together, no changes to the overall standing since the 1st stage have taken place. Cadel Evans is still 1 second back.

(Photo courtsey of Graham Watson)

Alejandro Valverde takes the first stage win of the Tour that ended in a uphill sprint. Valverde’s speed up those last few kilos was impressive, Cadel Evans lost little to no time from the GC favorites and finished well within the leaders. Too early to tell how everyone is going, to make a prediction based on everyone’s performance today is like a baby learning to run before walking, remember its a 3 week race, anything could happen at a given moment, stay tuned.

1st Place (Yellow Jersey): Cadel Evans

Gonna have to go with my man Cadel Evans, a former professional mountain biker whom I use to follow religiously back when he raced for team Diamondback and Cannondale during his early years on the World Cup mountain bike circuit, then made a successful transfer over to the road scene, which is incredibly hard and rare in the sport. Although he isn’t known as an attacker with ‘panache’; he’s super consistent in the mountains, a solid time trialist, smart rider and super modest for a guy with his talent. He’s also the cleanest GC superstar the Tour has seen in a very long time. Cadel all the way baby!

2nd Place: Denis Menchov

This Rabobank rider is the darkhorse in my opinion. A great late season rider whos form always seems to come around during the Tour and the Vuelta, hopefully he will peak for the second week of the Tour when the big mountain stages come into play. He doesn’t have too many weaknesses but is a bit inconsistent, if he can stay out of the crashes during the first week, this should make for an interesting race.

3rd Place: Andy Schleck

Totally going out on a limb here, probably won’t happen but I like this rising star, he’s super young and has already placed well in his first Giro, an amazing 2nd place. He’s a great climber but needs work on his time trial, if he can take enough time out in the mountains and survive in the time trials he may have a shot at the podium. Keep your eye on this guy, a future star in the making.

Starting up a special section on the blog designated for all things related to the 2008 Tour de France. Expect updates, wicked cool products, random tid bits, and all around madness that is le Tour. Cycling has been in a dismal state but this year is different, the dopers are gone, new stricter testing regiments are in place and a new era of cycling is on the rise, with that said its a wide open race with no clear favorites, should be quite exciting. Venga Venga Venga!