Carry on up the Alpe

Wow this year's tour is one hell of a race. Utterly, totally mad but one hell of a race. Yesterday's stage was one of the most brilliant breakaways i've ever seen and was greeted with mass rejoicing in HQ. We love the Schlecks you see. And we loved how brave Andy was yesterday, pinging off into the distance with sixty kilometres to go. Speaking of bravery, what a job Thomas Voeckler has been doing in the yellow jersey. It doesn't really get much more hardcore than that. We love how much everyone has taken to the little guy, in particular the eurosport commentary team who've all developed misty-eyed man crushes and have straight up abandoned impartiality in favour of actually cheering him on now. He seems to have become a sort of endearing French Charlie Chaplin figure. Today's stage is unsurprisingly mental with all the riders having to climb up the insanely intimidating Alpe d'Huez. It's gotten off to a pretty exciting start with Cheaty Alberto shooting off persued closely by our Andy and a couple of others. Thomas Voeckler was once again redefining heroics by somehow managing to keep within thirty seconds of them and providing us with a seriously heartwarming moment as he rode with Jerome Pineau. He just leant over and gave him a friendly, comforting pat on the shoulder. It was brief but really great to see a moment of camaraderie in such a fiercely competitive spport. We know have a pretty exciting chase between the leading group and a pursuit led by Cadel Evans and including brother Frank. I can't wait to see how this pans out.....