Lite intressanta beräkningar baserat på förra årets tempo-etapper:
We had an excellent email from CN reader John Hay Jr, in which he tried to assess how the two remaining time trials could influence the race. Many accept that Michael Rasmussen is likely to lose time on those two stages, Saturday's 54 km TT in Albi and then the 55.5 km test from Cognac to Angouleme the day before the race finishes.
That's 109.5 km of time trials so there is plenty of scope for a reshuffling.
John wrote:
I did a bit of checking on how the current contenders fared in last year's two Individual Time Trials. Last year's ITT's were 52 km and 54 km rides. Combining the results (and,trust me, there may be error in my adding and subtracting hours and minutes, but it's relatively close), here's some of our current contenders' combined 2006 TdF ITT times, starting with the fastest and showing the deficits from there.
Each 2007 contender's current place in the GC is in ( ):
(2) Andreas Kloden, 2h 11'52"
(13) Oscar Pereiro, 2h14'48" - 2'56" behind Kloden's time
(4) Cadel Evans, 2h14'58" - 3'06"
(18) Denis Menchov, 2h15'44" -3'52"
(6) Carlos Sastre, 2h16'11" -4'19"
(14) Christophe Moreau, 2h17'01" -6'19"
(9) Levi Leipheimer, 2h21'35" -9'43"
(10) Mikel Aztarloza, 2h21'52" -10'00"
(1) Michael Rasmussen, 2h24'48" -12'56"
Rasmussen lär inte tappa nästan 13 minuter igen, men han kan säkert tappa hälften av det. Med andra ord borde det bli mer attacker i bergen nästa vecka. Kan bli en ruggigt spännande avslutning.