Stage 16 - Fedrigo Goes Well

With all the fuss about "chaingate" it seems that the biggest bit of unsportsmanlike behaviour yesterday was mostly overlooked. I am of course referring to the refusal of  "baldy French climber" John Gadret to give his team-leader Nicholas Roche a wheel after he punctured.

The much discussed "unwritten rules of cycling" state that when your team-leader, who is doing well on the GC, needs a wheel, you give him one and wait at the side of the road for a replacement. Not so for Gadret, who said 'non' and kept riding. To make matters worse for Roche, when he did get a wheel from the Mavic neutral service car, the change took forever and they gave him an R-Sys wheel - which is mostly famous for exploding.

So incensed am I by the injustice done to Roche, (he's in my team you know) that I have been searching for some way of letting my displeasure be known to Mr. Gadret. You've probably noticed the presence of some yellow writing on the road courtesy of the Nike Chalkbot. So I composed this message, in the hope that it will be seen by the French bastard.

I'm not sure that this message is 'motivational' enough however. And it seems that I may have fallen foul of some swearing filter, as I didn't get a confirmation email. I may have better luck with this message, but I'm still not sure it fills the motivation requirements - at least there's no swearing.

Compared to yesterday's controversies, today's stage was pretty uneventful from a GC perspective. The race favourites decided to take it easy and wait till Thursday and the finish atop the Tourmalet. So, while the big boys started resting a day early, there was a break that was up the road fighting for the stage win. Among the group of nine was Lance Armstrong, but his attempt to salvage a stage win from a disappointing Tour came to nothing. Pierrick Fedrigo was first across the line and Lance a lowly sixth.

If the yellow jersey stayed put today, the same cannot be said of the green jersey. After hanging with the big boys for the day, Thor Hushovd managed to sprint for tenth place and so moved ahead of Petacchi in the points.

Bad news for Petacchi then, but probably not the worst thing that happened to him today. It's been revealed he's being investigated for allegedly taking all kinds of drugs - including PFCs, which despite a few rumours I don't think anyone has been done for yet.

Scores are now in for stage 16 and the minileague now looks like this.

But the spreadsheet tells a different story. And after a bit of checking I think I'm right and George is wrong.

Those pesky Gherkins are still winning, as The Bile Beans, Team BBC and down&out, (not to mention Drew's Druggies) are all battling for second place. And at the other end of the table the Kadence Kings are still in last place.

It's a rest day tomorrow, which should give the bunch a chance to put their feet up and rest their arses before the predicted big showdown between Andy and Bertie on Thursday. I can hardly wait.