Stage 7 - Victory for Chav

I reckon it's been a pretty good Tour so far. The first week has had plenty of thrills and spills, so I don't really mind that things seem to be repeating themselves somewhat. Just like back on stage 2, Sylvain Chavanel won the stage with a lone-break and took the yellow jersey from Fabian Cancellara.

There's also a few more guys out of the race, Juan Jose Oroz Ugalde didn't start after a crash yesterday and Stijn Vandenbergh was eliminated after finishing outside the time-limit. With the Alps looming tomorrow there could be a few more riders struggling to make the time cut-off. Robbie McEwen seemed to spend most of today off the back, after that finish-line crash with a journalist. Lets hope he can keep up with the autobus.

We have been blessed with some precious Velogames scores for stages 5 and 6..... though stage 7 scores don't seem to be up yet. To see how those scores break down you can look at the spreadsheet, (now including Drew's scores for that team he picked but never entered). The overall now looks like this.

So, it's still Down & Out at the top of the table, with the Bile Beans snapping at their heels and the Gherkins also looking strong. My usual nemesis Evil Chan and last year's minileague winners, the Wacca Racers are in mid-table obscurity. And down the bottom of the table the battle for the lantern rouge position is between the Smugblokes and Charlton and his Wheelies.

After a good start, Maillot Jenn seem to be fading fast - which I'm sorry to see - I had some input into the team selection and have been accused of stitching-up the Directeur with a crap team. In the interests of marital harmony, I hope they come good in the mountains.
We should be in for some more repetition tomorrow, as chances are Chavanel will lose the yellow jersey on the climbs of stage 8. I don't think he'll be losing it to Cancellara again though. This could be the first proper show-down between the "heads of state of the Tour De France", as Paul Sherwen is fond of calling them - that, and he's always saying "the front-end of the main field". Both of these expressions piss me off...... I hope I can find a live feed of Eurosport tomorrow and then I can listen to Sean Kelly instead.

Anyhooze, here's the route for tomorrow, pretty hilly I think we'll agree. From the Bile Beans squad I'm tipping Robert Gesink. He's the only one of my squad not to score any points yet - so he needs to start pulling his weight. He may have a broken bone in his hand, but he's bravely soldiering on. He was very impressive at the Tour Du Suiss, so I hope he's still got something in his legs. If he can't deliver, it might be time to start kicking myself for not going for Kreuziger instead.