After the emotional rollercoaster that is the Tour de France for Floyd Landis the past two days, Friday's Stage 18 was relatively uneventful.
Three cyclists attacked a 15-man breakaway about 10 miles from the finish in Macon. The three shadow-boxed for the last kilometer until Matteo Tosatto of QuickStep jumped and took the finish.
That was good news for the QuickStep team, which had put Tom Boonen in the yellow jersey early in the Tour, but never succeeded with a stage win.
About 31 miles to the finish of the 122-mile stage from Morzine to Macon, American cyclist Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner) tried an attack from the breakaway with Inaki Isasi, a Spanish cyclist on Euskaltel.
They were reeled back in, although Leipheimer's presence in the breakaway helped shave 7 minutes off his overall margin to overall leader Oscar Pereiro. The Santa Rosa, California, resident moved up to 13th from 18th place. He also earned the “most combative” distinction for the day.
Landis and the other leaders used Friday's stage to recover from the battles that raged for the past three days through the Alps.
The final time trial — a 35-mile solo bike ride from Le Creusot to Montceau les Mines — comes Saturday. The time trial is considered Landis' specialty as he sits 30 seconds behind overall leader Pereiro and 12 seconds behind No. 2 Carlos Sastre (CSC). The next closest rider, Andreas Kloden, sits nearly 2 minutes behind Landis.
For those of you keeping score at home, Landis finished in second place in the last time trial on Stage 7. Kloden's time was 43 seconds slower than Landis. This was the day, you'll remember, that Landis had to change bicycles mid-course.
Additionally, Sastre finished 1:10 behind Landis and Pereiro finished about 1:40 behind Landis on the last time trial.
This all bodes well for Landis if everything goes as expected — but when's the last time anything went as expected during the 2006 Tour de France?
The top 10 are:
1. Oscar Pereiro (Sp), Caisse d'Epargne
2. Carlos Sastre (Sp), CSC, :12 behind
3. Floyd Landis (US), Phonak, :30
4. Andreas Kloden (Ger), T-Mobile, 2:29
5. Cadel Evans (Aus), Davitamon-Lotto, 3:08
6. Denis Menchov (Rus), Rabobank, 4:14
7. Cyril Dessel (Fr), AG2R, 4:24
8. Christophe Moreau (Fr), AG2R, 5:45
9. Haimar Zubeldia (Sp), Eustaltel, 8:16
10. Michael Rogers (Aus), T-Mobile, 12:13
The standings for the six Americans:
3. Floyd Landis, (Phonak), :30 behind
13. Levi Leipheimer (Gerolsteiner), 15:01
24. Christian Vandevelde (CSC), 47:16
32. George Hincapie (Discovery), 1:07:33
62. Chris Horner (Davitamon), 2:04:51
76. David Zabriskie (CSC), 2:31:52
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