Tour Tidbit du Jour - 7/6/08

The thing on everyone's mind at the Tour de France today was the wind. From Will Frischkorn of Garmin-Chipotle writing all about the windy conditions on the road, to another Velonews feature headlined It's the wind (and the hill), stupid!, to even the Versus sweepstakes codeword being "echelon". A long line of riders spread out diagonally across the road to help break a crosswind, very similar to how geese fly during migration, should have been a common sight today, but the peloton ended up not needing to use this technique. Why? According to Frischkorn, the answer was thanks to the 120 km of trees lining the route. And when the trees gave out, the route changed direction, so the Atlantic blast became a tailwind. The course turning into the final climb up to the finish line made the wind a headwind, which killed Fabian Cancellara's too early attack.