Goliath takes the day

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July 5, 2005

Hi everyone,

History repeating itself has to be the summary of today's stage.

Discovery reclaimed their position on the podium and Lance in the yellow. Goliath conquered David today. Goliath being Lance and his army, David being Dave Z and his army. It was such a drag to hear that David crashed and then his team lost by such a small margin.

As for me, well it wasn't good but it's also not so bad. Anything can happen in the mountains and I'm still ready and waiting.

We got a bad start today for some reason. I think we took pulls that were too long. We should have been taking shorter sprint-type pulls. I was shocked when we hit the first time check and we were fifty seconds down. It felt like we were going so fast but maybe that's because of the tailwind.

Discovery had an average speed of 57.3km/h. We must have been around 55. I thought for sure it was going to rain - it started a little when we were on the start line but it held off. It's a good thing, because the finish had some sketchy turns and it was slightly downhill. It could have been messy.

It's always a disappointment to lose time but I'm definitely not discouraged. It could always be worse. We tied with Banesto today and I don't know how they broke the tie. They were seventh and we were eighth...

Ahh, it doesn't really matter.

Aside from the race there isn't much interesting to report. We're well into the swing of a grand tour. Wake up, eat, pack up, dress, drive, race, drive, shower, eat, massage, sleep. If you just string these things together for three weeks, that's a grand tour. Same stuff different hotel, every day.

It must be a buzz for the young guys doing their first grand tour, but after a while it becomes the routine and you are just focusing on getting the job done. That's the nature of the job.

Better get some sleep for tomorrow's string of events. Another flat stage bumper car ride. See you tomorrow,

Levi