Gerolsteiner: In illness and in health, up l'Alpe

Fabian Wegmann wasn't sure what to expect from l'Alpe d'Huez, but it turned out not to be as bad as expected. "To be honest: it wore me out, but I've gone up worse mountains."

It wasn't his day, though. The Gerolsteiner rider says that after having a light fever on the rest day, the mountain stage "started amazingly good. In the beginning I was always in the first group, even led it sometimes. Then after being ahead for 30 km, I suddenly had to throw up. I have no idea what was happening with my stomach." After that he settled for fetching water bottles for Levi Leipheimer before he had to fall back into the gruppetto. (www.fabianwegmann.de)

Ronny Scholz, on the other hand, is recovering from his bug. He didn't appreciate the early wake up call though. "The WADA hauled me out of bed at 7:30 a.m. They filled three tubes with blood - that's 100 millilitres. For my teammates and me, that was the second blood check during the Tour. All of them were ok."

Maybe the blood-letting helped him, as he felt better. "My flu is slowly going away. Yesterday I was a lot better than on Sunday." Scholz was even able to enjoy the day's outing. "Because I was in a group that didn't want to go up the mountain so fast, I could really enjoy l'Alpe d'Huez. The public celebrated a huge party on those final 14 kilometres - absolutely crazy!" (www.ronnyscholz.de)

Courtesy of Susan Westemeyer