Chris Horner is Cadel Evan's dedicated domestique in the 94th Tour de France. The American is joining forces with Italian Dario Cioni to help the Australian top the podium in Paris. Saturday morning, Bastille Day in France, he indicated that the team was ready for the mountain days to come.
"Everything is great. Today is a good day for me to keep an eye on Cadel," said Horner to Cyclingnews. Both Horner and Evans finished in the group of favourites in stage seven to Le Grand-Bornand, 3'38" behind stage winner Linus Gerdemann (T-Mobile). Tomorrow will be a more testing affair with the mountaintop finish to Tignes.
"I think that today and tomorrow you are going to see some really good action," Horner said. "The other directeurs are really going to take advantage of Klöden and Vino not being one hundred percent. ... It could be that these two favourites are a little off today or tomorrow but after the rest day they may come good again."
Horner explained that Team Predictor-Lotto is not built to make an all-out assault in the mountains. "We don't have the team setup to do that. The team setup for that is Christoph Moreau's team or another like that, where there are eight guys dedicated. That is where you can hit the climb with six guys going one hundred percent and then have two of them take you over the top, or something like that. But with our team we have Dario Cioni and me, and that is not enough guys to be burning guys up and then leave Cadel at the top with ten other riders."
The 35 year-old American is impressed with Moreau. "He always races the Tour de France with the motivation to win it. Now he is looking at it realistically. Without a doubt, you will see his team not letting things go up the road unless they for sure have someone good in it."
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