Landis takes a big chunk of time
Floyd Landis (Phonak) has vaulted into the lead in the Tour of California, after putting in a powerful performance in the 27.4 km stage 3 time trial in San José. Using his unconventional time trial bar angle, Landis beat several of the world's best testers to win the stage by 26 seconds over CSC's David Zabriskie, with Bobby Julich (CSC) third at 35 seconds. Overnight leader George Hincapie (Discovery) lost nearly a minute to finish fourth, while prologue winner Levi Leipheimer was 1'16 back in ninth.
The stage shook up the general classification, and put Landis in a relatively comfortable position with 29 seconds lead on GC to Zabriskie. However, he will likely face a tough challenge from the CSC team and others over the next few days.
"I wasn't expecting big time gaps," Landis said afterwards. "But twenty-six seconds is not as big in a race like this. I didn't know what the other times were in the race, so at the end I was a little surprised. But the guys in the front at the end were the guys I expected. Now we go forward from here and see what happens."
Also see: Full results, report & photos, , Main, Stages & results, Map, Start list, Photos.
