Stage 17: Alpe d’Huez
Today was probably the best stage of the race so far. The sky was blue all day,
though a little bit cold on top of the mountain.
Carlos Sastre attacked early on the way up Alpe d’Huez and stayed away until the finish.
He won the stage as well as took the yellow jersey. He should be hard to beat in the time trial on Saturday.
Christian Vandevelde was with the main chase group including the Schlecks, Evans, Kohl, Menchov, Valverde and a few others but lost some more time and is now at 4’41” and has little chance of making up enough time to be on the podium on the Champs Elysee. Frank Schleck, Bernard Kohl and Cadel Evans are all about 1’30” behind so two of them should make the podium and one will be out!
Yesterday I drove up to Alpe d’Huez directly after the finish in Jausiers. The road was still closed in the direction which would have been the shortest route so I had to go the long way around, through Embrun. It took until nearly midnight to get there and then there were a lot of drunk fans at the base that seemed capable of turning over some cars but fortunately they let us pass through very slowly. The hotel had dinners waiting for all of us late journalists.
