CyclingRevealed's First Impressions '05

Stage 17: Pau to Revel, 239.5 km

The Long and Winding Road

The long and winding road that leads to your door,
Will never disappear ...

As the Tour wound its way under the blazing sun of the Massif Centrale many of the weary riders must have been hearing Paul McCartney's famous words echoing through their heads.

On this longest and mostly flat stage of the Tour, 17 riders quickly created a break that exceeded 20 minutes at one point. None of the riders were a threat to Armstrong and with most of the teams represented up front, the main bunch was happy to let the Discovery boys set tempo.

With 45km to go Erik Dekker (Rabobank) started the hostilities up front no doubt hoping to relive his happy stage winning days in the 2000 TdF. That was not to be as repeated attacks fragmented the leading group and eventually four riders were alone. The remaining kms were sheer excitement with Kurt-Asle Arvesen (CSC) and Paolo Savoldelli (Discovery) locked in a high speed ‘death struggle'. For the second time this year one of Armstrong's teammates came out the winner.

Twenty-two and one half minutes back the Yellow Jersey group came in with Discovery's Popovych taking the sprint. This was a very small group that was created in large part by Jan Ullrich attacking very hard on the final Cat 3 climb, which was only 6kms from the finish. This was a long stage mostly devoid of big action. The run into Revel showed once again that being attentive at all-times is critical. Cadel Evans and Floyd Landis were two of the victims of Ullrich's last minute attack and they paid for it by dropping one place each on GC.

Once again the Discovery team came out laughing. With Savoldelli winning and Rubiera also in the break they relieved T-Mobile of the lead in the team classification. After all of T-Mobile's failed efforts to crush Armstrong in the mountains, this was really adding insult to injury. So on the Long and Winding Road to Revel maybe the T-Mobile boys were tortured with these closing words from McCartney's song:

You left me standing here a long, long time ago
Don't leave me waiting here, lead me to your door

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