Giro looking good for the D-Men - Paolo stays in the pink. The usual, expected early break-away by the non-threats to the GC, who built up an 18-20 minute lead and nobody chased or cared. CA’s Mevel won his first pro stage, I think.

I notice that it is becoming quite the joke for the stage winner to douse the podium girls with the champagne. Palo absolutely soaked one gal a couple of stages ago, and I just now saw Mevel open one bottle that didn't fizz and when they gave him a second one, he shook it up real well and pointed it right at a podium girl. Those gals then have to stand there, drenched for the other presentations. I don't think it looks too cool to do that... Not too classy, even if Paolo did it.... and the bottle that Paolo just opened didn't fizz - this makes at leat the third bottle that I saw with no fizz - Wonder if there are some red sponsor faces about that?

I’m hearing that our Tour de France for Dummies is being mailed out right now to the folks who pre-ordered, and that it was as high as number 187 on the Amazon rankings yesterday. Of course, that number fluctuates constantly. As authors, Wiley will send us some freebie copies, but I’m kinda curious to see what the final result looks like...

If you read Christian Van de Velde’s diary yesterday, you know that he was pretty pissed at Sentjens of Rabobank for taking off and making the guys chase for nothing in the crappy weather climbing of Stage 15. CV thought it was a dumb move and made no bones about it in his diary. I betcha that Sentjens took a lot of crap from the peloton for doing that... CV also couldn’t understand why the DC guys were riding hard and in front so much, but I think they were keeping Paolo in front and out of trouble under those ugly weather and road conditions... Paolo wants to stay in pink and stay healthy for Le Tour...