“The weather has remained miserable and everyone is still waiting for the Tour to hit its stride weather wise.

“Today was a really cool stage. On paper it looked like a typical sprinters festival. In actuality, it turned out to be one of the most exciting stages in a long time. Recently the Tour de France flat stages have followed a very predictable format; the break gets away, the leaders’ team chases, the break gets caught and a sprinter wins. Today however, the break got away, the field let them stay away and the leaders miscalculated the chase effort. And now, a brand new performer from the U.S. – Wil Frischkorn - set himself apart from the crowd.  It looked like young Will had it won but Samuel Dumoulin beat him to the line by a whisker! In the years to come Will will probably be a little bit cooler under fire and will use a slightly different tactic to hopefully win many bikes races to come.

Overall, it was a spectacular day of racing with a worthy winner and a great result for a previously unknown runner-up from a brand new American team. I think….WHOA! Look at that…a protester just jumped up on stage during the jersey presentation and of all people Bernard Hinault jumped up on stage and took the guy out. That is so awesome!! I don’t know how that guy got so close to the stage to get up there….I think it has to do with the big farm subsidy debate that’s currently raging in France. That guy was probably from the Potato Growers Union of Brittany or something and he just got a first hand lesson in Tour etiquette by “The Badger” himself. The best thing about that is that it was 30 years ago when Hinault was in his first Tour de France that the race came upon some protestors and Hinault jumped into that fracas and started swinging. It’s good to see that 30 years has not taken the fight out of the Badger!

Bobke’s Inside Line: “When in doubt, lead it out…oh, and don’t mess with the Badger!”