a crucial gap between Petacchi and the rest of the sprinters, but incidents like this are difficult to avoid when there's no real organised leadouts except from Petacchi's team.                 

Stage 6 - Man vs. Wind

Today's stage was a 43.8km Individual Time Trial around the notoriously windy city of
Zaragoza.  I was fortunate enough to follow Julz in the team car and even in the shelter of the car, I could still feel the wind pounding us.  As for Julz....his only objective today was to survive the stage, expending the least amount of energy as possible while ensuring finishing within the time cut.  Even so, it was not so easy for him to ride conservatively.  The headwind was so strong at times that if he didn't pedal relatively hard, then he would for sure end up going backwards!  The poor wee mountain goats out there were getting blown around just as much as the falling autumn leaves! 

As it turned out, Julz was able to make it well inside the time cut and now it's time for him to rest up as much as possible before tomorrow's horrendous stage which takes the Tour up into the merciless heights of the
Pyrenees.

He's still pretty crook so it'll be touch and go for the next few days.  If he can survive the next 3 mountain stages, he'll only have one more stage to race before the first rest day.  Fingers crossed!

Cheers,

Carole Dean