Tour de Georgia 2008 Stage 6: Tunnel Vision

Well, it was tunnel vision of one kind or another, still awaiting post-race interviews to see whether it was that of passing out with exhaustion, or that of forgetting to read the top 10 on GC. The latter would be pretty frustrating, but I guess it's as legitimate as the first. That's bike racing, you've got to keep body and mind engaged. I would just feel bad if someone was screaming in Trent Lowe's ear to stay with Levi Leipheimer, but I have to think if he really had the gas, he would've gone with Kanstantin Sivtsov. Or gone earlier on Levi, if nothing else to get more time on him, even if he was clueless about Sivtsov.

It's tough for Slipstream-Chipotle, though. They've played it so well up to now, and have the sentimental factor going for them. And even today, when it seemed they played it all wrong, even according to their Twitter updates, it looked at first like they had survived on top after all. So if they lost it in the end due to inattention, that would be a crying shame. But, valuable lesson learned I suppose. And still a great race for Trent, to be in the final selection on the big climb, I don't mean to take that for granted!

Meantime, hats off to Team High Road, the hits just keep on comin'! Slipstream gets all the press, even though High Road has been winning things left and right, so it is kind of a chuckle to see them slip right under the shadow of the Slipstream/Astana showdown and grab the stage and the lead. Tomorrow could be a wild one, if there's any chance of really doing something, but Sivtsov will have George Hincapie looking after him, and as we know, Papa Georgio is the best. Sounds like Sivtsov is a sweetheart, good for him!

I hope Levi is properly humble to his teammates this time. They executed to perfection, and he couldn't take it home. If you can't, you can't, but it's ironic after his post-TTT comments.

Tommy Danielson - well, I'll wait and see what he has to say for himself, maybe he just had to work too hard because of the team's earlier gamble. I really hope he comes good in the Giro.

WCSN - you are dead to me. Well, until tomorrow when I will be a beggar unable to be a chooser, and sit through your misery for one more day. Unbelievable. Really, I was in shock for several minutes. And this is the thing - not only does not being able to see the race really suck, but having the coverage be an issue in and of itself, distracting from the race, is annoying beyond measure. It looked like Moto 2 was a camera phone sometimes, but I didn't care, I was glad they improvised better than yesterday and kept the coverage going. And when it broke up so much on Brasstown, that was aggravating, but I hung in there. But to miss the attack by Lowe, and to miss he and Levi crossing the line, unforgivable. They had some bizarre stationary camera at the finish, that was coming across in black-and-white, but that would've been delightful compared to no image at all! I still can't believe they didn't show it. Please tell me Versus had a camera of its own and we might get to see it whenever the heck it is they deign to show coverage. Or Steephill might have some home video of it, there were a lot of people there, one can only hope. The only redeeming thing WCSN had to offer today was that shot of Barbie on the moto. Having just seen Lars and the Real Girl, it gave me a good laugh. Excellent movie, by the way, Ryan Gosling is a gift. Steve Schlanger, not so much. (I know, but it occurred to me that if I never used his actual name, he wouldn't get a Google Blog Alert from this place, and he would lose out on all the, ahem, constructive criticism I have for him.)