Thoughts on Stage 9 to Bagneres de Bigorre...
Bonehead of the day: I'm still wondering what Schumacher's plan today? He has a teammate riding solo a couple minutes ahead of the group. Schumacher is not good enough in the mountains to ride away from the true climbers. Yet, he decides to accelerate and ultimately animated a whole series of attacks up the mountain and doom any chance of Lang topping the Aspin in the lead and having a chance at victory.

Kudos of the day: Ricco was given some freedom because he was down on GC but you can always count on him to liven up a race if it goes uphill. He is entertaining to watch and he will usually follow it up with some entertaining, though not always tactful, quotes.

Watching the stage this morning reminded what a nice mountain the Col d'Aspin is. The Aspin is not stunning in its scenery. It is very green with lots of trees on the lower half and some good views across the valleys. It is not exceedingly long. Twelve km's is a happy medium for a mountain. If you get much longer, at least for me, they start drag on. It is not crazy steep. It is just a nice, steady climb that I did in my 39x21 except for the last km or so.