Originally Posted by
El Diablo Rojo
If (and I don't believe this to be true) Levi were to gain a couple of minutes on Basso and DiLuca, it will be very interesting to see if Astana can protect Levi. Liquigas is very strong and Basso is a great climber who can attack. My feeling is that Astana will find that they will need more than an on form Horner to get Levi up the climbs and not lose any time time.
Liquigas has definitely shown the cards a little so far. I'm not sure they're as strong as they look. Basso ended up alone on the front real quick on stage 5 when Szmyd pulled off. LPR and Liquigas have done the work, where I'm not sure Astana has shown weakness - as much as they just haven't "shown" anything yet.
Di Luca is a relative unknown entity at the TT this year. Only thing we really have to go on is Trentino, and he was 1:23 down on Kloden there, with Basso about half way in between
Thomas Lövkvist is still in with a shout of putting some serious time in too. He's no slouch of a TT rider.
What I think we can be sure of is the guys in the top 10 will mostly still be in the top 10. I think we can also be sure that the riders 10th-20th could certainly get shaken up quite a bit.
Here's to a pretty boring Tuesday stage won by a break while the GC riders make the attempt to get ready for the TT.
Thoughts on seeing a 10th-20th place rider in the break Tuesday - high enough up to pose a threat to GC, requiring LPR to work hard day prior to the TT? There's some decent names from Horner down to Bruseghin (8th-20th).