The blog's inaugural post summarizes Stage 6 of the 2007 Tour de Suisse which probably will be remembered more for its bizarre beginning than for its flashy finish.
Frank Schleck (whose younger brother Andy finished second overall in this year's Giro) began the stage wearing the leader's jersey over his CSC team kit. The riders had barely covered 5 kilometers when they were belted by golf ball sized hail.
The hail damaged the team cars and bikes and injured several riders, forcing them all to run for cover where ever they could find it. After the hail subsided and the riders' injuries had been treated, all the riders and teams agreed to restart the race on the other side of the climb about 95 km from the finish.
Not long after the restart a CSC rider and another from the local favorite Volksbank team attacked. Volksbank has been attacking the entire tour, keeping their riders out front for as long as they can to try to protect the sprinters jersey while gaining as much publicity for the Austrian team as they can.
Team CSC allowed the attack to stay away until just short of the final climb of the stage, reigning in the breaking riders with about 14 km to go. Schleck reached the foot of the climb with plenty of teammates to help. Eventually only Carlos Sastre was available to help pace him up the mountain while they suffered relentless attacks from many of the other leading teams. Schleck eventually cracked and was not able to keep pace with the attackers. While Sastre stayed behind to help Schleck, the attackers continued to advance up the mountain ahead of them.
Thomas Dekker of Rabobank made the last solo attack shortly before the crest of the mountain with a little more than 1 km out from the stage finish. None of the 7 other riders from the lead group could catch him, so Dekker crossed the finish line 8 seconds ahead of Volksbank's Gerrit Glosmer, who came just short of winning the stage before a near-home crowd after having been on the attack almost all day long (photo via cyclingnews.com).
It all made for a memorable and exciting race. Memorable for the carnage wrecking hail storm and exciting because of both Glosmer's and Dekker's performances. Ciasse d'Epargne's Vladimir Efimikin will wear the leader's jersey tomorrow and Rene' Weissonger of Volksbank will wear the white sprinter's jersey.
