Go Big Z!

Dave Zabriskie rocks. Not because he's an American, wearing the Maillot Jaune on our Independence Day; not because he's the 3rd American ever to wear the Maillot Jaune, not because he's kept the Maillot Jaune for the 3rd day in a row. Congratulations, Dave! Not because he's cute in a young Jeff Daniels sort of way. And he doesn't rock because of his eloquence in interviews - in fact, he's kind of terse.

Dave Zabriskie rocks because he's an incredibly funny guy. Browse through his website, and particularly, take a look at his Main-taint-ance advice.

I fear that now that he's becoming famous after his incredible ride in the individual time trial, the public relations people will gobble him up and homogenize him and he'll have to censor funny stuff like that on his web page. Don't you hate it when that happens?

And why in the world did the USPS-Discovery cycling team ever let him (and Floyd Landis) go? According to one report, Dave's "quirky" sense of humor went unappreciated over there, and Floyd (now at Phonak) chafed at the authoritarian leadership style. Let's see how things play out in tomorrow's team time trial - CSC is going to give Discovery a run for their money! Hmm, if Discovery beats CSC by a mere 3 seconds tomorrow that puts Lance in the Maillot Jaune.

And very best wishes continue to go out to my little man Leonardo Piepoli of Italy, on the Saunier Duval team, bringing up the rear of the General Classification for the third consecutive day. YOU GO LEO! Just hold on until the mountains!

Too bad about that unfortunate choice of yellow shorts for the team attire - I nominate Saunier Duval for the Worst Team Kit Award for the 2005 Tour de France.

Oh, and here's my cool link of the day for up-to-the-minute images from the Tour: the ESPN cycling photo wire.