Less than 100 percent excited about a Contador-Schleck rematch in July?  Check out the Tour de France website, which has all the stage profiles up now, including some great final km side profiles.  Lots of punchy climb fun this year.  It looks like the Tour de Phil.

More this year than ever, the Tour sprint and mid-mountain stage finishes have been Girocized.  Or maybe Ardenneized.   Either way it's a good thing unless you're Mark Cavendish or Tyler Farrar.

So how many stages could Phil win?  Let's look at the profiles.

Stage 1: Montreal Alouettes

The Bob Dernier Km tab on the stage profile shows the last two km @ 5.1 km on a steady-looking gradient.  Valv.Piti and Thor have won on similar finishes in recent years.  Chance of Phil: very high.

Stage 2: Mur de Bretagne (not in Belgium)

Fun.  4th to last km looks to go up 6 percent, then a modest downhill km, then the penultimate km @ 9.7 percent and the final km @ 4.6. Love riding on stuff like this, love watching people ride on stuff like this.  Phil may have some difficulty winning this stage if his chain breaks at the base of the Mur.  This should be our best Phil vs AC stage.

Stage 6: Torturing Cavendish

After two classic Phil finishes, and after two potentially interesting Atlantic crosswind stages (3 and 5), Phil's degree of difficulty goes up here.  Rollers all day long, finishing with 2 km @ 4.4 percent before a flat final km.  Winding roads on the finishing climb will break up the leadout trains.  If the sprinters are out of position with a kilometer to go, who's going to take him?

Stage 8: Super Besse 

At some point Phil must get tired of people designing courses that are perfect for him.  So let's say a breakaway wins here.  But it won't get far away on this course.  If Phil has an appetite to reel in breaks, BCS is going to have some tired domestiques before the Pyrenees.

Stage 9: Tricky Dick's Town

Probably a polka dot hunter like Jerome Pineau wins here, like Richard Virenque in 2004.  Or, then again, Phil.  The profile doesn't show it well but the final km in St. Flour goes up 75 meters.  The same little climb blew up the main field in 2004.  

Stage 14: Plateau de Beille.

The winner always wins the Tour. Ok, so maybe not Phil.  Going to be awesome though.

Stage 16: Gap

Cat 2 climb right before the descent to Gap.  On a similar stage to Gap last year Sergio Paulinho started the great tradition of Radio Shack sprinting, carried on by Andreas Kloden and Matt Busche.  Stage could fall in his lap, but Phil probably lets this go because there's a great stage the next day...

Stage 17: Lombardia in Piemonte

Looks like that last climb is 8 km @ 5.5 percent.  Mountains not hard enough to hurt him. The trick will be forcing his way into the break.  I call this one as stage win #4.  What do you think?

Four cuts today according to Velonation.  http://www.velonation.com/News/ID/5713/Transfer-News-Garmin-cuts-Cozza-Pate-and-Kessiakof-loose.aspx  Two are charter members integral to the team's no to doping, yes to facial hair identity.  Plus my Brazilian connection; girlfriend will not like this.  Sigh. 

If I understand things correctly, a team can have up to 28 existing pros, and up to 30 including neo-pros.  I count 28 existing pros now and three neos waiting to get in.  So is the roster basically set? 

1. Farrar, 2. Hesjedal, 3. Vandevelde, 4. Hushovd, 5. Haussler, 6. Zabriskie, 7. Millar, 8. Dean, 9. Hunter, 10. VanSummeren, 11. Le Mevel, 12. Maaskant, 13. Martin, 14. Danielson, 15. Peterson, 16. Klier, 17. Rasch, 18. Lancaster, 19. Lloyd, 20. Hammond, 21. Stetina, 22. Kreder, 23, T. Meyer, 24. C. Meyer, 25. Bobridge, 26. Carlsen, 27. Duggan, 28. Wilson. Plus Neo-pros Talansky, Navaradauskas, Howes.

What am I missing here?

Or so says this oddly written CN article. http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/giro-ditalia-heading-to-slovakia  If it happens, I'm calling dibs on the preview.

The lines dissing DC's bid seem like a competitor's PR but Zomegnan visiting Slovakia looks like the real deal.  The guys he met are heavy hitters in Slovakia's new government, and Miklos is their Adrian Fenty.  Enel is Italy's chief economic interest in Slovakia:  think C. Montgomery Burns' nuclear plant, run by a guy who sort of looks like an even older Mario Cipollini, built a few kilometers from Peter Velits' hometown.

Bratislava could put on a show-stopping Ardennes-style loop course -- the climb to the TV tower above the city is 4.7 km @ 6.4 percent, and there are a lot of 1 km @ 10-15 percent gradients around the castle next to the old town.  They do have to figure out how to deal with all the peloton-destroying curving tram tracks.  I still feel the pain they caused.   Great place for a prologue on the cobbles too.

Bottom line it's a beautiful country and I hope they get the Giro.

All Tour stage profiles are up at letour.fr now, not just the high mountain stages.  Several of these have an almost Giroesque potential to be fun.  Here are just a few that caught my puncher's eye:

Stage 2:  Baby Liege.  The Stockeu menaces, but there's time to recover for the Rosier.  The big guys should be ok, but crash or flat and you're Vino in that Autun stage in 2007.  Something bad is going to happen to somebody, and hopefully that somebody will continue riding with his own blood.   The Rosier looks ideal for a Haussler or EBH win. 

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