Christian Vande Velde on the Tour

VeloNews.com | Vande Velde's View: These are the Days of Our Lives...

Christian Vande Velde, not on the CSC Tour squad, offers some insight into what this last week is like for the riders, and what he thinks about Tour handicapping:

What you have done in the spring - even at the Giro - doesn't really mean anything now. You'll see people who couldn't even finish a race in the spring now dropping the same guy who won that very race. At this point, it really doesn't matter what what happened in the Dauphiné or in Switzerland. The Tour is just a different animal. If you bet on Mayo last year after he killed everyone in the Dauphiné, you would've lost some serious dough. Where has Mayo been this year? Nowhere. But maybe we'll see him ride better a better Tour than he did last year. Who knows? That is why the Tour is so great.