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Girona to Barcelona
By Connie Carpenter
Tonight - after the Stage 5 transfer to Girona - many of the riders feel like they are home - more than 10 per cent of them live or train routinely in Girona.
The Garmin team is based here but Columbia HTC rider George Hincapie has called Girona home for years. Levi Leipheimer spends most of the year in Santa Rosa, but still maintains a house there. 
Girona is a great place to visit - it's a smallish city with mountains and the sea nearby. It's historic, yet modern. It's in the heart of Catalonia - where the language resembles a dialect and often bears little to no resemblance to Spanish. The locals pronounce the G like a J (not an H) and the British spell it Gerona. It has the added benefit of being a Ryanair hub which is one primary reason that the hard-travelling professional cyclists like to live there. The easy accessibility combined with the temperate climate, variety and plethora of roads and reasonably tolerant drivers have all contributed to making Girona a home base, especially for the English speaking community. By being included in the Tour - it's a clear indication that it is a cycling mecca.
The Stage 6 course seems to favor a bunch finish, but anything is possible as the GC riders look past the day to the Pyrenees on Friday. An early break could stay away as was the case in Stage 5, or it could be reeled in at the last moment....and while the obvious choice from the bunch is Cavendish, this Tour has had its share of surprises.
Who is more motivated?
Rabobank lost one of their GC riders when Gesink crashed out of the Tour. They'll focus on putting three time World Champ Oscar Friere in position to win. Strong sprinters like Friere and Cervelo's Thor Hushovd perhaps have the edge over the seemingly unbeatable Cavendish.
Garmin will be super motivated! The last few days have been tough for them as they did not represent in the break on Stage 3. That was followed by the TTT where they also came up short. As a squad, they know the roads intimately. The coastal road is tricky - some of it is quite technical so knowing the course and having a good pre-race game plan could be the proverbial ace up the sleeve. Look for them to initiate a break and say hola to the podium.
