The final day in the Pyranees provided us with a great day of racing and provided the peleton with another chance at a breakaway. The breakaway was successful containing two very strong cyclists, Pierrick Fredrigo and Franco Pellizotti. Pellizotti was recently third in the Giro d' Italia where Lance finished twelfth. Though Pellizotti was obviously on very good form, Pierrick Fredrigo has won stages in the Tour de France before. He was riding with extra motivation because his teammate, Thomas Voeckler had won a stage a few days ago in the Tour. BBOX has won two stages so far which is quite remarkable for the small French squadron. 

For Lance Armstrong, it was a good day in the saddle. He was very aggressive on the Col d' Aspin where he got tired of so many people attacking, so he decided he would go to the front, lay down the law, and go as hard as necessary to calm the peleton down. He did just a couple of kilometers at tempo, warping up the Col d' Aspin and sent a clear message, "ok, we've got the breakaway, it is a good composition of riders, not knock it off!" And the peleton did just that. In the three years of the Tour since Lance retired we have not had a rider capable of that level of leadership. Not just within a team, but within the whole peleton. Lance Armstrong is the big patron of the Tour de France with the riders. With being the patron, of course it comes with a great deal of responsibility and Lance Armstrong never wanted to shy away from that. It's great to be Lance. 

It was great to see Lance being aggressive on the stage and there will be plenty of more fireworks to come as we get across the next set of flat stages and into the Alps. It was a little bit worrying the way Lance approached this years season breaking his collar bone early on and then perhaps having a bit of a lack luster Giro d' Italia. My suspicion at the time when Lance was racing the Giro was that he was holding back a little bit and preparing an all out assault on the Tour de France. And during the TTT, my suspicion was confirmed the way Lance warped across the tarmac taking 2km pulls, where the rest of the teammates could only take about a 100 meters. This was an impressive display of power and an indication for everybody that Lance is back and he is taking the Tour de France seriously and that he is ready to tear the race apart once it gets difficult in the Alps. 

Lance and Alberto Contador and Team Astana are in full control. The rest of the Tour is going to be brilliantly fantastic race. We are going right down to the wire, but word on the street is that Lance Armstrong is back, ready to rock and is going to fight tooth and nail to the end of this race to win his 8th Tour de France.