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All do respect to Andy Schleck but Fabian Cancellara is a two time winner of Paris Roubaix, the defending champion at the Tour of Flanders and is a four-time World Time Trial Champion. With credentials like that, Cancellara should be just as big a cog in the Leopard Trek machine as Schleck (if not bigger) and I wanted to know how the move was going to affect him?

I struggled with what to write about the finale of this year’s Tour de France. Even though the Tour lasts for the better part of the month, when it ends, I always feel like it went by too fast. I love the spring classics season but they are just one individual day of drama compared to the saga that is the Tour. The Giro is like the kid brother and does little more than to prime the appetite for what’s to come in a few weeks. Of course there’s the Vuelta but if the Giro is the kid brother, the...

Mark Cavendish significantly closed the gap in the points competition with an emphatic win in today’s stage 18 in Bordeaux. Without his lead out man Mark Renshaw to deliver him to the finish; Cavendish deftly maneuvered from wheel to wheel in the last kilometer. Team Sky was dominating the front when they crossed under the 1 kilometer banner with Cavendish sitting in eighth position. Then Cervelo broke through, guiding points leader Thor Hushovd to the front. Cavendish quickly jumped on his wheel with Allesandro Petacchi behind him. Petacchi jumped first and this proved to be his undoing. Cavendish followed Petacchi...

Andy Schleck and his Saxo Bank teammates threw everything they had at Alberto Contador but despite their best efforts the Spaniard was up to the task. It was a classic stage with foul weather creating a dramatic backdrop for the battle that ensued. One by one Saxo threw the gauntlet down. First Cancellara took his turn on the front and blew the field apart, followed by Nicki Sorenson who reduced the field even further, and then Schleck launched his attack. Only Contador was able to respond to the massive acceleration setting up a mano-a-mano fight to the finish. The two...

In what will certainly be debated for some time, Alberto Contador attacked race leader and his biggest rival Andy Schleck when Schleck threw his chain on the climb up Port de Bales. Schleck ended up loosing 39 seconds to Contador on the day, as well as his yellow jersey, and possibly the Tour de France. There is an unwritten rule in cycling that you don’t attack the race leader because of a mechanical problem. Everyone remembers the 2003 Tour when Tyler Hamilton slowed the GC favorites group down when Armstrong crashed on the climb up Luz Ardiden and then went...

Alberto Contador took a few swings at rival Andy Schleck on the ascent of the Ax-3 Domaines but was unable to crack the Luxembourger. At one point the two were practically doing track stands on the day’s final climb while their rivals Dennis Menchov and Sammy Sanchez sped away. The two overall leaders were not overly concerned with Menchov and Sanchez since they are more than two minutes behind on the General Classification. After the stage Schleck said tomorrow’s stage over the Port be Bales is more suited to his strengths and that he might take some chances tomorrow. I...