Looks like 7

Sunday's stage of the Tour was the best yet. There were six grueling mountains to climb in the Pyrenees. If you don't think cycling is a sport, you might want to take a look at the profile of stage fifteen. The contenders for the yellow jersey all stayed together - Basso, Ullrich, and Armstrong. There was a 14-man breakaway at the beginning of the stage. In that breakaway was George Hincapie, the only guy who has been Lance's domestique for each of his previous six Tour victories. And at the end of what has been called the hardest stage of this year's Tour, George got the win. This has got to be one of my all time favorite stages. Here's why...

George has been a professional since 1995. He's been supporting Lance for a majority of those years. George is a great Spring classics rider. In fact, this year he was the first American to make the podium at Paris-Roubaix which is nicknamed the "Hell of the North." He came in second after Tom Boonen. George has had more than a few offers to go to other teams and be a team leader, but he has stuck by Lance's side and has chosen to support him every July. I would really like to ask George why he chose to stay and not take more money and possibly more fame. Since I don't know the answer to that, I simply have to assume that he likes supporting Lance in his quest for the ultimate win in cycling each year at the Tour. Anyway, this is a great guy who has given everything for Lance the past six years. He had never won a stage in the Tour until Sunday. If you watched him cross the finish line, you could see that he was just as shocked as everyone else that he had won. This definitely wasn't planned - George had gone with the breakaway to support Lance when he caught up with it. However, that never happened.

The stage win by Hincapie showed that sometimes people who spend their lives in support of others get the win. George got his day in the spotlight, and I think anyone who has ever supported anyone through anything just because can appreciate how much he deserved it.

Today's, stage was eventful in that Vinokourov kept attacking and Ullrich attacked several times as well. However, they could never break Lance. So, Pereiro won the stage, Lance is in yellow, Hushovd is in green, Rasmussen is in the polka dots, and Popovych is in white. I really hope that Jan can jump onto the podium in the time trial. He should be able to since Rasmussen, currently in 3rd overall, is not a great time trialist. But we will see.

Thanks for reading.