Stage 17

Above are photos from our position on the Col de la Colombiere yesterday. Hincapie and Sastre. After spending a few hours at the village bar, for both the beverages and bathrooms, we hiked up a kilometer or to to get this position -- it was fantastic! By this point in the day, after biking over four mountains, the riders were spaced out over at least 30 minutes and slowly rolling by us. From our vantage point, we also could see them at four spots along the route -- coming down the previous mountain and in a few places coming back up before they got to us. We're pretty sure this is before Hincapie wrecked, and incredibly relieved that he didn't break his collarbone. By the way, also happy that Jen Voight's wreck wasn't worse.

(For those who are interested, I will post of video when we get back to the States of the lead group of Contador, Kloden and the Schlecks passing us.)