Floyd Landis seemed very confident when he let Perreiro Sio have the yellow  jersey, twice! But Floyd is not the Boss, when I saw him ride up Alpe d'Huez I was sort of dissappointed for he never took the initiative, letting Köden do most of the work, and when he did attack, or merely accelerate, it was not with all his might but more what the French would call a 'Petard Mouillé' (a wet fire cracker). No, Floyd did not convince me on Tuesday. I still thought he was going to be an intermediary tour champion though, like Delgado and Roche in their days. But unlike Delgado and Roche, Landis does not dominate.

I am now hoping that Perreiro Sio will hang on to the yellow tunique as he has put up a real fight from the start and was considered harmless by T-Mobile and Phonak when they let him win back the 30 minutes he lost in the Pyrenees. Klöden and his magenta armada have still got the tactical skills of ants and ride as if Ulrich were still there defending a 5 minute lead. They deserve to lose. This tour should go to someone with guts, not someone with a calculator in his shirt pocket.

Perreiro may very well turn out to be the new boss, with the experience gained from this year's tour he is set to win more big races. His team is there to back him up, unlike the Phonak team who can ride hard for a week in Paris Nice but are not ready for the task in July. CSC are lacking Basso and are still impressive to watch, but Sastre is just not charismatic enough to win the tour. Menchov is not a natural climber and comes just short of adding the TDF to his list of wins, but at least he has really good support from the Michaels (Rasmussen and Boogerd). Cyril Dessel is the huge surprise this year, now we should hope this will boost his career to new heights for he deserves it. Cadel is there, but he can only hope for the podium now. It's pretty much between Perrreiro Sio and Klöden now, although you never know what will happen tomorrow. I guess everybody can still bonk...

Two important stages left and nothing is sure yet. That is a change from the previous seven years or so!! As Jerome Simon [ex-Tour de France rider] told me last week, every day someone will lose the Tour, but we won't know who is gonna win until the very end.

I've picked my favorite, how about you?

Yours in cycling,

Marco Vermeij