The Tour de 1/10th continues… after six stages, I dropped from first to a tie for 18th with Floyd Landis. I missed some of my miles and the penalty for missing miles is more harsh than the bonus for extra miles.

1 – if I complete my mileage, I get the same time as the 10th place finisher.
2 – for every additional mile I ride, I get a 30 second time bonus.
3 – for every mile I come up short, I get a 1 minute time penalty.

After five stages… the top five are:

1. Lance Armstrong (USA/DIS) 17h58:11
2. George Hincapie (USA/DIS) 0:55
3. Alexandre Vinokourov (KZK/MOB) 1:02
4. Jens Voigt (GER/CSC) 1:04
5. Bobby Julich (USA/CSC) 1:07

18. Chris Doelle (USA/[email protected]) 1:50

I am going to have to step things up a bit as the time gaps in the mountains are going to start making my life harder. Just to stay even, I will be forced to to extra mileage – that combined with the fact that I just threw away all my cushion yesterday could spell disaster.