Team Garmin-Slipstream—Tour Contenders

Team Garmin-Slipstream’s riders have made surprising impressions through the first seven stages of the 2009 Tour de France, darting and hovering like persistent, blue and peach hummingbirds around Team Astana, the big birds of prey, and others.The drama in the 2009 Tour thus far, despite Saxo Bank’s Fabian Cancellara in yellow for much of week one, has been about Team Astana and the internal dynamic between seven-time return winner Lance Armstrong, and last year’s Tour winner, Alberto Contador. As of yesterday, Garmin’s Bradley Wiggins sat fifth in the overall standings, and Christian Vande Velde in 10th. Wiggins transitioned from being a championship track rider to a road racer, dropping seven kilos recently toward that end. And Vande Velde had been expected to do well at this year’s TDF prior to a bad crash in the Tour of Italy in May, in which he fractured three vertebrae, two ribs, and his pelvis. Naturally serious doubts arose about his recuperatio...