It's Wiggins by a hair

Team time trial is in the books at the Tour of Qatar and the Garmins did indeed pull off the victory, by less than a second over the Quick Steps. VeloNews says this avenges a similar result last year that saw Quick Step just barely besting Garmin-Slipstream. You can watch a video of Quick Step's 2008 winning ride here (sorry, haven't found any videos of this year's ride yet). If you're new to cycling there are a couple things to watch for. You'll notice the guys at the front riding in the wind are pounding the pedals a lot harder than the guys in the back (who at times are even coasting). This is because the riders in the back can put much less effort into riding by staying in the slipstream of the riders up front. Also, for a team time trial you start with your whole team but you only have to finish with five guys. So a lot of teams make some guys ride until they drop at the front in the first few kilometers.

So Garmin put Bradley Wiggins in the leader's gold jersey to go along with the two gold medals he won on the cycling track at the 2008 Olympics. This is also nice for Wiggins since he just joined Garmin this year. Monday starts the sprints where we'll get our first points leader (in a silver jersey). Boonen is only a second back from Wiggins, and as the defending winner of the TOQ I bet he wants to take silver and gold.

Speaking of Boonen, VeloNews posted a great Q&A with him yesterday. He talks about his rivals in the classic one-day races Fabian Cancellara and his main rival in the sprints Mark Cavendish. He points out that Cavendish has a top gear that few people can go to. Much like a cheetah, though, Cavendish can't stay at that speed for too long. So Boonen will try to make the sprints start earlier to tire him out. He also notes that Cavendish is the special kind of crazy that allows him to try to get through small holes in the pack when everyone is riding at 37 miles an hour (paraphrase there). Being so fearless gives him an edge when the sprint finish turns into chaos.

I'm still not sure who I'm pulling for. The playboy Boonen trying to win back his rep after his various substance abuse issues or the brash youngster Cavendish who my girlfriend says is "kinda cute, in a dorky cyclist way."? I guess I'll cheer for Wiggins to hang on to gold, even if Garmin has a rider on their team named Ricardo van der Velde. (I'm bitter that I've finally gotten to a point where I can keep Christian Vande Velde and Alejandro Valverde apart. Now I've got some dude named van der Velde to contend with too? Jeez)