It was a wild and wooly Stage 3. The first critical time gaps that could be established, most certainly did not disappoint.

Iban Mayo lost about 4 minutes. Mayo had the very bad misfortune to crash before the cobbles, and he could not regain the front of the peloton -- most certainly not during the cobble section.

The rest of the riders – especially the GC contenders like Armstrong, Ullrich and Hamilton – put their teammates on the front of the group to make the tempo so high that the chasing riders from the Mayo’s Euskaltel-Euskadi team were not able to close the gap.

It was a very aggressive stage, and a very, very hard day out on the roads -- starting in Belgium and coming into France, about half-way through the stage --  and then all kinds of pandemonium broke loose during the cobble sections. A lot of riders lost out on their chance at the Tour. Iban Mayo had a very, very hard day, crashing, bloodying his hip – but worse, he took a real blow to the morale. If he loses time in the team trial, he could conceivably start the first day in the mountains seven minutes behind Lance Armstrong, assuming everything else goes smoothly for Lance and the USPS riders.

US Postal, on the other end of the peloton, absolutely flew down the highway, making tempo -- before and after the cobbles -- protecting Lance, keeping him out of trouble, putting all of his rivals under serious pressure. Lance Armstrong had an armchair ride on the flat sections of road, as his team came to the front and did the big tempo.

A surprise bonus right after the stage was to interview Sheryl Crow, who has been following the bike race. She is a very nice girl.