After the first mountain stage I'll give it another go.
1. Andy Schleck
2. Samuel Sanchez
3. Frank Schleck
4. Ivan Basso
5. Alberto Contador
6. Cadel Evans
7. Damiano Cunego
8. Tom Danielson
9. Peter Velits
10. Arnold Jeanneson
Andy looked quite fine today, and should only get better.
I think the 1-2 attack is going to work very well come the Alps.
I could see Frank allowing Andy to take yellow on Alpe d'Huez for the ITT, as Frank will lose BIG CHUNKS of time in Grenoble, and Andy would benefit from starting last.
Basso and Szmyd looked great today, and they'll be tough to beat.
Sanchez obviously has great form, and I think he's got what it takes to podium and maybe win KOM.
And I mean no disrespect to anyone else's opinion in this next paragraph, as I may be wrong. Here we go:
I'm just not buying the argument that Contador can catch up to the Schlecks. He may be able to keep up with them in the Alps, but I don't really think he can climb past them simply due to the Giro. It's obviously taken its toll. And as we saw last year, if he's not on great form, he's not gonna blow anyone away in the ITT. He only got 31 seconds on Andy last year, and now he's already down 2 minutes to Frank and 1:45 to Andy.
I think Evans is going to rue the lack of a Szmyd, Navarro, Frank in the mountains come Stage 18. He'll crack.
Cunego has looked very good. I'd tip him for Stage 16.
Tommy D is now the Garmin surprise.
Velits would have done much better without his puncture today, and now HTC's "mountain men" can help him 100%
Jeanneson looks good for the White Jersey.