Animal said:
No way he'll climb worse than Maggie Backstedt or McEwen. He'll make it over the mountains.
I have no doubt he can climb mountains a stage or two, even three, good enough to make the timelimit. However, has Cavendish ever finished a 3 week race? As far as I know, Cavendish has up til now only gone for 1 - 1 1/2 weeks max (allthough his previous exits from GT's were planned). Further, in previous years Cav has had serious trouble finishing races. This should be a major factor for him going into the third week of the tour. Can he sustain it?
Allthought I'm not certain he will go out on 17, thats my best bet

. A whole other issue is how Cav will be sprinting after the first mountains (stage 7-9), after the hilly mountains up Verbier etc, and eventually in Paris after Ventoux. Abit on the side of this topic maybe, but do people think Cav will continue his domination after putting a couple good mountains in his legs? Personally i think guys like Freire, Hushovd, etc will be taking over the sprints next week, even if Cav should still be in the race.