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There is but one former Tour de France 'winner' in this year's race and Blazin' Saddles believes that man, Oscar Pereiro, would have been slightly miffed at the end of stage nine.

While all the accolades were going to Italy's Riccardo Ricco - a man with so many C's in his name it risks becoming salty - Pereiro must be wondering what could have been after the Pyrenean opener on Sunday.

For before Ricco went on his remarkable solo surge to the top of the Col d'Aspin, Pereiro himself had slammed down the hammer and was clear - just as he was apparently ordered by his Caisse d'Epargne team car to go back and help the struggling Alejandro Valverde.

Riding on the front of the rapidly-slimming peloton, Pereiro - who was gifted the 2006 Tour due to Floyd Landis's penchant for testosterone - did not seem to notice that stage one winner Valverde had dropped off the pace.

Looking back over his shoulder once and then twice, the Spaniard then fiddled with his earpiece before suddenly turning off the gas with what appeared to be a gasp of disappointment. Despite putting daylight between himself and the pack, his team management had reeled Oscar in by his work-dog's leash.

Granted, Valverde is the team leader, but surely that should not stop a proven professional like Pereiro trying his luck when he obviously had the legs to go for it. Of course it is entirely speculative as to what would have happened if Pereiro was given permission to go, but if one thing's sure it's that the Spaniard looked remarkably strong - and 100 times more a leader than the ostentatiously yellow-biked Valverde.

Such a scene would not have happened without modern cycling's reliance on the radio. Had Pereiro not received the orders to hang back, the rider would have had to make the call himself. Now that would be proper racing.

Schumacher blunder

The catalyst for Pereiro's short-lived attack actually came from Gerolsteiner's Vin Diesel look-alike Stefan Schumacher, who is having quite a busy Tour.

Not content with his brief cameo in yellow, last week's ITT winner - who lost the yellow jersey in embarrassing circumstances after hitting the deck moments before Ricco won at Super Besse - inexplicably upped the tempo in the hitherto languid peloton, even though his team-mate Sebastian Lang was riding alone around five minutes further up the mountain.

The upshot of Schumi's bizarre showing was to create a climate of confusion which Pereiro and then Ricco could exploit - and with devastating consequences for Lang. Had Schumacher remained the invisible rider he's supposed to be in the mountains, the following could have happened:

(i) Lang could well have stayed out and won the stage

(ii) By crossing the summit in pole position - and not after Ricco - Lang would have snared the polka dot jersey from the shoulders of David De La Fuente

(iii) Schumi himself may have not lost the 40 seconds which saw him drop off the provisional podium

Having said that, it would be wrong for Blazin' Saddles to ask too much from a man who crashed his car in the neighbours' garden when drunk before fleeing the scene, getting arrested, then later testing positive for both alcohol and amphetamines.

Crash club

Denis Menchov, the Schleck brothers and Carlos Sastre have had quite innocuous Tours so far, but their rivals for the overall standings have been in the wars.

Ricco, now a double Tour and Giro stage winner in the same year, may claim he is not riding for the overall standings, but with more mountain stages to come - and the overt promise of a victory atop Alpe d'Huez - he might ride himself back into the reckoning.

His latest deserved victory, however, came one day after a nasty tumble on the wet roads on the way to Toulouse. The Italian struggled so much keeping in touch with the peloton that his continued presence in the Tour was open to debate on Sunday.

This must bode well for Cadel Evans, who himself picked up a prickly dose of road-rash on Sunday after hitting the deck while taking a tight left bend.

Evans's principal rival, Valverde, was too involved in an unfortunate spill earlier on in the race - and is still wearing the bandages to show for it.

All the talk prior to the race was of Evans's new-found taste for attacking, and there is no better a place to put this into practice than Monday's duel assault of the Tourmalet and Hautecam. Blazin' Saddles just hopes Cadel doesn't use Sunday's crash as an excuse for the kind of passive riding that inspires Ricco to talk of peloton "vegetables".

Let the battle commence!

If Ricco's gutsy solo coup on Sunday was a mere Pyrenean amuse-bouche, the main meal is set to land on the Tour banquet table on Monday with two unclassified climbs which will reduce some riders to tears.

The legendary Tourmalet - the climb which earned Eddie Merckx the nickname 'Cannibal' - is followed by the Hautacam, a preposterously steep climb which has only been used three times in Tour history.

Ricco hopes his team-mate, the veteran Leonardo Piepoli, will become the fourth person to win in the ski resort after Luc Leblanc (1994), Bjarne Riis (1996) and Javier Ochoa (2000).

But Blazin' Saddles thinks that Ricco himself could emerge victorious. Why? Well, the Tourmalet is renowned for its llamas, bizarre animals which broke into popular culture with a cameo in the film Napoleon Dynamite. Said film's central character has a grandmother who has a faithful llama - and they all live under the same roof with a certain Uncle Rico.

His name might be less salty than Ricco's, but it sounds the same.

Plat du Jour

Roast llama, mountain goat stew, foie gras, confit de canard and trout, washed down with a full-bodied Madiran red.

Lanterne Rouge

Following his nasty tumble, race doctor Gerard Porte said Evans had not suffered anything more than bruising to his shoulder.

"I reassured him on the state of his shoulder," he said. "There was no problem with his bone but he will suffer tomorrow, for sure."

It doesn't bode well for the man vying to be Australia's first ever Tour winner. Maybe Tuesday's rest day is coming 24 hours too late. Or maybe he'll do a Ricco and win.

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