First of all, apologies to avid readers of this blog for the lack of updates over the weekend. As you can imagine things were somewhat hectic.
Garmin-Slipstream's Bradley Wiggins was part of the reason for that, and he's becoming an ever bigger player this year. Even the French are having to take him seriously and as he's third in the GC at this stage, they have no choice.
A group of veteran Tour journalists were hunched over their laptops in our Verbier hotel last night, tapping away as they analysed Alberto Contador's attack which had stamped his authority on this race.
The new standings in the GC flashed up and the reaction of this bunch of journalists was interesting. Bradley Wiggins in third? They didn't quite rub their eyes in disbelief, but there was more than a murmur of surprise.
Wiggins sneaked up there almost unnoticed by these hardened followers of the Tour. He's hardly warranted a mention in the French papers: but I reckon a few sports editors might have to rethink that policy now.
Wiggins felt it appropriate play down his chances and insisted he can't win this Tour. Which is almost certainly true. But that he even sees himself as in contention is a measure of his own confidence and how brilliantly he has ridden so far.
But while Wiggins is happy staying under the radar, his team-mate David Millar wasn't having it. "Why shouldn't Bradley go for the win?", Millar asked.
If he can get through the next couple of days in the mountains without losing serious amounts of time then he'll hit the Annecy time trial on Thursday with a chance to put himself out of reach of a lot of the GC contenders. On that basis he has a very realistic chance of finishing second to Contador in Paris.
Wiggins hasn't put his feet up on today's rest day either. He's flown to Annecy by helicopter to a look at the time trial course, which shows you how seriously he's taking that particular stage.
Fabian Cancellara will fancy a big day in Annecy too and there's always Alberto Contador, but Wiggins is taking the time trial very seriously indeed.
Given that he's been dropping the likes of Lance Armstrong, Andreas Kloeden and Cadel Evans in the mountains, it must be a bit demoralising for them to think he's actually a time trial specialist.
He just needs to be sensible now.
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