ECHO ECHO Echo echo echo (echo echo)

I echo my point of echoing my point that it's silly to make us ride the (2nd) longest neutral roll out section of the entire race immediately before the longest stage of the race. Especially when it's at the Tour, which is a marvelously long race as is. An additional 20 minutes of non-action before the flag drops and the actual action begins seems unnecessary.Turns out, however, they didn't ask for my input.So for the latest race news allow me to inform you that a mere tire width separated us from victory today.Which, sure, is a bummer after having slayed it on the front for five hours. It was just my buddy/roommate/teammate Jean-Marc Marino and I chopping off at the front keeping the strong escape group of six at arm's length for nearly the full day. Good work J-MM! We celebrated with a dozen M&Ms apiece. (Yellow is the best.) But you know what? We're still stoked! Peter has been top-5 on each of these first seven stages, he's a beast of a sprinter, especially when you see who remained in that finale, we have the green jersey which is the chief goal for the month, and Peter was extremely happy with our work today. Pshhh, where's the next highest sprinter on GC? 80th maybe? Peter is boss. And as I've said once and will say again, he is a once-in-a-generation kind of rider. It's a true honor to work for him.Furthermore, you see the crash after crash after crash after crash; you see bandages on me, bandages on Peter, bandages on lots of the top dogs in the race (ahem... yes, I'm a top dog in this race!). Every cycling-news headline is about so-and-so injured or broken bone or questionable for tomorrow. Plus Froome, Schleck, Cav, and plenty other heavy hitters are already at home, to which collectively you can't help but think, "Dang, they talk about stress in the first week of the Tour de France. I think they're onto something." Maybe next year they'll tweak the first week of the Tour and just thumb wrestle for GC honors and remove the undue stress.Alas, mental fortitude plus Neosporin make a mean combo. ONWARD!Ahh, and to wrap things up, well, someone's gotta do it, right?!Mr. Cheng Li and I are in a heated battle for who's had their nose in the wind pulling the peloton the most here at yee Tour de France. I call it Top Awesome Award (while the rest of you out there might call it reverse General Classification). He might have me beat for time in the front, however, I also have symmetrical left and right crashes at really untimely parts of the race and subsequent wounds to lick. Yeah yeah yeah, lantern rouge. C'est la vie!(Oh hey, have you watched this yet? Cause you should. G'night.)