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While Alberto Contador was being grilled by a 250-strong media throng at the Novotel Limoges on Monday afternoon, a small group of six reporters sat around a table with Brad Wiggins at the Campanile hotel barely 500 meters away. And that’s how the lean, long Brit likes it: no pressure, having fun. You wouldn’t know he’s in fifth overall, the closest challenger to Contador’s (and Lance Armstrong’s) Astana team, and sitting only seven seconds behind fourth-placed Levi Leipheimer.

The pain of stopping a race – there are few things in our professional lives as painful, as frustrating, as depressing and as loaded with the sense of failure. That said, there are plenty of one-day races where you toe the line with a specific job, and that role doesn’t even put you remotely near the finish line. But those are different: You start with no thought of finishing. You’re there to get IT done, “it” being whatever your charge is on that given day.

I love rest days! Nothing feels quite as luxurious as spending an entire day lying around doing nothing after nine days of racing. I have been trying to make the most (or maybe I should say the least) of my day off. A little spin in the morning to loosen up the legs and then a lot of time getting acquainted with my bed. I'm sure it's going to be game on from kilometer zero again tomorrow, so I need all the recovery I can get!

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Looking forward to the radio ban

Alberto Contador said Monday if the tables are turned in the Alps, he would not chase down an attacking Lance Armstrong in a solo move. The Spanish climber suggested he would adhere to the cycling code that says never chase down an attacking teammate on a summit finish, opening the door for the next round in the struggle for team leadership at the Astana squad. “If we arrive to a mountain stage and Lance attacks, I will not follow him,” Contador said when asked by VeloNews at a rest-day press conference. “There are other riders who have to chase him down.”

Yellow jersey contender Cadel Evans is clinging on to the hope that he will resurrect his Tour de France bid at the end of this week when the race heads back into the mountains. But Evans, who after nine of the race's 21 stages is three minutes behind main rivals Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong, admits it will be hard to find a way around the mighty Astana team. "We had some bad luck in the team time time trial that has put me in a frustrating position in the general classification," said Evans on Monday on the race's rest day.

As the Tour de France wraps up its first week of racing on the lower slopes of the Pyrénées, it seems the racing action among the general classification favorites has been put on hold for a while. Stages 8 and 9 had similar scripts — allow a lead break of non-GC contenders to escape, race the major Category 1 climbs at a cautious pace, and limit all losses.

All the beers have been cheered and bloody scrapes Band-Aided for yet another installment of the Downieville Classic mountain bike race. The second and final stage of the Northern California testpiece went down Sunday afternoon as competitors took off at one-minute intervals to attack a plummeting 17-mile Super-D style course that climbed a mere 1,000 feet while descending 5,333 feet into the streets of Downieville, a quaint mining town one hour north of Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Foothills.

Columbia-HTC sport director Ralf Aldag is content with the opening week of the 2009 Tour de France. Two stage victories by Mark Cavendish and runs in the green and white jerseys bode well for the U.S.-registered team heading into the last two weeks of the race. The team took stock on Monday’s rest day as it prepares to head toward the Alps with all options on the table. While the team’s GC hopes have taken a blow, the team is quietly optimistic Kim Kirchen will find his best form in the decisive final week.

The ongoing debate over the use of radios between riders and team directors will take center stage at the Tour de France on Tuesday’s stage from Limoges to Issoudon. In response to the chorus of complaints that the rise of race radios has made the sport too predictable and formulaic, Tour organizers Amaury Sports Organisation asked the UCI management committee to agree to a directive banning radios on two stages, meaning virtual radio silence for both Tuesday and again on Friday's 200km route from Vittel to Colmar.

Spain's two-time Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso is planning to create a cycling team headed by his compatriot Alberto Contador, the 2007 Tour de France winner, a Spanish newspaper reported on Monday. According to a report in the sports daily Marca, Alonso has already discussed the project with Contador. Contador, however, brushed off the story as speculative. "I only want to focus on the Tour de France, I will talk about my future after that," said the Astana team leader. "This is only a rumor and I have a contract with Astana for another year."

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There's always something going on at the Tour de France, even on days when the GC contenders call a truce, and none of it escapes the long lens of our man Casey B. Gibson.

Lance Armstrong conceded on French television Sunday that “there’s a little tension” between himself and Astana teammate Alberto Contador. The seven-time Tour champion sits in third overall, eight seconds behind Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2r), who is not considered a yellow jersey contender. Contador, the 2007 champion, is in the runner-up spot at six seconds back. As their rivals look for ways to close deficits incurred in a thrilling first week, it seems the real battle for supremacy may be taking place in one team.

When the first phase of the 96th Tour de France ended on Sunday with a near 80-man field sprint (on a mountain stage!), we knew that the race leaders were already looking ahead to the final week. They all know that the stages in the Alps, followed by a time trial at Annecy and the penultimate day’s finish on Mont Ventoux, are going to decide this Tour’s outcome — and that the middle week between Monday’s rest day in Limoges and next Sunday’s stage 15 finish in Verbier, Switzerland, is just a period in which to tick things over.

Lance Armstrong on Sunday backed a protest by 15 of the 20 teams in this year’s Tour de France teams over plans to ban radio contact between riders and their team managers on two of next week's stages. Armstrong's Astana team is one of 15 to have signed the petition against radio silence for stages 10 and 13, which was submitted on Saturday; French outfit Cofidis added its riders’ signatures on Sunday. "I don't agree with it (the radio ban)," said seven-times Tour winner Armstrong.