Watching the Tour thus far, it’s hard not to be impressed by Cadel Evans’ steady performance. That’s what people say when they think of him — steady, consistent, and strong. He can climb with anyone, he can time trial with the best, and his head is always in the game.

Clever like a fox, he seems to be sitting just seconds off the lead – by his own choosing – waiting for just the right moment (which would just so happen to be a time trial in about two weeks’ time) to stamp his authority on the race once and for all.

But, seemingly in the face of all this, we do not believe he will pull it off.

Here’s why. In modern days, no singular man has won the Tour de France. Instead, it’s consistently required the best man with the best team working for him.

Obviously, Lance and Johan built teams specifically to ensure that Lance could win the Tour. Sure, Lance had to be the best rider at the Tour — but even with his superior physiology, training, equipment, staff, and flock of uber-domestiques, Lance never dominated any particular Tour. He had to scratch out each and every win. He was attacked constantly, and came close to losing numerous times.

Now back to Cadel.

First, he’s no Lance. Second, he doesn’t have Johan building a team around him. And third, he doesn’t have anyone convinced that he is unbeatable — so everybody is trying to do it. Fourth, there are teams like Columbia who may not have Cadel (or Lance) to build a team around — but they have done it anyway.

They’ve built a team designed to deliver Mark Cavendish to the last 100 meters of every flat stage at supersonic speed, and when they’re not launching Cavendish into the trans-sonic ranges, they’re living and working to get Kim Kirchen a GC win. Or, said another way, they’re making Kim Kirchen a bigger rider than he already is.

As a result, Kirchen goes out each day knowing that a tremendously powerful group of men are going to do everything they can to help him win. All he has to do, is give it his best.
And back to Cadel once more.

Cadel goes out knowing that when the work really gets challenging, he’ll have to look for Valverde and his Caisse team, or for Kim and team Columbia, so that he can latch onto a wheel — any wheel. Thus, he’s always racing for second place, at best. If he goes, there’s nobody helping him — he’s all alone. Routinely on tough stages Cadel arrives at the finish not only devoid of domestiques, but minutes ahead of them.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way.

Silence – Lotto team did make efforts to give Cadel more support. They replaced US rider Chris Horner – with Cadel’s urging – with former discovery rider Jaroslav Popovich. Popovich knew the routine from his years doing duty as super-domestique for Lance.

Perhaps that helped, but Horner actually rode quite well as a domestique last year, and Popo isn’t setting always there for Cadel this year. Perhaps it didn’t help so much. But that seems to be where team management drew the line in terms of investing in making Cadel this year’s Tour champ.

So when Popo isn’t there at critical moments for Cadel, such as the final climb up Super Besse, Cadel jumped behind Valverde and afterward credited the Caisse team for having helped him stick near the front. Ouch. If I were one of the Silence – Lotto men supposed to be pulling Cadel to a Tour win this year, that’s the last thing I would want to hear. And if I were Cadel, that’s the last thing I would want to have to say.

Unfortunately, it is what it is.

So can Cadel singlehandedly win the Tour de France? Can he overpower Valverde who is being pulled by 2006 Tour winner Oscar Periero and a gaggle of powerful domestiques? Can he overpower Kim Kirchen who has no less than George Hincapie mentoring him, guiding and leading him through the Tour?
When you put it that way, what do you think?