by Justin Davis

SAINT BRIEUC, France, July 6, 2008 (AFP) – Fabian Cancellara is looking forward to a day of rest, in relative terms, when the Tour de France starts to leave the “dangerous” stages held in Brittany behind.

After two days of nervous riding in the wind and rain-swept coastal region of north-western France, CSC’s reigning world time trial champion admitted he had just about had enough.

“I’ll be happy to leave Brittany,” he told AFP.

“These past couple of stages have been quite dangerous, mainly because of the wind. It would have been less difficult with less wind. The wind is not for me.”

In spite of the conditions, Cancellara came close to handing his Danish outfit their first victory of the race on Sunday.

But bad timing, a headwind and the never-say-die riding of the Credit Agricole team combined to make sure a deserved victory went to Norwegian sprinter Thor Hushovd.

With Cancellara the favourite for victory in the race’s first time trial, held over 29km on Tuesday, he is unlikely to be working too hard on Monday’s third stage which will finally take the peloton southwards, to Nantes.

“For me tomorrow is a day for recovering in the peloton and being ready for the time trial,” said Cancellara.

CSC had a blistering start to last year’s race when the Swiss won the opening prologue and held the yellow jersey for the first week before he lost it to Linus Gerdemann in the first mountains stage.

This year, Cancellara and the rest of the team are focused on keeping Carlos Sastre in the yellow jersey mix as much as they can.

“It’s important not to waste too much energy early on as the Tour is long,”
he added. “The objective is to win the Tour for Carlos (Sastre).”

However, it will not have escaped Valverde’s notice that Cancellara is only 07secs behind him in the general classification, and likely to take the race lead if there are no major shake-ups on Monday.

Australian Stuart O’Grady looked worse for wear after a stage which saw the entire peloton up the pace in the latter stages in a bid to catch a four-man breakaway.

O’Grady’s job is to chaperone Sastre as much as he can this campaign, making sure the Spaniard stays on his bike and limits his losses to the favourites.

But with race co-favourite Valverde in the lead, and his Caisse d’Epargne team riding up at the front for most of the day, the task did not prove easy.

“My job is to keep Carlos protected as much as possible and make sure he doesn’t lose any time,” O’Grady told AFP.

“But in conditions like that – when you’re going up and down all day in a crazy peloton where everybody’s nervous – it’s hard enough keeping yourself up at the front never mind anyone else.”