July 3, 2005 – After working hard for Giro winner Paolo Savodelli, Discovery Channel’s Michael Barry gets to watch the Tour de France from the sidelines as he himself prepares for the Tour of Austria. Over the next three weeks, Pedal will be asking Barry about the Grand Boucle, getting the “insider’s perspective”.

Pedal: Dave Zabriskie is in yellow in his first tour. In your book “Inside the Postal Bus”, you mentioned how rewarding it was to see him have a good Tour of Spain last year. How does it feel now to see him have a great start to the Tour?

Barry: Well, last week we were training together in Girona, Spain and you could see he was nervously excited when we spoke about the race. I had a feeling then that he would do well in the TT. So, I wasn’t surprised to see him post the best time early on – but then when the leaders were coming in and the time was standing I started getting excited for him. He has accomplished something truly incredible and he deserves it after having had several seasons of extremely bad luck and bad crashes.

Pedal: What’s Dave Z like?

Barry: He is a shy guy, misunderstood by many in the peloton, but once he gets comfortable he has a funny, quirky sense of humor and keeps everybody laughing. At the Giro he was interviewing guys each day in the peloton. He found out some interesting stuff like Petacchi is a fan of Star Wars. You can check out the interviews on his website and you’ll quickly get a taste of his humor. At the end of the day he is a really nice kid and I am extremely happy for him.

Pedal: How long can he stay in yellow?

Barry: I think until at least the TTT. I think Discovery will win the TTT and then Lance will take the jersey. The team is riding really well at the moment so I think they will be hard to beat but CSC will be give them a good run.

For more of Barry’s adventures, check out his latest book: http://michaelbarry.ca/