Tom Boonen of Belgium, who rides with the Quick Step team and is the current king of the one-day classics, won the stage.

The one-day classics of spring?

Now, with his fourth place in the time trial, he will bury any longing for individual success until the one-day classics resume in August.

Hincapie is mostly known as a rider who thrives in one-day classics, having finished second in Paris-Roubaix this year.

His forte, however, is the one-day classics of spring and fall, not long stage races like the Tour de France.

He has, too, from a fourth place in the Tour of Holland to results back in the pack in the August one-day classics.

One reason is that his talents are better suited to one-day classics than to long stage races.

Museeuw is a 28-year-old Belgian and a top rider in one-day classics, but not a man of the Tour's mountains.

"I changed my focus," shorthand for transforming himself from a rider in one-day classics to a dominator, starting in 1999, in the Tour de France.

Apart from one-day classics, Moser also enjoyed some success in the three-week Grand Tours.