Christian Vande Velde's prediction was right on the money.

In his last conversation with the Tribune, the cyclist from Lemont said Thursday's stage six of the Tour de France would be "nervous. There are going to be crashes."

And that was before Vande Velde knew it would be raining for much of the 113-mile ride from Girona to Barcelona, Spain. There were multiple crashes, splitting the pack into several parts before Norway's Thor Hushovd won the uphill sprint finish on Montjuic.

The result was Vande Velde moved up four places in the standings to 8th, even though he gained no time on leader Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland, who remained 22/100ths of a second ahead of Lance Armstrong.

Vande Velde is 1:16 behind Cancellara as the race heads Friday to the Pyrenees, with a stage including two climbs that reshuffle the overall standings more dramatically.

A decade ago, when Armstrong won his first of seven straight Tours, Vande Velde was a support rider on his team, and that seemed to create a lasting mutual respect.

But Armstrong dissed Vande Velde in a biography ("Lance. The Making of the World's Greatest Champion") published just before the 2009 Tour.

One of the reasons Armstrong cited for his decision to competition was his disdain for the results of the 2008 Tour, won by Carlos Sastre with Vande Velde fourth (he moved up from fifth after the fourth finisher was busted for doping.) "The Tour was a bit of a joke this year," Armstrong says in the book. "I've got nothing against Sastre ... or Christian Vande Velde. Christian's a nice guy, but finishing fifth in the Tour de France? Come on!"

Here is what Vande Velde about that and Armstrong's comeback in our two most recent conversations:

Q. Does what Lance said in the book bother you?

A. No. It really doesn't. That's his view, and if he thinks that, then I can't do anything about it.

Q. Have you spoken with each other about it?

A. He apologized to me. He (said) he didn't mean for it to come off that harsh. He was very upfront with it. We agreed to go onward and not really worry about it, so it is behind us.

Q. From what little bit you had seen of him since his comeback, what did you expect of Lance in the Tour?

A. I expect everything from him. He had a great Giro (Tour of Italy, finishing 12th) and then a great rest and build-up afterwards by going to altitude. It was a complete page out of my book from last year.

Q. There has been a lot of discussion, some from other riders, that Lance seemed a lot more nervous on the bike (in the Giro) than he ever was before. Did you get a sense of that?

A. That was the Giro. If you weren't nervous there, then you should have your head checked. I don't fault him for being nervous. I think he will have gotten a lot of his eye of the tiger back after the Giro.

Q. Are you surprised at where he is in the Tour at this point?

A. Lance is doing awesome. Everything is going exactly right for him. Their (Astana) team did an amazing ride (winning the team time trial, with Vande Velde's Garmin-Slipstream team second), as we all thought they would. And he was one of the people who was very alert (when the peleton split in stage three) and was in the right place at the right time.