"....Does anybody else think they should keep the crowd back from the cyclists?"

It'll never happen, unless someone gets really badly hurt, the baricades that is. So much tradition in cycling. They have baricades some places. How do they determine where?

"That fall Lance took could have easily been a collar-bone-breaker. And then when he slipped out of his cleat...ouch!!! "

Looked like quite a knot on the elbow from the first fall, he went over so fast theres nothing to do anything but smash on the ground. And right after they all turn in their helmets so he's lucky he kept his head off the road. I'd be waving for the sag wagon for sure.

And the fall from the cleat, yikes, how he kept from turning soprano on the top tube I don't know, but then he does have at least one prosthetic ;-)