Bike Song

The weather is improving, time to do a bit of bike maint. and think about riding to work again.

Breaking the Silence

I'm still alive, and still up to stuff. I just haven't been posting.
I do have a twitter account now, and I post stuff on that occasionally.  It's aufgefallen as well

 I went to the museum

 Enjoyed some snow

 

 A pre-thanksgiving feast

 and a Thanksgiving feast

 Ate part of an insanely large gummy bear

 Tried my hand at curling with some friends

 

And cashed in a year's worth of Christmas Savings Account

Not a bad way to spend a Thursday

Cle Elum 2010-09-02

San Juan Island

I want

Dromarti cycling shoes

Ghisalli wood fenders

Ghisalli wood rims

Rapha jersey

Rapha rain jacket

I'm one week into my new goal of riding to and from work every day.  It's about 18 miles round trip on the shortest route, and takes about 50-60 minutes each way depending on traffic lights and how well I'm feeling.  So far so good.

Seattle

I was on the verge of grumbling to myself about how overcast it was as I pulled the windows closed. Then I acknowledged that I was closing the windows on the first day of August not because the air-conditioner was on (we don't own one) but because it was 1 in the afternoon and I was a bit chilly. I'll take that over a central valley august any day.

in the chaos, etiquette is lost

One of the exciting moments I missed while I was hiking happened during the sprint finish in stage 11. HTC-Columbia rider Mark Renshaw was leading their sprinter Mark Cavendish to the line, while Garmin-Transitions rider Julian Dean was leading out sprinter Tyler Farrar. It looks as if Dean may be coming over into Renshaw's line, and he responds by headbutting him several times. Cavendish takes the opportunity to sprint, and Farrar had to swing around behind Renshaw and try to launch around him. Renshaw looks back at him and then swings directly in front of him.

Cavendish won the stage, but lost his lead out man who was disqualified and kicked out of the race. He defended his actions as fighting off Dean, but really had no sufficient explanation for cutting in front of Farrar.

Perhaps the punishment was a bit too severe, given that earlier in the race two riders went at it after crossing the line, one going so far as to pull the front wheel off his bike and hit the other rider with it. Those riders were disciplined, but not disqualified. The commentators have said they think it was unfair, but I think the officials must have been looking at the possibility of Renshaw's actions causing a massive high speed crash that could have taken out several riders. Had they simply put him down in the standings, he still would have been up at the front leading Cav to the line every stage after the mountains. It really wouldn't be much punishment at all.

Judge for yourself by watching what happens between the 30 and 50 second marks in the video above, and listen to the riders responses below

Peleton Etiquette

For those following, there was a bit of controversy in stage 15 when Andy Shleck, in the Yellow Jersey, had a technical problem with his bike.Just as he was launching an attack his chain slipped off. Alberto Contador used the opportunity to leave him behind and win the Yellow Jersey at the end of the stage.

The question is, why is it an issue? It's a race, yes? Why should anyone wait for anyone?

The peleton has it's own etiquette, part of which is that you do not attack the tour leader when he has a technical issue like a puncture, or when he crashes. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but while the tour organizers won't punish offenders, the heads of state certainly will. One famous example is Bernard Hinualt chasing down and then chewing out Joel Pelier for attacking without permission.

A few other unwritten rules:

·Never attack near the feeding stations

·Never attack when a large number are having a toilet stop.

·Share cans of coke and bottles of mineral water.

·Never attack when the race leader crashes or punctures.

·Always contribute to an escape, then win the sprint.

·Slow up and let the race leader go where he wants if appropriate.

·Never poke your nose between a sprinter and a lead-out man.

·Never get mixed up in the sprint unless you are fully committed.

·If two of you escape, and you have the yellow jersey, let your fellow escapee win the stage.

·Never attack in a tunnel.

(From guardian.co.uk)

So should Contador have attacked? He says he didn't see what happened, but he issued an apology on YouTube. As Armstrong said in an interview, it's a race, and Shleck had launched the attack, so maybe it's time to stop talking about who should wait and who should attack. But Contador shouldn't pretend that he didn't know what happened...he was at least 50 meters behind Shleck when it happened. He also pointed out that Contador was only 30 seconds behind Shleck, and most people think that he will easily gain about 1.5 minutes in the time trial, so he didn't need to attack.

Personally, I don't think he should have. It confirms my dislike of Contador.

Tour

One of the great things about the Tour is that you can miss a few days, but there is still plenty of tour.
One of the bad things about the Tour is that if you go away for the weekend, its really hard to catch up on 4 days of racing.

Head Butts? Abandonment? And of course Jersey Swaps!

Thanks for the comments, I'll try to catch up on the posts. The Tour is in the Pyrenees for the hundredth year, and Thursday should be an exciting day at the Col de Tourmalet