Teamwork

Can you think of another sport where the athletes compete as a team, but only one person wins? Last year had a demonstration of how you can sacrifice team mates for your own glory (why i don't like Contador.) This year Fabian Cancellara showed what happens when a rider sacrifices his own glory for the sake of the Team.

SaxoBank saw a couple riders go down, including their favorite for the GC, Andy Shleck. Cancellara was at the front of the pack, riding in Yellow, and could have used the chaos of all the crashes (dogs in the road, etc) to extend his lead. Instead he neutralized the pack, allowing not only his team but many others to catch up so that they would not be disqualified. In the process he lost the yellow jersey by several minutes to a breakaway rider.

He did his job and helped his team.

Tour Trivia

This years tour is

3,642 kilometers / 2,263 miles.

Over 500,000 pedal rotations.

Riders will burn around 130,000 calories / 37 lbs over the course of the tour.

Moomin in the garden

I didn't grow up reading Tove Jansson's Moomin books, but I fell in love with them when I visited Scandinavia.

Snork Maiden frolicking in the lettuce

And Moomintroll in the arugala.
(Actually Snork Maiden without the flower, bracelet, and some of the hair)

Thanks Liz!

Happy 4th

I started celebrating with a proper British fry-up while watching the Tour de France.

Prologue explained

I didn't really know that much about the prologue, since it hasn't been a part of the last couple tours. When wikipedia failed me, I turned to that great wealth of information for the uninformed, the ""Whatever" for Dummies" series.

"As a ceremonial prerace, Prologues provide a quick, exciting Tour start. Individual time trials less than 8 kilometers (5 miles) in length, Prologues comprise a few minutes of individual, high-speed pedaling for every cyclist in the field. the race's winner wears the leader's yellow jersey for the first official stage held the following day... Prologues also provide the first look at the condition of lack of condition of overall title favorites..."

So that explains a bit about the prologue. I'll have to wait until tomorrow to see if the times from the prologue carry over, or if its just a psychological thing of coming out strong the first day and showing the competition what you brought to the party.

As for what was brought to the party this year... my Tour for Dummies book published in 2005 makes note of the fact that in 2004 "young Swiss rider Fabian Cancellara surprised the favorites, including Lance Armstrong...Cancellara claimed the Prologue in 6 minutes and 51 seconds- an average speed of 32.22 mph." This year Cancellara (Team Saxo Bank) tore it up once again, completing an 8.9 kilometer course through Rotterdam on wet streets in 10 minutes even, beating out poor Tony Martin by 10 seconds. There is a good chance he will hold on to the Maillot Jaune for the next couple days, particularly since he is the current champ on Pave (cobblestones) which will feature heavily in stage 3.

Tour Prologue

I'm starting to feel a bit lazy sitting on my butt watching these cyclists push themselves around Rotterdam.
I was trying to figure out the purpose of the prologue, and made the mistake of doing a little internet searching...so although I have about 30 minutes left to watch, I now know who won. I'll need to be more careful over the next couple weeks.

Of course there is plenty of time left in the day, and its supposed to be partly sunny, so I'll get out on the bike this afternoon. First I need to do a little repair. Shortly after leaving work yesterday I heard that distinctive twang that meant I broke a spoke. Unfortunately it is behind the rear cassette, which means I need to take the wheel apart to fix it. I just replaced one around the same place last week! I think maybe I'm doing something wrong, maybe tightening them too much?

It's Tour Time!!!

I'm not an ass-backwards soccer hater like Glenn Beck, but I have to admit that I'm not a fanatic. I've endured the blog posts, news reports, and tweets... now its my turn. Of course if last year is any indication, I'll get pretty distracted and not really post much. For a quick recap, see last years post here and a brief bicycle history here.

Expect me to cheer for Garmin Transistions, HTC, and the Shleck brothers (SaxoBank). Although Contandor will no doubt tear it up, and is possibly the top pick for the overall, expect nothing but boos from this corner of the blogosphere. I'll even root for Cavendish before Contador.

Freeway Park

I love finding new gems at freeway park

Office Temp

Dogsitting doesn't come free!
Herbie pulls his weight around the office by helping out with some
filing.

Back in Seattle