Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Friday, July 28, 2006

Sorry about my extended absence from the blogosphere but I decided to unplug for a bit. The combination of coming to the end of a hard training block, the Tour's conclusion and the wrapping up of Summer semester has left me in a sort of downish kind of state; a bit of the summer doldrums. I was pumped a bit by Floyd's win and my own ability to lay down a good training set but I needed a break. One thing I had going for me was a psuedo-vacation planned for next week. The lovely wife had a set of classes up in north Atlanta and I was going to go and hibernate and goof off and ride my bike in the mountains.

Over the week, this has all unraveled. First is Floyd testing positive (which if you haven't seen or heard about merans you're even more unplugged than me). I'm sick about it. I hope that the B sample comes back negative but even Floyd doesn't expect that. He's going to try and prove his innocence and I'll give him a chance but the whole affair has completely shaken my belief in professional cycling and it's fairness. There are voices that say that they all dope and I'm beginning to really believe them. I wonder if all the Americans in Girona have their "connections" and maybe that was disrupted. Who knows. I don't even want to think about it anymore. If I could get ahold of the pros I might just bang a few heads together and drag them to a Georgia Cup race where a bunch of us poor slobs are grinding it out in 100 degree heat for little more than some Applebee's gift certificates and some bragging rights and campfire stories. I'd show them what they are betraying. It's not their sport. It's ours and they are dragging it down into the slime of big money desperation and loathing. I want Floyd and Basso and Ullrich and all the others to look in the eyes of some Master's class rider who's just spent three hours out dying on the tarmac of a Georgia steambath and see the love he has for the sport and the honor he finds in the competition. Maybe these guys are too far gone in their delusion to see it but they were supposed to be our heroes and they have failed us. They have betrayed the beauty of our sport if they have cheated when we have struggled through the pain and suffering to cross a finish line with few sponsors and only wives and relativves cheering us on. The punishment for this type of cheating should be more than a ban from the sport but to have to attend local racing events and to drive the wheel trucks and hand water up to the riders in the feed zones and to stand in the heat keeping an intersection clear. They should have to see the beauty of the competition in it's pure form and understand what they have really sullied. Tyler should have to spend the rest of his life watching others do what he once did but then took for granted. And if they all do it then we'd have a lot more volunteers. Let's throw out the teams and the multimillion dollar contracts and let the beauty be found in the grassroots racing found in office park criteriums, backroad road races and industrial tract time trials.

OK, enough of that.

The other bummer is that my wife's class got rescheduled. She doesn't have any vacation right now so we're stuck here at home for the next week and I'm bummed. Getting out of Dodge would have been nice for a few days. Oh well, I'll try to enjoy what I can here and save up my dollars for a Columbus Day trip or something.

I'll try to write more soon but until then, have a great weekend.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Friday, July 21, 2006

Well, I've had a little more than 24 hours to absorb and process Floyd's most excellent adventure. I've waited to post to really get my head around what he did on stage 17 of the tour. I struggled to try to comprehend it even as I celebrated his phoenix-like rise from the ashes of his previous defeat.

I remember a race a couple years back when another guy and I took off from the first click. It was a pretty flat course with just a couple of climbs. He rolled off and I decided that I'd go because I knew a lot of the guys were a lot stronger than I was. I figured a few others might bridge up and we'd make a race of it. We stayed clear for 30 miles before a strong group made it up to us and I managed to hang with them for another 30 before my legs blew and I ended up finishing seventh. It was a cool feeling being in the break and taking the KoM points in the race. It was cool that the other guy in the original break (a Cat 2 master's racer) called me a super strong rider and I felt great even though I didn't win. I've always tried to race that way. Sure I'd like to win but more than that I always want to make it a real race where everyone haas to work and suffer and give what they have. I'm not the kind of guy who likes to sit in and wait for the field sprint or try to make the final climb and then do something. I always want to force the pace and make the selection; even when it's not in my best interest to do so. To me, it honors the competition.

So, in a way I really understand what Floyd was doing. Win or lose, he was going to make the race and force a selection. If he wasn't going to win the race, he was going to have a hand in deciding who did. I really admire that. I see a lot of racers who race for a pack finish when they know they can't sprint worth a damn just so that they can say they didn't get dropped. I'd rather blow up a race and get tailed off the back than sit in. I think that's been Levi's mentality this year as well. What's so amazing is that Floyd's huge gamble paid off. It never would have worked in a one-day race or a week long stage race but he knew the other guys were tired. He gambled that they couldn't keep up the pace he wanted to set and that they'd let him go. They gambled that he'd still be tired from the previous day. He won, they lost. I remember how cooked I felt at the end of my 60 mile breakaway effort and how I limped in for my finish. I remember what it felt like when my strength left me and I still had 20 miles of rollers to get through on a 95 degree day. I remember the sheer exhaustion and fatigue I felt in the final seven miles whent he road just went up and down constantly and I was caught and dropped by two guys to put an end to my hopes for a top five finish. To tell you the truth though, I remember how alive I felt after I got off the bike and the other guys stopped by to tell me how impressed they were by my effort and my courage. Half the field didn't even finish and I had not just survived but had made the race. I even got mentioned in a couple of the on-line team journals posted by riders in the race. Of course, no one knew my name, but there was admiration for "the guy in the New Zealand Standard jersey".

Watching Floyd power through the finish line with a fist pump that reminded me of another epic ride in the Alps inspired me. As I was cooling down from a hard intervals ride on the rollers I was reminded of why I suffer and why I toil. His anger and triumph and overcoming his failure of the day before reminded me what was good about sport and what was good about cycling. For a few hours on Thursday morning I didn't think about doping or Jan Ullrich and his contract with T-Mobile or the fall of Discovery or anything like that. I thought about the power of the human spirit and the strength of the human will to overcome the obstacles of mountains and heat and yesterday's disappointments. I thought about the searing heat of Floyd's passion to win a race and how all of the rest of the world melted before it.

I wish I could bottle that somehow.

I met with a student who is trying to decide whether to come back to school yesterday. He's a good kid with a good heart who should be able to do well at college. He has the brains and the ability but he has no passion. He doesn't really, deeply desire anything and so school has been a disappointment for him and he wonders what he should do. How do you teach that kind of passion? He doesn't need to be Floyd or Lance or Dave Zabriskie who've come back from more crashes and setbacks than I have or can even imagine to reach the highest places in their sport. He just needs a little bit of the passion that brought them back right now. How do I take that passion and get him to have it? He knows my life and sees my passion for cycling and for my faith and for my profession and for my wife but they are things that reside in some other world for him. He's come and watched me race and seen me push through broken bones. He's eaten in my home and listened to me talk about our God for more than two years and he is still just a passenger. I can see him standing there on the other side of some great divide with a quizzical look on his face wondering what's going on across the divide. He see it and wonders about it and had no comprehension of it beyond a vague understanding that there's something missing in his life. I wish I could teach this guy and others to stop sleepwalking through their lives and to live passionately; to take the risk of losing something in order to gain so much more.

I'd like to work this into my first day class introduction but I don't know how a group of postmodern, cynical students will respond. In a way, I don't care. I have to be authentic to who I am and to what I believe. But I wonder if this world and this culture has taught them to be dismissive of such passion because they've been hurt too many times in the past by those who were supposed to care and then abandoned them or left them by the side of the road on their way to somewhere else. On the other hand maybe they need to see passion realized in a way that is positive and affirming, loyal and sacrificial. I've always thought it is interesting that we call Christ's final days in Jerusalem His passion. His passion for His children led Him to the Cross and with it He redeemed the world. Too often I think I shy away from showing my passion because I don't want to go to the Cross myself. I don't want to die to my own needs so that I can live in such a way that my passion burns away the dross of the world around me. I struggle because I'm afraid of the hurt and rejection I might feel when really I need to live passionately with, in and for my God because He wants to live passionately with, in and for me. He will not reject my passion; even though my students might. He will understand it even when they don't.

Anyways, I've rambled on enough. Floyd was awesome and I'm inspired by him. I hope he wins tomorrow. For the first time I'm not being the mathematician, as they say in Europe, and trying to figure the odds of who's going to win tomorrow. I want Floyd to win. I want him to put a Lance-style beat down on the other guys. I want to see him step up to that podium tomorrow in the Yellow Jersey and show the world that passion is stronger than failure and disappointment and broken hips and all the rest. I want a picture of his fierceness to hang in my office and over my bike to remind me that I only get one shot at doing this.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Today I find myself cranky and out of sorts. Much of this can be traced to a lack of sleep and a too ambitious training schedule. I'd like to blame it on a variety of stupid things I find in the world around me but, to be honest, those things are always there. They're just annoying me a lot more today. Still, that isn't going to stop me from a bit of ranting:

(1) The Middle East. We only care about the Middle East for two reasons: oil and Israel. We are responsible for the spot of bother we find in both right now. If we didn't buy the crap Syria and Iran suck out of the ground, Hezbollah would be a bunch of camel traders trying to fight a war with swords and Soviet era AK-47's. Instead, the Western world buys too much oil from corrupt regimes who then use it to buy advanced military hardware for their favorite extremists to hassle the very people who buy their oil with. The sooner we park our SUV's, turn down the AC/heating and decide to live lives that don't demand drive-thru crap food that's only vaguely distinguishable from the above mentioned sludge at 2 am, the sooner we can put these terror groups out of business. Terror is funded with oil. Turn off the faucet and the oil revenues dry up and the camel traders go back to killing each other over their wives. Rather than trying to control their culture to ensure our supply of oil, why don't we change our culture so that we can eliminate our need for them. George Bush may be a "Democracy Evangelist" but I think the better approach is to stop funding the despots with our desire for cheap, polluting energy. Listen to me, I sound like some sort of tree-hugger. I'm not as much as all that; I just hate that we may get dragged into a stupid mess because of our addiction to Detroit's need to make mioney by selling huge slabs of stupid metal.

(2) African-American Moms. Did my "They're Not in College Anymore" talk to the parents today. There were about five big African-American ladies who wanted to know how to get to look at their kids grades and harrass faculty members. Here I am teaching college skills classes and I don't see a single black kid and then I have to listen to "helicopter parents" try to figure out how to bully their kids into success. HELLO!!!! I can't tell you the number of times I've seen these young African-American men who come here and who don't give a damn about their education but are here because Big Momma has pushed them into it and who then yells at them for not doing well. The whole thing is a cultural and sociological disaster. I'm even more frustrated by my seeming inability to communicate with the culture in any meaningful way. I don't know what I'm missing but I know that I am missing something really fundamental to how all this works. How do I explain that if Jr. doesn't have a real work ethic by now, calling and getting his grades and abusing him over them isn't going to cause him to develop them? How do I explain that if he decides that there's more value in playing hoops, getting stoned or chasing girls for easy sex it's because there's been a real breakdown in how the parents see the way the world works? There's got to be a better way.

(3)The Weather: When did the cooling mechanism break? I got up this morning at 6 am to 75 gegree temps at 100% relative humidity and it's just gotten worse. I rode early a few days back and had sweat pouring down my face while traveling at 20 mph with a medium level heart rate. I made the mistake of riding outside in the heat again and my legs were toast yesterday. I should have known summer was going to be bad when winter was so mild. I'm sick of riding inside but there aren't any other options right now.

(4) The Tour. I'm just sick for Floyd who lost nine minutes today. I'm guessing (ok, more than guessing giving Martin Dugard's blog comments from Floyd's press conference) that Floyd has gotten the respitory infection that's been going around and that forced Boonen to abandon. I don't know if Floyd will abandon now but I won't be too surprised given the hip situation. The unpredictable nature of this Tour continues and I'm worried about what it says when the two top riders are Spanish. Will there be more doping charges? Will Fuentes come out and reveal who he's treated that's still riding in the peleton (a claim he's already made) and we'll end up with a result like last year's Vuelta where the winner is named after the race because of a failed drug test of drug allegations? I hope not. I like Sastre a lot. I've liked him for a long time (since 2002) and have wanted to see him do well. Carlos, I know you're not reading this but just in case, if you're a doper, please drop out of the Tour right now and admit it. Do it for us, your fans. Pereiro, the same goes for you too. If you were involved in the doping ring with the Hamilton version of Phonak and have continued your involvement in the dark side of the sport, give it up. Don't drag down the Yellow Jersey.

OK, that's enough for now. I have to go and try and get students a schedule for Fall semester. We've got 250 of them and no College Algebra or Quantitative Skills courses. This should be fun. Lots of fun. Climbing the Galibier with cement water bottles fun.

I need a nap...and milk and cookies...and a foot massage...and a vacation a long ways away from Barnesville...and a million dollars (tax free, of course)...and other things I can't mention...

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Saturday, July 15, 2006

I've been working on the trial run of my "Student Skills Seminars" for Fall semester. I'm teaching an extended set of the seminars for our community ed department this month to get a sense of how the classes will be received, to iron out the kinks and to figure out pacing for the hopefully bigger crowds out of the residence halls in the Fall. A couple of notes have occured to me:

(1) My first session was basically made up of white females; about half of which cam eof their own accord and the other half being coerced by their parents in some fashion. The group that needs these the most, at least according to our internal statistics, are the black males. I'm hoping the Note Taking session has a more diverse population but we'll see.

(2) Most high school students really don't understand anything about the college model of education. The looks on the faces of the students when I laid out the ratrionale for the 3 to 1 rule was really interesting. The Algebra II/College Algebra illustration I used really opened their eyes. As did my comments about college assessment and the fact that teachers generally don't suffer serious consequences when a student in their class fails. You could see that the mental calculus of how to succeed really had to be refigured.

(3) All of this stuff seems so obvious to me now, but looking back on my freshman experience I wish someone had told me all about this stuff before I got to school. The biggest thing is to move from a passive learning, "I'm not really all that responsible" mind-set to an active learning, "I'm responsible for doing well" paradigm.

(4) I wish I had a residential week type of experience for his. There's so much info to get to them in a ten hour format. The Geek hooked me up with some really interesting college success materials and I'm only going to touch on about a third of that material; almost all of it focused on techniques and habits for success and almost none of it on personal exploration and understanding. I could easily do ten hours on that alone. Hopefully, I can expand this next year through our community ed division and do some sort of week-long experience involving the residence halls and community building exercises. There's just so much to teach that can help students to be successful. What I wonder is whether the people taking advantage of it are students that most likely would have been successful anyways and all I'm doing is smoothing the transition for them. That's not a bad thing, but I'd hoped to have a bigger impact.

In other news; at the Tour the predicted break happened though I did get the wrong names. Voigt got his stage win and Pereiro is in Yellow as Landis decided to let the jersey go for now. In all likelihood, Pereiro is going to pay for his efforts out front tomorrow and may lose some time on the run into Gap. There are two catagory 2 climbs in the last half of the race and I think Pereiro's legs will be toast b the second one and he'll go off the back. In the past, I wouldn't have said that because I think the in race recovery "techniques" (i.e.-use of testosterone patches, human growth hormone and tiny amounts of EPO) would have allowed him to maintain his form on a medium hard stage. I think the biggest effect of the Feuntes bust in Operation Puerto is that the supplier for the Spanish part of the peleton is gone and the networks to set up those sorts of programs aren't rebuilt overnight. If he loses a minute-thirty Landis is back in Yellow assuming a break doesn't overtake the mark.

It was interesting the Discovery didn't put a man in the break but Hincapie and Popo were likely fried from their efforts yesterday and Azevedo is now their GC guy (if they actually have one). I still think Ruberia's sick as well so they took it easy today. I think tomorrow's going to have another break and it won't be allowed to run as far because the stage is too tough for many of the guys that are a long ways behind and the one's who aren't might be a little too dangerous. Normally I would say that this is a good stage for a guy like Flecha but he may be riding for Menchov now so thye may want to keep him fresh for the stages in the Alps. I could see this being a stage for a good all-arounder like Hincapie, Egoi Martinez, Moncoutie, Astarloza, O'Grady, Vandevelde or Casar. There are others that this stage would be perfect for but they're riding for their team leaders with GC hopes. I think if any of the sprinters get into a break, it'll get chased down pretty quickly at this point as McEwen seems to be nervous about his lead in the Green Jersey race. Simoni, Cunego and the like will likely wait for the higher mountain stages to try to get a win but this stage might work well for a decent climber who can sprint and who doesn't threaten De La Feunte in the KoM competition. I like Hincapie and Cunego for this stage but we'll see if they get into the right break.

For me for the rest of today: the rollers and a long nap.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Friday, July 14, 2006

This happens when I watch the Tour. I see a stage like today's and I get inspired. Someone does something remarkable on a day that border's on inhuman nad I run out and jump on my bike and decide to do the same sort of thing. It usually builds slowly as I see things that challenge my imagination as an athlete. Today at the Tour it was hot. I mean scorching. It was 92 degrees at the finish ambient air temperature and 115 on the road and Popovitch gets into a break and powers it to a four minute advantage. He refurses to give in and bends an exhausted peleton to his will. The bunch was fried from chasing George Hincapie everytime he got into a break; which was just abobut every break. When George finally wore out, Popo went with Freire and two others and the break stuck for reasons so bizarre as to be perfectly Touresque: McEwen attacked to try and chase down Freire during a piss break and made the rest of the peleton mad so they decided not to work with his team. Popo attacked four times in the last ten kilometers before he finally broke his fellow escapees and rode to victory on the day after the the post-Discovery era officially began at the Tour.

So, I decided to ride from here to Macon today. The air temperature here was 96 degrees and I was going to hammer out 60 miles. Not exactly the 130 miles the Tour riders did but it was just me and not me and 162 of my buddies. I rode strong for 40 miles at 22 mph and then I felt the distinctly peculiar cooking sensation of my legs frying out and poof it was gone. I cut my ride short by 10 miles and limped in after having been on the road for two hours and twenty minutes. It was epic but it was also draining. When we drove around town the temperature there was over 105 degrees whihc meant the road temp/heat index was around 120 degrees. I've been hydrating since 3:00 pm and I still feel thirsty. It was a three and half pound ride meaning if I burned the number of Calories I burned on this ride six days a week, I'd lose three and half pounds each week if I ate only 2400 Calories a day. Of course, that doesn't count the water weight I lost.

So, Discovery showed some powerful pride (one of the greatest motivators there is) on a day made for a break. Tomorrow? More of the same I think. There will be another break. For McEwen, the bigger the better. The same is true for Phonak if all the riders are an hour down or so. That means a break will go it it has the right riders so maybe Chris Horner will get a chance tomorrow to do a little something for himself. Others I expect to see would be Carlos De Cruz, Thomas Voeckler, and David Millar might give it another go after his efforts to get in a break today. If Discovery stays aggressive then Hincapie or Rubiera might make the break as well, though I'm thinking Chechu might be sick given his early departure from the front group on the Tourmalet.

We'll see how it goes. Tomorrow's a rest day...thank goodness.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Tomorrow will be epic. Absolutely, completely, mind shatteringly epic. OLN is planning a stunning five hours of live coverage because things are going to be so epic. This is going to be one of those stages Tour historians talk about for years. Five climbs with 63 km (about 50 miles) of climbing that will be twice as steep as your average interstate off-ramp and the finish line is less than two miles from the top of the last one. Add to that the possibility of strong thunderstorms during the stage that will likely change the face of the race entirely and I think we'll find out who came to race tomorrow.

What I don't think we'll really learn is who's going to win. There are no truly dominant riders (yet) at this Tour and I really think we'll see huge swings in the times. Floyd may gain five minutes today only to lose four of it on L'Alp d'Huez. Klodi may crack on the Peyresourde only to crush all comers in the last individual time trial. But, what's going to happen tomorrow?

Gonchar's a goner and he'll likely detatch from the train somewhere on the most storied climb in the Tour, the Tourmalet. T-Mobile's going to struggle to control things tomorrow I think. A lot of commentators are pronouncing the team dominant but I think what we saw was a couple of teams holding their cards close to the vest on a stage that wasn't going to decide much of anything. I see Discovery and CSC making some noise on the early climbs. I might try yanking T-Mobile's chain if I'm Bruyneel just like a lot of teams did him when he was dominating with Lance. I see lots of attacks. I see Floyd sitting behind the T-Mobile train grinning like the cat who got the bird. Or maybe that's grimacing. I'm never sure with Floyd. I see Rasmussen going for the Spotty Jersey. I see Mercado going with him...for a while...but not too long. I see lots of orange shirt. I see lots of drunk, dumbass orange shirts. I see them weeping. I see Iban Mayo and the orange boys wilting on the slopes where the riders in 1910 hissed "Assassins!" at the Tour organizers as they suffered up goat tracks and hiking trials. I see my eyes falling out of my head as I ride the trainer during the stage to the taunting of Chris and Bob again. Steady state hill intervals. I see tired people. I see a guy in white and yellow and green raising his arms. No, I don't see some incarnation of the Green Lantern. I see a big ear and a smile/grimmace. It's good that I see these things now because I won't see them tomorrow. My eyes will be rolling around on the floor being batted around by one of the six stray cats we're trying to find homes for while Bob Roll make fun of my fat, hairy butt and threatens me with a bizzarre combination or sardines, duct tape and Vasoline. That's an ugly thought for 7:30 in the morning.

Arrrggghhhh.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Tonight was supposed to be the night I left for Nationals. I was going to ride the Master's TT and see if I could improve on my performance from two years ago. That was the plan after winning the state championship and then Tundra. But things don't always work out the way you want them to.

I think I really underestimated the mental strain of comng back from the crash. I was able to push through the recovery and train hard to a point but it all fell apart over the last couple of months. The crash at Dauset started the decline and the reinjury at Helen sealed it but what really got to me was that I wanted to come back too much. I trained too much last October when I should have rested after winning at state and I left up after winning at Tundra and gained too much weight back. Mostly, I got tired of chasing the same old goals day after day after day with little change in my routine and no coaching input outside of myself. As I got tired there was no one there to keep me charged up.

So tonight I sit here at home and I'm thinking about next year and what that might entail. I need to make sure I take my three weeks to a month off in October and not rush back to ride a fast century in November. I need to spin and spin and spin through November and December and not worry too much about glass trophies in the cruelest of months. I need to practice my handling and upgrade some equipment and remember my love for riding.

One thing I should add though; I'm alive. A year ago that was centimeters from not being the case. That I can still pedal a bike or eat solid food or remember the alphabet or breath is all very miraculous to me and I can't begin to express how thankful I am to be able to wake up each morning with my wife and pet me dogs and think about where I might decide to ride that day. I was reading that a high school teacher was killed out west recently while riding. He'd been riding and racing hard and had had an accident a few months back and decided to hang up his cleats. He wanted to go to Nationals once to have that experience. He was hit on July 1st and died over the weekend. That nearly happened to me but for some reason didn't. My prayers go out to the family of Pat Courant and to his students and friends and fellow cyclists.

I rode outside for the first time in a week today after a bevy of trainer rides. It felt really, really good to get out there. I cooked my legs a bit with 55 miles in the Sun but it was good to ride without a lot of pressure to prepare for a race. I was good to suffer not to get better but just to enjoy the sensation. For the next day or so I'm busy but I'll ride a long one on Wednesday and really drink it in. I'll do a epic out at Dauset or somewhere this week and just enjoy the flow of everything.

The Tour resumes tomorrow after the rest day. I write a bit more about Floyd and how he's tougher than any human being alive. The stage is a really, really, really flat one into Bordeaux where the sprinters always reign. I see that no break tomorrow will make it to the end as it's the last day for the sprinters to shine. I see Credit Agricole and Lampre and Rabobank holding it together for their sprinters. I see the World Champion sitting in as he recovers from the disappointment of a half a dozen frustrated sprints. I see McEwen being unstoppable again.

McEwen
Freire
Hushovd
Bennati
Eisel

Talk with you tomorrow.

The Physicist   Link Me    |

Saturday, July 08, 2006

So, you shouldn't really trust my predictions too much on the Tour. Sure I had some of the names but, wow, was I wrong about a lot of it. Not a great day for American cycling in the Tour and a pretty bad day for the Discovery Team. George and Salvodelli both lost over 2 minutes on Honchar and while he won't be a real big factor in the high mountians, the loss of over a minute to Landis, Evans and Kloden can't be overestimated.

Julich crashed out as well so Sastre is definitely the team leader. Even Zabriskie did badly (for him). The biggest disappointment has got to be Leipheimer who saw his chances of stepping up on the podium and even finishing in the top five disappear today. The questionis whether it's a bad day or if he's cooked for the Tour by going too hard in the Dauphine. We'll see in a couple of days on stage ten. If he can come back, maybe he'll try to shoot for the KOM jersey or maybe a stage win since he'll be allowed to go in a break at this point. Both the team leaders for Gerolsteiner did poorly with the youngsters Lang and Fothen now seeming like the team leaders.

Honchar was on form for sure and Rogers looked good too and both should do excellent work for T-Mobile's leader Andreas Kloden. Won't it be ironic if T-Mobile finally wins again and does it without Ullrich. If you take out the TT specialists and youngsters (who aren't likely to hold up over an entire three week effort and will have a really bad day or two in the mountians), here's what the overall looks like:

Landis
Kloden 50"
Karpets 52"
Evans 52"
Menchov 1'00"
Moreau 1'07"
Salvodelli 1'10"
Lang 1'22"
Sastre 1'27"
Hincapie 1'30"

Floyd is likley to be frustrated by his two flats on the ride which may have cost him between 30 and 45 seconds but I don't think he would have beat Honchar in today's stage. The interesting thing is while there was no Lance-like beating of the big contenders, Floyd did open up a gap on the rest of the pack; all of whom are within 40 seconds of each other. Kloden's got the best team but is he back to his 2004 form ? Even if he's not, T-Mobile's got a lot of cards to play. It looks like they did bring the best team to support Ullrich. The down side is that they've only got seven guys and a lot of those were selected to ride a strong tempo. Other than Guerini, I don't see many of them being able to stay with Kloden over the Soudet on Wednesday. If I'm Bruyneel, I use my line up of better climbers to push the pace there and see if I can isolate Kloden, Menchov and Sastre.

Tomorrow's back to the sprinters but none of them are fighting for yellow. Maybe the Quick-Step team will be able to set Boonen up a little better now that they don't have to protect the jersey. Of course, now that the overall's a bit more settled there may be a break of guys way down on the overall allowed to get up the road. McEwen's team would definitely like that though Credit Agricole and Lampre would have a real interest in bringing it back together for their sprinters Hushovd and Bennati. Voigt took it really easy today as did Rabobank's Weening and Disco's Noval. there's a Cat 3 climb 75 km into the stage so Pineau and/or Wegmann might try to get into the break as well. The thing about breaks though is that it's a crap shoot in a way. If you jump with the wrong guys, your break attempt gets pulled back. If you jump too often, you cook your legs or are on the limit and can't get go when the right break goes (I have some personal experience with this).

On the other hand, the way this Tour is going, any one of the favorites could crash and be out tomorrow or just end up behind a split between 5 and 10 km to go and lose a minute. This is the Tour. The other thing we may see that hasn't been seen in years is riders gaining and losing lots of time on various stages. That used to be how things went in the days before in-ear radios and in-car TVs and on-bike GPS chips. A lot of commentators have been disparaging about these trends because they say that it takes all of the tactics out of the race. That may be true to a degree but it's been a long time that we've had a race as wide open as this one and we may see it become a lot more dependent on the ups and downs of the riders. That having been said, T-Mobile is in a really good place right now.

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(Sing it to yourself to the tune of Tom Petty's Free Fallin')

This is my favorite discipline in cycling; the long time trial. I dig the high zoot equipment, the aerodynamics and the suffering. Most of all, I dig the purity of it. One man, against the clock, all alone, no place to hide, no tactics. Just pure strength and sheer willpower. So who's going to win today? Hmmm...

Landis
Zabriskie
Rodgers
Hincapie
Evans

Levi will finish in the top ten somewhere as will Lang, Gonchar and Salvodelli.

Landis will be in the yellow jersey at the end of the day and there will be three Americans in the top five. Doscovery may just end up with three guys int he top ten depending on how well Popo rides this thing. The Ace should close too. IT's going to be a nightmare come stage ten for the other teams.

I can't wait to watch the OLN coverage while I ride th trainer this afternoon.

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Friday, July 07, 2006

Oscar finally got the win he's been trying for with a cheeky move on a gap to the right and Boonen's still looking for his stage win. Egoi Martinez went from Discovery hero to goat when he crashed inside 20 km to go and lost over a minute on the main fiels to plummet to 89th in the race. He'll still be an attacking rider but not one anyone really has to worry about. Bennati was involved in a crash as well and so he's now in the second tier of riders along with Hushovd and Zabel for the Green Jersey. Right now it's a three man race between McEwen, Boonen and Freire.

Today is another sprint stage with one climb and a lot of crosswinds. If the field were driving hard I wsould expect some splits to show up but I think that it'll all stay together. All the usual suspects will be there for the finish and it's hard to say who will pull off the victory. I think McEwen is the strongest in the race, but his leadout train needs work right now. Boonen's sprint was a lot better yesterday but still not at the top end. The good thing for him right now is that his lead in the race is up to 13" so even if he finishes outside the top three he should hold onto yellow for one more day.

So predictions?

Boonen
Hushovd
McEwen
Freire
Bennati

As usual, Zabel, Eisel, Paolini and Kopp should all be around somewhere. Who knows, maybe even Jimmy Casper will resurface if the sprint is really chaotic again. I don't know about you all, but I'm ready for the sprint stages to be done. I miss the team time trial which would have happened either on stage 4 or 5 in year's past. It broke the monotony of the first week up and was a beautiful event to watch. Oh well, we get the first big test tomorrow and we'll have a better sense of everyone's condition. The big question to be answered for me will be whether Levi's managed to ride himself back into better form over this first week.

Off to the races then.

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Wednesday, July 05, 2006

We got back to the disorganization again today. The long uphill finish suited McEwen (if I had only known) and he had a leadout guy and no one else really did. Julian Dean might have helped Hushovd but he fell down and Hushovd didn't practice safe sprinting (at least that's the story but the official standings haven't been changed at the Tour's website) so he's pretty much out of the Green Jersey chase and Robbie "The Pocket Rocket" has a pretty healthy lead. T-Bone Boonen can't seem to get the sprints right or when he does the baleful eye of the Tour glances at hime and his tire goes flat. He needs a win and soon or his morale willl start to really suffer and the breakdown will take place. He's got another chance tomorrow and the day after that and then tour's a week over and we have the long time trial. I wonder if it will require any more leaders.

Bruyneel showed his craftiness today with Martinez. He's got three riders in the top ten and two more that might be a threat. Every rider went back for bottles today so no one knows who's the leader or who feels strong or who's going in the break. At some point, like I've said before, Phonak and Gerolsteiner are going to have their hands full. If I'm Bruynell, I'm sitting around the dinner table with a smug little Belgian Mafia smile thinking of how I'm going to tear the teams who are a little thin apart with fake attack after fake attack. Sooner or later each Disco potential leader's going to make a break and pick up a few seconds. Which one do you chase if you're Landis or Levi? I'm guessing we'll see Azevedo in a break in the next couple of days. It may not go far but the sprinter's teams won't chase it down. They won't care if a Disco guy picks up 10 or 12 seconds in bonus sprint time. In fact, if he gets in a big enough break that works for McEwen because he soaks up the bonus points. So someone else has to chase and I'm guessing it's not going to be CSC. Or maybe it'll be Popo. Or both. Bruynell's got five or six guys he can play this game with and the other teams don't.

For tomorrow there will be another sprint and all the usual suspects will be involved. We move to the west coast of France and I don't expect there to be too much uphill so the pure power guys should do well. That may level (no pun intended) the field and allow the World Champion his best chance to pull off a sprint. Still, McEwen was so powerful today that's it's hard to bet against him. So...

McEwen
Hushovd
Boonen
Freire
Bennati

Zabel won't be there. He needs something more than a flat finish at this point. He's lost the snap he used to have but I expect he's a strong man now. Maybe he'll be able to show himself on the longest stage of the Tour but this may be his last chance to ride the great race. Eisel will be hanging around the top ten (much like Zabel) and Casper might do well also but things are basically about the big three plus Bennati if he doesn't end up in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Until then...

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The Tour is a cruel mistress. Valverde's out due to a crash and I guess this counts as the favorite that the race has claimed as its own this year. It's a shame but not unexpected. It's one thing to finish the Giro or the Vuelta but the Tour is more. In all ways. More speed, more pressure, more fans, more crashes, more risks, more... Valverde got tired on a long, hot, hilly stage and lost his concentration in a bad moment and it was over. He'll learn and train and return probably to win one year but for this year he is the sacrifice to the race that requires the pain and suffering of the men who would dare to claim the glory of finishing this inhuman endeavor of riding that hard for so many days. Not just the race but all the training and other races that leave their indelible marks in the mind of the combatant. Others lost include Erik Dekker who would have wanted to ride his last Tour to Paris and Freddy Rodriguez. Stuart O'Grady, Sandy Casar and Chris Horner were also injured. O'Grady has fractured a vertebra in his back and will try to start anyways. Whether he finsihed or rides the next day will be seen but as he said in an OLN interview, "it's my back and I only have one of those, so we'll see..." Stuey's finished more Tours than most and the repeated trips to the well of exhaustion have hardened him.

Speaking of suffering, I'm about to make my offering to the cycling goddess who demands nothing less than the twisted faces and screaming muscles of her worshippers. Today I'll "Stay at Home, Ride the Tour". I was supposed to do it yesterday but it was time for a recovery ride after three days of hard efforts so today I will go to the mountain and offer my sacrifice. Chris Carmichael will be the high priest of pain and I expect he'll have no mercy as he drives me beyond myself. I will seek succor in the words of Bob Roll and he will laugh manically at my pleas and explain to me that true cyclist lives on creosote and bourbon and the bitterness of being dropped by those stronger than you. He will mock my pain and remind me of the pain of those who ride from Belgium back into France today with broken fingers and vertebrea. And I will hang my head in shame for my weakness and push through the last hill sprint interval even though I will want to puke and pass out. then the goddess will have mercy and the beauty of my own endorphins will carry me to the promised land of a morphine-like euphoria.

Speaking of those riding today, it will end up as a sprinter's stage again. Sonner or later the World Champion will have to catch a little luck. The finish today will be contested by the same names we've been talking about with an addition that no one had mentioned until looking at the points standings from yesterday: Daniele Bennati. He lies sixth overall and second in the points. If the Tour has penalized and exacted it's price from the others, she has lifted up this Italian to the place next tot the World Champion, the Pocket Rocket and the Thunder God. With top fives in all three road stages, Bennati has to be considered to win sonner or later. I predict that the World Champion will finally put it all together today inspired by the Yellow Jersey and the adulation of all Belgium.

Boonen
McEwen
Hushovd
Bennati
Freire

On an unrelated note, I got a chance to hear a group called the Wailin Jennys in a braodcast of Prairie Home Companion. Wow! Three beautiful female voices singing beautiful folk melodies. Check it out. Really. You won't regret it. The harmonies are perfect enough to raise goosebumps and make grown men weep.

Now to the suffering and the pain and the purity of a soul purged clean in the crucible of lactic acid.

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Monday, July 03, 2006

It looks like normalcy has returned to the Tour and I actually had two in the top three including numbers one and two in terms of my predictions. I didn't expect Hushovd to be back to any kind of form but he was in there for all the sprints. You could tell that he was hurting after the sprints and on the podium when he took yellow but he gutted it out. De La Fuente was a warrior as well and will wear the Spotty Jersey for his suffering. I like that.

Tomorrow will be a bit harder than today. Sort of like Leige-Bastogne-Leige or Amstel Gold but not quite as hard. The Tour has decided to honor the Classics the last couple of days and including bits of them in their race. It won't be raced as hard as a one-day classic as well since these guys have another 18 stages to go after this one but it'll be raced hard and I don't expect the sprinters will be there right at the end going over the line at the top of the Cauberg. This stage is for the one-day hard men of the peleton. There's going to be a break again. The question is will it stick or will this play out according to a standard one-day classics script with an early break that gets gobbled up and then a race of attrition over the unrelentless series of climbs? My best guess is that since no one really wants to completely destroy their legs there will be an early break, it'll get gobbled up, there will be a race of mini-attrition with a huge attack on the last hill or the next to last hill by a guy like Boogerd or Bettini. The favorites will all stay close and watch each other and the sprinters will wait until a better day to cross swords again.

By the way, did you see Popo shepherding George up the climbs near the front today? Excellent work was done.

So, the finish....hmmm....the list of guys I like include Boogerd, Dekker, Flecha, Guerini, Voigt, O'Grady, Aerts, Valverde, Moncoutie and maybe Voekler. I really don't think anyone's really going to let Valverde get away but he may steal a victory anyway. If Boonen or Zabel get over with the group they'll take the sprint but I really don't see that happening...well, maybe Zabel. Hmmmm...OK...I'll take Dekker and Voigt in the break that gets caught and then

Boogerd
O'Grady
Valverde

but with a stage like this it's a crap shoot I think. I wish Discovery would put a guy out there. I wonder if Johan has decided to revert to the old tactics until things get sorted out a bit on stages 7 and 10. Still, watching Popo ride for George tells me that the young Ukranian is riding in a strong support role/superdomestique for this year.

We'll see tomorrow.

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I thought I'd post on something different this morning. I've been back on the bike for the last couple of days. I've done a couple of hours each day since Saturday and that's been good. I've been trying to do the CTS "Do the Tour, Stay at Home" series which meant I did a TT prologue on Saturday. It was a ten minute all out effort and I did suffer. I haven't felt like puking in a while and I did for about the last two minutes of the effort. The sad thing was that my heart rate was only 172/173. I guess two weeks off really does take something out of your legs. Imagine that. Sunday was a more relaxed base miles ride with a set of high cadence intervals and one legged pedaling sets. My legs definitely felt the effort from the previous day but I got through things. Today I'd like to do some TT bike work I think as well as whatever CTS has me do. Of course, the CTS website seems to be down struggling so I might have to make it up for today.

The temps here in Georgia have turned scorching yet again. We'll be over 100 again today in terms of heat index. We may even hit that temp on the pavement or more. Makes for rather yucky afternoons. I think I may take the opportunity for a long nap. The nice thing about teaching an online course is that I have a lot of flexibility with my schedule. I have a bunch of work to do for that course as well as another that'll start in a week but it's mostly prep stuff and grading. The thing that's hard about teaching online to freshmen and sophomores is that they just seem to be incapable of doing the math about the amount of time they need to spent. Normally, my ASTR1020 course would meet for 20 hours per week during a summer session and then there'd be the time to spend on homework and preparation. Because we don't meet, the students think that all they have to do is put in the homework time. A lot of them were confused about a somewhat difficult concept, spectra, but part of their confusion is that they didn't put in enough time. Part of the problem is that most of them have absolutely no idea on how to actually teach themselves anything. Maybe that's the most important thing we teach in the first two years.

Well, I need to get on the bike and on with the day. More tonight after stage 2 is over. A break got away but it didn't contain any of the guys I expected. Go figure.

By the way, OLN did a top ten signs you've got "Tour Fever". I had about 6. More disturbingly, they don't change when the Tour isn't on. My favorite: you're legs are smoother than Uncle Fester's head. I guess I should go see my health care professional. Of course, he'd just tell me to stop breaking things.

Thanks for reading.

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Sunday, July 02, 2006

Well gosh. If there were any questions that this Tour was going to be a little weird, today's stage should have put them to rest. A couple of observations:

(1) With the two big favorites gone and Lance retired, none of the high powered teams has an interest in controlling the race. This was pretty obvious not just in the final sprint but all the way through the race. George's sprint for the two second bonus shows that. If CSC had been working for Basso or T-Mobile for Ullrich I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have leet a possible GC rival get a couple of seconds. Phonak and Gerolsteiner weren't paying attention because they hadn't planned to have to. If George is clever, he'll be able to do that a couple of more times I think. If Floyd, Levi or Valverde don't want him to sneak away with a bunch of little time bonuses they're teams are going to have to be a lot more attentive and so are their team directors.

(2) Robbie McEwen made a statement today. He missed the sprint by a whisker much to the surprise of Jimmy Casper who stole a stage victory from the big names. Still Robbie was there at the end and Boonen and Freire weren't. Zabel showed that he's still a class act but if McEwen had had 10 more meters he would have gotten the win. Casper's wearing the Green Jersey for the day but I expect Robbie will be happy to take that away from him tomorrow. Maybe the Yellow Jersey from George as well.

(3) The Tour organizers are going to have to stop handing out those green PMU hands. This is the second time someone's been injured (it happen once back int he 2001 Tour). Sources say that Hushovd should be back tomorrow but it'll take his body a couple of days to recover I'm guessing. And can someone please buy a leadout? What a mess the sprint was!

So, tomorrow's got a few climbs at the beginning and a few smaller one's at the end. I expect the first real moves in the King of the Mountains competition will happen. When DiLuca drifted off the back today I was thinking that he was deliberately losing time so that the contenders might let him go but word is that he's been taking antibiotics for some sort of prostate thing and he couldn't hold the pace at the end. So I don't see him challenging Rasmussen now but Wegmann just might. Bettini might try to get a break together and grab some points since the stage sort of suits him. Since the stage looks like something from the Ardennes classics I expect a couple of guys to do well who do well there. Boogerd and Dekker are names that come up in my mind. I also see a Disco move here again. Maybe Martinez in the break or Popo. I also definitely see Stuart O'Grady or Jens Voigt trying to jump into something. But I also see Robbie McEwen and Tom Boonen wanting to redeem themselves after today's failure to launch.

So it's another break that has a bit more sticking power than the sorry six plus one from today who couldn't hold off the disorganized peloton. I see Wegmann, a CSC strongman, Martinez and Bettini all battling it out for the two Cat 3 climb points and then the long slog across the undulating landscape of Luxemborg. The break should get caught before the pair of Cat 4 climbs in the last 20 kilometers but given the disorganization and the lethargy that the peloton seems to be suffering from due to the expulsions I wouldn't bet a huge sum of money on that. Still, I'll call for a catch with about 10 km to go and then a win by McEwen. Wegmann will likely increase his lead in the KoM competition and if O'Grady's in the break he'll get most of the sprints and maybe the Yellow Jersey if McEwen blows the sprint again.

Final Order?

McEwen
Boonen
Zabel

But I'm really not sure. If the Dauphine and the Tour de Suisse were any indication, maybe the breaks will have a lot better chance this year than they've had over the last couple when Postal/Discovery sort of made sure everything stayed in hand.

We'll see.

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Saturday, July 01, 2006

The 2006 Tour is now underway with what was a pretty interesting prologue. While it's really too early to say who's really good and who's not, we got an indication of a few things in terms of form. First, if Thor Hushovd is really that strong I think his chances are pretty good in the green jersey competition, especially on the stages through the Ardennes. The same can also be said for Stuart O'Grady who is now free to ride more for himself not that Basso's gone. In fact, I expect that Riis may shift the team's goals pretty radically and may do a lot to help O'Grady go for the coveted Maillot Vert. The interesting thing is that the CSC team has a lot of the same riders the Credit Argicole team had back in 2001 when O'Grady held the Yellow Jersey for several days and had the Green Jersey until the last day. Given that the team was built to support one rider, O'Grady may do that little bit better this year.

Hincapie showed that his form is good for the time trials and Zabriskie did well too, though one has to wonder whether the Basso ejection affected his performance just a bit or if it was the fairly technical nature of the course. My other picks didn't do as well but that's how it goes. I was surprised to see Horner do almost as well as Evans which bodes well for the Davitimon-Lotto team once the road goes up. The other big surprise was Valverde who really laid down a good prologue. While it remains to be seen whether he can do a similar effort on the much longer stage 7 TT, he has sent a signal that he's at the Tour to ride. The big question in my mind remains what's going to happen to his body in the final week?

Landis did really well given his tire problems. I guess his position issues have been worked out to a pretty big extent. It was interesting to hear his coach say that they played it a bit safe in choosing lines through the course. For the Disco boys, Salvodelli did a good ride as well which is going to give them a couple of cards to play down the line. I think a lot of teams have got to be a bit nervous right now with Discovery having two riders in the top ten and six in the top fifty. If Discovery decides to go on the attack with Egoi Martinez or Jose Azevedo or Popovitch or even Salvoldelli or Hincapie, a lot of teams are going to have to chase. I wonder of Discovery team manager Johan Brunyeel will play with some of the other teams to see what they're willing to commit. I like Martinez as the attacking spoiler here in the early stages. Stages 2 and 3 look [erfect for some sort of aggressive strategy.

Tomorrow is a perfect sprinter's stage. Looking at the prologue finishes, one has to think that Hushovd and Boonen are really strong but one has to remember that McEwen is super explosive over the last 200 yards as is Oscar Freire. Robbie also has American sprinter Freddy Rodriguez to lead him out. It'll also be interesting to see how CSC's tactics have changed. Finally, there's Erik Zabel who is getting a bit long in the tooth but who can still contend. So here's my predicted order:

Boonen
McEwen
Freire
Hushovd
Zabel
Casar

After the Ardennes stages, I expect Freire to put in a big challenge and the flatter stages that follow.

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Right!

OK, what's done is done and now, On with the Tour. Here in a few minutes the Prologue's going to start and need to make a few predictions. I love the prologue. It's a short time trial that basically means next to nothing but sort of sets off the whole media and fan frenzy for the race. It's a real stage win for one rider and sets the yellow jersey. For the first time in eight years, no rider will go down the starting ramp with the Maillot Jaune on their shoulders. So who do I think will win this thing? In years past there was a lot of incentive to do well in this stage for the teams of the favorites because it went a long ways towards determining start order for a team time trial that would take place a few days later. This year there is no TTT so that's not as big a deal. The favorites will still want to send a message but maybe the teams will let their support riders take it a little easier. Also, if the sprinters can stay close timewise to the winner, they can grab the jersey on time bonus in the stages up through stage 7.

The favorites this morning are the "rhythm kings" as a reporter put it a couple years ago: those who can suffer at an extremely high level for ten minutes while everything in their bodies clicks along together. Breathing, pedaling, cornering, even one's mental rhythms all have to be in sync to do well. So, whose good at this? Well Cancellera and McGee, winners of the last two real prologues in 2003 and 2004 (2005's first stage was too long to be an official time trial), are not at the Tour this year. The short TT winner from last year, David Zabriskie, is at the Tour and has to be the odds on favorite after winning both time trials at the Dauphine this year. Another favorite is Bradley Wiggins, Olympic gold medalist from the 2004 Games. He won a track event known as the 4000 m pursuit which is basically a 4 km prologue on the track. Of course, what happens on the track doesn't always translate to the road and Wiggins has struggled a bit in his first year of road riding. Landis is a good time trialist, but this is a bit short for him and his riding postion isn't really great for technical courses. I tried it and found the bike to be a lot less stable and a lot harder to control in turning. It'll be interesting to see if he uses the postion today. Hincapie is also very good at these distances. Finally, I think that the return of David Millar is very ironic today as he was banned from the sport of two years for using EPO and this is his first race back. So, what's the order?

(1) Zabriskie
(2) Hincapie
(3) Millar
(4) Evans
(5) Karpets

I expect top ten times from Wiggins, Salvodelli and Leipheimer.

With Vino out of the race today, my overall is unchanged expect to move th guys behind him up and add Menchov at the bottom.

More to come.

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