Archive for July, 2004
Wednesday, July 28th, 2004
Cat 4 Glory
So, having covered myself in glory two weeks ago, I decided to ride the Cat 4 race tonight, a one-category upgrade from my previous work. It was okay! Even on the fairly tough course we use, I was not adrift amongst the pack. Instead, I could keep up with it easily, and even made a […]
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Tuesday, July 27th, 2004
Update
This weekend was so hectic I don’t even remember what I did on Saturday. But Sunday was a morning spent rattling around in the back of a Passat, trading bicycle wheels through the side window with a guy on the back of a motorcycle, as we chased some seriously masochistic cyclists through the streets of […]
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Friday, July 23rd, 2004
A Curious Incident at the Tour
Today’s stage was a mostly flat nothing, and a breakaway of GC no-hopers got away early. That’s the kind of thing the GC leaders (Armstrong, Basso, Kloden, Ullrich) want to see, as it makes the stage safe for them (why? The short answer is that the escape can’t do any harm because they can’t gain […]
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Thursday, July 22nd, 2004
There’s Something Wrong Here
Hey, did you notice that the Canadian downhill mountain bike championships just took place? The top ten men were separated by 13 seconds. The winner on the women’s side, however, was Michelle Dumaresq. The gap between her and the next-best woman? 14 seconds and a Y-chromosome. Some caveats: women’s bike fields, and especially downhill racing, […]
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Thursday, July 22nd, 2004
Beginner’s Guide to the Tour, Part 3
It’s all over but the shouting. Lance managed to win yet another stage today (his third in a row, if you’re counting), and has a four-minute lead over Ivan Basso. There’s only one stage left where there’s a reasonable chance for anyone to lose time: Saturday’s ITT. Like the hillclimb on Wednesday, it’s a race […]
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Friday, July 16th, 2004
Beginner’s Guide to the Tour, Part 2b
One more thing: Cycling News has a pretty goodsummary of the Tour route, stage by stage. Oh, me? Wedding on Saturday in Yarrow (in a turkey barn!), and this week I made sour plum preserves and syrup with my mother-in-law, and built up a wheel that needed building.
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Friday, July 16th, 2004
Beginner’s Guide to the Tour, Part 2a
Oh, and Susan at work asked me a question today about how the teams decide who the leader is. I gave her a few answers: the rider has a history of big performances, the rider shows strength early in the tour, et cetera. I also gave her the historical examples of where there were two […]
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Friday, July 16th, 2004
Beginner’s guide to the Tour, Part 2
First of all, let me note something that I was surprised by: Lance went for it today! Today featured a flat start to the stage, but at the end it it two Category 1 (very hard, but not quite the hardest class) climbs right at the end of the stage, ending atop the second mountain. […]
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Monday, July 12th, 2004
It’s All About the Bike
This weekend, I rode a team-issue Cannondale Six13, duly provided to me by the factory, and wearing my team uniform proudly displaying my Cannondale sponsorship. It’s about time my recent achievements were recognized. The bike is sweet. This machine has a listed weight a little shy of 15 pounds (by comparison, my quite nice Pinarello […]
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Thursday, July 8th, 2004
A Beginner’s Guide to the Tour de France
Judging from the questions my friends and co-workers ask me about the Tour, there’s a little confusion about how the Tour de France works as a sporting event, and how Lance is doing. Let me see if I can give you a quick guide to the Tour so far: I heard Lance lost the yellow […]