Rest Day at TDF 2010

Today was the first rest of the Tour de France. It has been a great first 8 stages with a few surprises, a few disappointments, and more than a few crashes. The cobbles of stage three were a real challenge that produced a few time gaps but the real challenges lay ahead on the weekend.
The riders hit the Alps (Lance kind of fell into them) and one by one on Sunday they began to fall off the back of the main group. Cavanel with his second stint in the Yellow Jersey could not keep the tempo set initially by Team Sky, then Saxo Bank and finally Astana. Everyone was in pain and Paul Sherwen was loving it! "Everyone is suffering now!"he announced cheerily.

But really how bad could it be? It's not that bad if you consider riding 143 km before starting to climb a mountain at 9% grade for 14 km then a quick descent before going for another quick 12km climb at the same grade. What's a measly 9% grade. In riding south of Calgary I've found some pretty stiff hills. I have been humbled many a time by the hills...HILLS! I did the old mapmyride.com thing to check the elevation and grade for a ride that Doc and I did a few weeks ago, because I'm sure they were like 10 km at 12% grade that we rocked.... 4% for 800 meters. I'm a Pansy! Paint my bike pink (not cool pink like at the Giro) and call me Francois. These guys are animals! Just look at Daniel Navarro, (not to be confused with Dave Navarro of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction fame). He looks like he's having a great time eating up those mountains! In contrast to Navarro's pain, the riders sitting second and third wheel, Contador and Schleck, are actually looking quite comfortable. Navarro put in a ton of time at the front pulling Contador along farther than I think even Contador expected and giving the Spaniard a chance to win the stage.

Shifting gears, cycling is not an overly popular spectator sport here in North America. Even with the emergence of the Tour of California and Lances emense popularity, there still is not the following one might expect. It is only in the past two years that I have started following cycling in earnest and this is the first year that I watched the Classics, which are truly great one day races (Cancellara is a monster).

With that being said, I am continually surprised at how many of my friends are into road cycling and through the wonder of Facebook I have discovered an old friend who is following the tour. Not only is he following the tour, but he is able to carry on a conversation (such that a FB conversation is, about the stages. Fantastic! In thinking of a moniker to bestow upon him, I thought the Predator would be fitting to his location geographically but then I thought that might conjure up images of a young guy with a handlebar mustache sitting around in a hospital gown watching men in spandex grind their way around Franceand we wouldn't want that. So we'll call him Klink, an homage to camp years gone by.

Now onto stage 9, more mountains and more time gaps. Exciting action all morning long.
Klink, enjoy the stage and heal up quick.