Be Excellent To Each Other

Possibly the dullest stage of the tour, at least in terms of the jerseys. Not too excited by the remaining TT, but the mountain stages should be fun. I bet Froome loses time at lease once more.

Froome was bitching on Twitter about AC having the sheer front to try and overtake him. Froome needn't have been anywhere near AC, he could have not descended like a girl, or hung back and given ADC a few seconds. Whiny little fucker.

yesterday? that final descent was quite exciting..

tomorrow thoug will be judgement day

Mollemania!

Cripes. I knew hGaumond was bad, but not THAT bad!

OK. I did not expaect that to happen.

Superb effort, although Malt Based Recovery Beverages should be at the end. not half way up.

http://www.vitalmtb.com/videos/member/T ... man2058,94

10 years on from the last attempt. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V1YlFQVTBuI

Well. There we go. Froome wins and what a lightshow it was, too. I think I enojyed Sagan doing a no-handed wheelie up the Alpe D'Huez too much. Corsica was wonderful, as was teh racing there. The alst week was incredible. Loved it. Next year it begins in Yorkshire.

10 years today since he died.

I am MR SAD FACE over this, I miss his style.

HOW FUCKING EXCITED AM I? I am making palns about where I/we can watch it from and submitting them for approval. I don't think MrsA understands THE RULES which involve a Kernow flag, red wine, brie and why it is improtant we use the train and not drive. So, that give us Skipton, Ilkley, Burnley in Wharfedale to spectate at. BEsta ccess to Skipton would actually be up the canal but I don't have time for that anymore. Shame Taylor Phinney hurted himself, and a shame that my strava rankings are going to suffer a little, but I put a good marker down. Clever money would see an each way bet on Alejandro Valverde, I reckons. Righty, ho.

We should go to Alpe D'Huez in addition to Le Mans one year.

Otley Races on Wednesday, and THEN THE BIG DAY BEGINS ON SATURDAY! And then again on Sunday. I am taking my flag.

Otley races are super good. They ride around the town centre, so you can stand outside the pub and have a pint and watch international level cyclist fly around. A lap is suitably quick that a) you're alwys watching something and b) if theleaders lap soeone, they are out, so you get to congratulate/commiserate them as they trudge past you. And then you cane at a hodog. HOW EXCITING IS THIS?!

My parents live in the dales close to the Butter Tubs.

They are stuck in their house for almost 2 days as the roads around them are closed for this.

Then there will be another couple of days to get all the thousands of spectators cars out of the Dales

Sure somebody thinks its a bright idea to bring it to Yorkshire, but in the Dales which doesn't need any extra promotion and has A roads at best its not

I'm sick to be missing this, the race goes past my folks front door in Sheffield...Boo I say.

I am missing this, as I had to swap weekends with George so I could BBQ and Wedding...

And no DAvid Millar, now.

Or Dowsett.

Reading Material:

The Death of Marco Pantani - Biography of Marco Pantani who is sorely missed and even though he was a dirty drugs cheat, which disappointed me, he did it with style and panache which made it OK becuase we didn't know at the time.

Racing through the dark A Scottish dirty drugs cheat, which disappointed me, tells his story. I read this in one sitting.

The Secret RaceTyler Hamimilton turned out to be a dirty drugs cheat, which disappinted me, but it wasn't all his fault. A kick in the balls to the UCI's testing regime.

I wonder how 'It's Not About the Bike (It's About the Drugs)' would reread these days.

I saw a copy in the charity shop the other week so I bought it and then dumped it in the bin outside.

"The Secret Race" doesn't paint him in a good light at all, even when you acocunt for any form of animosity.

Otley Races tonight! Star studded Otley races! EXCITE MASSIVE!

Stupid idea to put the women's race on at ten past six, before the kids and the amateurs.

What a podium! Bonus Badger for Cras, eyeing someone up!


.And Armitstead after winning

JUST LIKE THE REAL THING! RICHARD WHITELY WOULD BE AMAZE. HOW GOOD IS THIS I HAVE MADE PLANS AND BACK UP PLANS AND KNOW WHAT I WILL WRITE ON MY FLAG SO PEOPLE ON EUROSPORT CAN READED IT WITH THEIR EYES. AND I AM GOING TO DRAW A BEARD ON MRSA AND CALL HER BRAD TO CONFUSE PEOPLE. LOLZ.

Oh, and I was walking back through Otley yesterday and LA was having her photo taken and then she rolled away towards me and I said well done and she said thank you and i looked at the ground and shuffled my feet. It was a beautiful moment.

THIS IS TOMORROW AND THEN AGAIN THE ENXT DAY AND SO ON FOR A HWILE AND HAVE WE ALL PALCED BETS ON EACH WAY VALVERDE AS THAT'D BE AN INTERESTING IDEA MAYBE.

Quick get up job we made with stuff supplied by affriend.

Awesome!

Bloody hell, I didn't realise they went upside down!

Yeah! Stage two!

So not only missing the Tour de France in Sheffield today (BTW, how do they keep their flat caps on over the cycle helmet?), I now find out that The Selecter played a free gig in the Peace Gardens yesterday...I hate working away from home sometimes.

Yorkshire looks a picture today...making me quite homesick, just going to get worse once they get to Sheffield.

I am looking forwards to the highlights. The end was ace, even though the route made Sheffield look like a dump. My strava times have taken a real kicking today.

How could they make Sheffield look like a dump???

By photographing it.

RIGHT...All of you, outside now.

How dare you, how very much dare you.

In fairness, tehy did run the route past the biggest car reclaimation yard in Europe, past derelict light industrial units and a council estate. it wasn't exactly pretty. I think they imported the podium girls, too.

Stage 3 is a quick Cambridge to London jaunt, should be pretty dull, save for the sprint at the end. GC placing will remain unchanged. 2 seconds is pretty good this early.

Oh, just whilst I think of it, we spent over 4 hours in total waiting about and less than 20 seconds watching bikes go past.

I'm tempted to wander down to the embankment at about 3pm today, but if I need to go earlier than that to be able to see anything, I can't be arsed to wait around...

MSkov was near the film crew apparently. If you see any Rosendale Triathlon tops it is her mob.

The caravan passes thorugh a couple of hours before the race if you like tat lobbed from moving cars by pretty girls. It's worth seeing, deffo, and the crowds should be OKish as it's a Monday I guess.

Caravan about half 1, race around half 3. I could wander down for both I guess, i'm only 15 mins away.

Twice as much excitement as Usian Bolt fans get then.

Unless he's doing the 200m.

Did you get any tat?

Sounds like you had a great time.

Oh wait, maybe he'll run the 200 and the 100, which means 50% more excitement.

Got a King of the MOuntains Carrefour cap.

Tat was nowhere near as good as it was in London when it was last here.

a good time was had, even though we were ovr the road for a pub we couldn't get to and had to watch the Norwegian contingent get superbly plastered. No real photos as I wasn't going to look down a camera lens whilst they shot by. I'll do that in criterium racing, but not stage racing.

219 riders in the TDF though, 14,454%* more excitement




*math geeks, please check.

Well, that wasn't exactly overwhelming!

I caught some tat though...