A Classic...

Some of you may have already seen this little gem, but for those of you who haven't, it's a classic.

5count's Fantasy TdF team...

One of our 5count fantasy teams has won the past two stages of the its fantasy cycling league and as a result has moved into the number two spot on GC (out of ~200 teams).

You can read the blurb that the promoters of the game sent out this morning by clicking here.

If this keeps up, we here at 5count might be looking at actually winning some free schwagg! Stay tuned.

And what's the deal with Eki's HR???

As I was watching stage 4 of the Tour de France yesterday on OLN, I was noticing the heart rate of Discovery rider, Viatcheslav Ekimov. OLN was broadcasting Eki's SRM info during the stage and it was shockingly low compared to others in the field.

While the peloton was in hot pursuit of the break near the end of the stage...strung out...single file...flying down the road, Eki was chillin' with a HR of 108 bpm! 108! My heart rate is 122 while still rolling out of my driveway at 4.5 mph! Other guys were nearing their max HR and Eki, who is like one-hundred and thirty-seven years old, was just loafing along at just over 50% of his max.

Was this correct or did the SRM transmitter have a glitch? If it was correct, I think Eki should've been countering just as Egoi was brought back to the field...with his TT'ing ability and his aparently low HR, he could've easily solo'd to a stage win...right?

P.S. One of 5count's registered fantasy TdF teams just moved up to 4th overall (out of ~200 teams) after finishing 2nd in stage 4! How do you like that Rowdy? (see Rowdy's Mom's comment here)

Cat 4 Danger...

It aint easy being a Cat 4 bike racer. Check out this clip from the Joe Martin Stage Race in Fayetteville, Ark.
...I can so relate to how these guys feel (see: Jacksonville Road Race)

TdF Fireworks

Only two stages into this year's TdF and there has already been fireworks (and I'm not talking about the doping allegations).

• George missed the Mellow Johnny by less than a second in the prologue.
• George sneaks a 2 second time bonus in the final kilometers of stage one making him only the 4th American to wear the Yellow Jersey in the TdF
• Thor Hushovd gets his arm sliced by a fan during the stage one sprint...loses yellow jersey.
• Thor fights for bonus points and regains the overall lead after stage two.
• Robbie McEwan out-sprints all the fast men to take the Maillot Vert in stage two.
• one of 5counts fantasy teams has moved into 8th place overall after stage 2, Rowdy is in 6th overall...but it's a long tour and the sprinters won't be scoring many points when the road tilts upward.
• Jan has gained fifteen pounds during a weiner-schnitzel binge and won't come out of his room claiming, "I'm der Kaiser, you don't mess vit der Kaiser!"

The Results are in...kinda Ironic, huh?

The results from the 5count Tour de France poll are in. The question was, "Who do you think will win the 2006 Tour de France?" Many of you voted, some probably voted many times and now the results are in.

As you can see from the above graph, the majority of you feel as though Ivan Basso (CSC) has the best chance of winning the '06 Tour de France. Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) was also up there as a contender, but a majority of those votes were probably cast by the same family...we won't name names here but their name rhymes with Fruschlegel. The rest of the numbers came out like this: The irony is apparent...almost 2/3 of all the votes cast are for guys who are now suspended from competing in the TdF. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!!!

1 Ivan Basso - 410 votes
2 Jan Ullrich - 370 votes
3 None of these - 160 votes
4 Floyd Landis - 120 votes
5 Alejandro Valverde - 100 votes
6 George Hincapie - 30 votes
7 Alexander Vinokourov - 30 votes
8 Levi Leipheimer - 10 votes

* the number of votes have been multiplied by ten in order to compensate for the embarrassing lack of poll voting

5count's new Podium predictions
1st - Landis
2nd - Valverde
3rd - Popovych
4th - Menchov
5th - Leipheimer
* Hincapie, Cadel Evans, Cunego, Sastre, Simoni and DiLuca could all do something special too?

A New Poll...
Please weigh in on our new poll located in the left column of this site.
Thanks,
5count

Win a Ridley frameset...

You too can ride the same brand of frame that pros like Chris Horner, Robbie McEwan and Cadel Evans ride. The Grand Prize for the overall winner of a new fantasy cycling site is a Ridley Damocles Davitimon-Lotto Frameset.

I know what you're thinking..."I don't have time to follow up on a fantasy cycling team"
But this one is easy. I've done fantasy cycling leagues before, and where as they are fun, they can also be time consuming. This new site only takes about 5 minutes, just log in, create a team name, pick 9 dudes and yer done! Best part is...it's FREE! This league is obviously for the TdF, so you only have 1 more day to sign up.

So sign up and let me know what your team name is...5count will keep tabs on all the teams that are "owned" by 5count viewers and we can see who of us really knows our pro cycling. If there is enough interest and enough people sign up in time...5count will even sponsor a prize for the overall winner.

Editors note: in order to qualify for prize, 5count must recieve an email or a comment post letting us know your team name by July 2nd, 2006

Click here to start your fantasy team for the TdF.

My Deland Race Report...

I havn't really writted any race reports lately so I figure I'd ease myself back into it with a quick little post about last weekends Deland Omnium.

Saturday's Ford Road Race
There had been enough rain to fill all the pot holes with water and bring the humidity level up to about 157%. My race was scheduled for 8 laps of a 7 mile loop. Unfortunately, I would only see about 18 of the 56 mile road race.

For some reason the promoter thought it would be a good idea to cram both the Cat.3 and Cat.4 fields into the same race. So with the "yellow-line rule in effect", it was next to impossible to move up in the field or see anything in the road. On the first trip around the 7-mile course somebody went straight into the biggest pot-hole ever and broke his stem. He didn't go down, but his race was certainly over.

In the laps that followed, the field became pretty nervous as we approached the area that the pot-holes were in...and on the third lap that nervousness resulted in a crash right in the middle of the field. I tried to go around, but others began to go down right in front of me. These crashes always happen so quick and the next thing I know I'm sliding on my head and left shoulder through the palmatto brush that laid next to the road. Luckily for me there was a nice little palm tree that stopped my forward motion. Aside from getting the wind knocked out of me and a collection of little scratches, both myself and my bike would live to race another day.

Sunday's Deland Circut Race
I abstained from the time trial on saturday afternoon. I'd like to say that I was too shaken up from the crash to compete, but while that may have had a little to do with it, I really didn't have much intention of doing the TT in the first place (something about seeing my name last on the result sheet just seemed depressing).

So I ventured back to Deland on Sunday after a restful stay at my folks house in Orlando. The rain was off and on all day which created some slick corners, but fortunately the rain stayed mostly off during our Cat.4 race. I uncharacteristically covered a couple of early breaks at the urging of my teamate which made me feel like a team-player, albeit a tired team-player.

Overall I felt good and stayed close to the front. I was able to go where I needed to go and didn't have any problems following attacks. As the race started biulding to it's climactical finish I knew that I wasn't going to have the legs needed to sprint with the favorites, so instead, I launched myself off the front of the field as we crossed the start/finsh line with one lap to go. I knew the 1.2 mile course was going to be too long for me to stay away, but my intention was to be more of a catalyst for a nice fast last lap, thus giving my teamates a smoother finish as opposed to the entire field trying to squeeze through the last wet corner before opening up into a kamakazi-like sprint. Maybe deep down, after saturday's crash, I didn't really want to be in the field for the last wet corner, and blowing myself up before the sprint seemed like a better alternative?

Anyway, I did indeed blow up after only a quarter mile at 30+ mph. Once caught, I dangled just off the back of the field for the remainder of the last lap and rolled through the finish line healthy, happy and in one piece. My team "leader" took a top-ten finish and was happy with the way we rode as a team...so in the end I felt like the race was a success for me.

A Sitcom break...

The following videos are a new pilot called, "Nobody's Watching" produced for the WB by the writers of Scrubs and Family Guy. It's a very different view of the sitcom world and how it's been affected by the reality show generation. Check it out, and remember...if this show takes off, you heard it here first. (unless you saw it on YouTube first.
there are three (3) 9+ minute clips, which together, make one cohesive television show.

Local GCC'er makes the Sun...

For those of you who missed the Gainesville Sun article about Brian Hetz and his two gold medals at the 20th annual National Veterans Golden Age Games in Hampton, Va., here it is.

It's always good to see the local cyclists do good!

photo by: JOSHUA L. HALLEY/Special to The Sun

This is ridiculous!

Look at this freekishly ripped calf muscle. I'm pretty sure this is a body builder and not a cyclist.

It looks like a cartoon character come to life

The Real American "Tour team"...

We all know that the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team is the only American registered Pro Tour team. And as a result, a large majority of American cycling fans view Team Discovery as "their" home team and support them as such.

I admit it, I follow Discovery as much as any team out there, I pay attetion to their results, I know about all their team members and I read the Paceline.com daily. But I'm not sure that Discovery is really the only home team in the Pro Tour.

I think Team CSC offers just as much American representation in European cycling as Discovery, if not more. Yes, CSC is registered as a Danish team and coached by a Danish Director Sportif, but Discovery is coached by a Belgian, not an American (Ed. note: we think Johan Bruyneel is one of the best directors ever). Yes, the Discovery Channel is an American company based in America, but so is CSC (Computer Sciences Corp).

Let's look at the biggest event on the Pro Tour calendar, the Tour De France. The American registered Discovery Team is sending a strong group to contest the overall in France. Of those nine strong riders, only one hails from the good ole US of A. Compare this to the 7 Americans on the 1999 Tour de France squad that saw the then U.S. Postal Service team on the top step of the podium in Paris. CSC has 3 Americans named to their TdF squad this year.

Team CSC
Carlos Sastre - ESP
Fränk Schleck - LUX
Giovanni Lombardi - ITA
David Zabriskie - USA
Christian Vandevelde - USA
Bobby Julich - USA
Stuart O'Grady - AUS
Jens Voigt - GER
Ivan Basso - ITA

Team Discovery
Jose Azevedo - POR
Viatchslev "Eki" Ekimov - RUS
George Hincapie - USA
Egoi Martinez - ESP
Benjamin Noval - ESP
Pavel Padrnos - CZE
Yaroslav Popovych - UKR
Chechu Rubiera - ESP
Paolo Savoldelli - ITA

If you look at the Discovery/Postal teams over the past 8 years, the number of Americans going to the TdF have gotten fewer and fewer:

1999 - 7
2000 - 5
2001 - 4
2002 - 3
2003 - 3
2004 - 3
2005 - 2
2006 - 1

Granted, the Postal/Discovery organization has been the launch pad for several American cyclists who have since moved on to become members of other European cycling teams such as Floyd, Levi, Tyler, Vandevelde, Kevin Livingston and Jonathan Vaughters, thus decreasing our American numbers. But if CSC (who is the odds on favorite to win this years TdF) is able to field a team that is 33% American, why wouldn't Team Discovery be able to do the same?

Even if we look at domestic races, I didn't see any Discovery riders in Philly for the Commerce Bank Triple Crown... but CSC was there.

I'm still going to be following and even cheering for the Disco boys this July, regardless if the team leader is Hincapie, Acevedo or Popovych. But I'm also going to start viewing CSC as my home team as well!

Related TRIVIA
As mentioned, The Postal Service Team sent 7 Americans to the 1999 TdF. They were:

Lance Armstrong
Frankie Andreu
Tyler Hamilton
George Hincapie
Kevin Livingston
Christian Vandevelde
Jonathan Vaughters

So who were the other two roster spots filled by, and what country were they from?

Behind the Scenes

5count had secured it's own domain name and will soon be transferring to www.5count.com

The I.T. department is currently in the process of designing and programming a new look for the 5count blog. The changes that come about will serve to enhance the asthetics, navigation as well the ability for us to offer new features for you, our faithful 5count viewers. Stay tuned for more information in the coming months. In the meantime, please continue to visit us right here at our current location.

Thank you,
5count

They're Back!

Image courtesy of HBO.com

That right Bi***, the whole crew of my favorite show is returning for season three starting this sunday night at 10:00pm.
Drama, Eric, Vince, Turtle and Ari will be tearing up HBO yet again...if you haven't seen Entourage, go out now and buy the first two seasons on DVD and catch up!

Related sights:
LHIOB.com
Entourage on HBO.com
Rooftop Golf
Episode guide
Entourage WikiQuotes- funny!

The new addition...

All together now... AAWWWWWWW!
Rodrigo and his wife have just added a member to their family, no word on what they have named the little furball but my guess is "Taco".

They say that dogs and their owners start to look like each other, but don't you think this puppy already looks like a rabbit (Rodrigo - a.k.a. Easter Bunny)???

Good luck with all the poop!