Talkin about funny...

Just another random post I thought I'd share with you all.

Dane Cook is a comedian, some of you may have seen him on Comedy Central or even here in G-ville at last year's Gator Growl. His comedic styleings are sometimes on the more, should I say "adult" side of things....Anyway, he is one of the minor actors in the upcoming Movie Waiting that I told you about in a previous post.



Go to his site as sample his humor, It'll make you want to go see that movie even more (unless you dislike "adult" humor)

***Click the title of this post to link to Dane Cook's website***

Another cover

Once again, Lance is on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
For those of you sick of all the Lance press, it'll die down soon enough; just enjoy the cycling coverage while it's in our face.

My Dooley Review

For those of you not in the Gainesville area, Pat Dooley is a local sports columnist for the Gainesville Sun.

In monday's paper, I was delighted to see the amount of coverage Lance and the Tour got. Lance made the front page as well as a huge spread on the cover of the sports page. Usually, the only sports topics that get that much press in G-ville have to do with the Gators win over FSU or Tenn (which I love). Pat Dooley's column also pertained to Armstrong and his accomplishments of the past 7 years. (***check out Dooley's column by clicking on the title of this post***)

All in all, I enjoyed Dooley's column...he was very respectful of the fact that what Lance does is HARD, harder than golf, harder than a lot of stuff...even went as far as claiming that Lance is possibly the greatest athlete ever, which I absolutly agree with (except for the possibly part).

What kinda got to me was his closing statement...
"The sport will suffer from his absence, and the Tour de France will go back to the back pages of the newspaper next year with the IRL results and bowling scores.
But it was a great ride. "
...Yes, the sport may suffer from his absence because he's an irreplaceable superstar, but why should the TdF go to the back page of the newspaper? I realize that we're dealing with the standard uneduacated cycling fan who can't understand how Lance can finish a stage in 85th place but still lead the overall General Classifacation.

Why can't we take the interest in cycling derived from Lance and extend that into future tours by learning the ins and outs of the grand tours. My wife didn't know a thing about cycling a few years ago, but now she gets as excited as anybody to see a cyclist successfuly bridge the gap to the break away off the front of the peloton. I know it's always more fun to have a hero to root for in the race, but do we not still have a bevy of heros to root for. Are Levi or Floyd, Horner or Julich, Hincapie or Danielson not worthy of our cheers. Yes, Lance was great...but let's get behind another great athlete; he doesn't even have to be American, my wife loves Jan Ullrich (and I think Basso's sister is HOT (but that's neither here nor there)).

If millions of people can watch a bunch of cars go around in circles for 3 hours, why can't we get behind a sport that offers soo much more. Let's try to get past the closed-minded view of cycling and take time to understand the intricacies of the sport...because once you learn what is going on, it's one of the most exciting things around.

Cycling is a phenominal sport. The Tour de France is a phenominal event. The endless miles of training Lance put in to win the TdF will still be ridden by the winner of next year's tour. The tireless preparation for July will still be tirelessly endured by next year's TdF cyclists. Just because Lance is no longer racing, the Tour isn't any less hard, any less gruelling and the winner won't be any less deserving of our support.

My new favorite show

Now that the Tour de France is over, my favorite show to watch is Entourage. My friend Brent turned me on to this hit comedy on HBO. For those of you in the eastern time zone, it airs Sunday nights at 10:00pm...or if you're 21st century like me, just TiVo it and watch it on your lunch break.



The title of this post is a link to the Entourage home page if you're interested.

Waiting

I just came across the trailer for this new movie. For those of you who have ever worked in the food service industry, this movie may strike a cord...and for those of you who never had the pleasure of serving...it'll probably be funny anyway.
Click on the title of this post to link to the website.

Well, it's over.

The month of July has brought us yet another edition of the Tour de France. For seven years, Lance Armstrong has rolled down the Champs-Elysee with the yellow jersey fimly attached to his shoulders. Now it's the end of 21 stages, the end of over 3,000 kilometers and the end of a brilliant career.
We've all been watching the Tour, we've all had our favorite moments and favorite athletes...but this is my blog, so you're going to have to read about my favorites.



• Let's just get the obvious out of the way...Lance Armstrong! What an athlete, never in this race was there any doubt that he could win. I was always nervous about the uncontrollable things (crashes, illness) but always felt confident that Lance would be able to respond to anything thrown at him at the Tour (and he did). Even when isolated from his team, Lance matched the accelarations of Basso, Ullrich, Vino, Kloden, Sastre or whoever had the thankless job of trying to dethrone "The Boss". I could obviously go on and on about the American cyclist who will go down in history as arguably the greatest Tour rider EVER, but I probably would just be reiterating what you already know.
Let me just say that I think it is truly fitting that Lance ends his career where he belongs...on the top of the podium!

• Although I feel bad for how the penultimate stage of the Tour went for Michael Rasmussen, I am happy that Jan Ullrich was able to finish on the podium. Jan was so often mentioned in the same breath with Lance throughout the past seven years, so it's appropriate that one of the biggest rivalries in sports be represtented at the end of the biggest sporting event.
Jan always catches a lot of crap about how he's out of shape or that he's not focused on winning etc., etc., but the truth is, Jan Ullrich has finished on the podium at the TdF seven times, and never finished worse than 4th! I think winning the tour in '97 when he was still so young created expectations that were just too high. It didn't help that his career happened to coincide with the juggernaut that is Lance Armstrong. If Lance had decided not to resume his cycling career following his bout with cancer, I bet Jan would have more than just one TdF victory in his list of palmares.

• As far as Ivan Basso goes, I think you could probably carve his name into the trophy for next year. Basso has been the only one over the past two years that was right there with Lance in the high mountains. When the other rivals started to crack and fall away, Basso was the constant. Barring the uncontrollable disaster and assuming that Bjarne Riis will surround him with CSC's finest agian, I don't see anybody else beating him. Having said that, I also think that Ivan should take a page from Lance's training program and forget about the Giro and just focus on next July!





• Poor Rasmuusen, two crashes and four bike changes during the final TT. But hey, did he really expect to make the top 3 at the TdF anyway? His polka-dots were a great accomplishment and we'll just try to forget the whole TT thing.

• How about Chris Horner! Right down to the last stage, Horner was aggressive and played a role in the race. Almost winning one stage and making it into breaks a few times, Horner really showed that he deserved to be a part of Saunier Duval's tour squad. I hope to see him back next year, maybe being supported as the CG guy?!


Chris Horner

• So, is Popovych the next tour winner from Discovery Channel? Maybe so, he sure looked to have the neccessary stuff while winning (by a large margin) the White Jersey. With the tutelage of Johan Bruyneel and the backing of the best team in pro cycling I think he's got a great shot at it.



• Hincapie, Hincapie, Hincapie...what a tour for the lieutenant! His first Tour stage win on the toughest day of the race (who cares if he sucked a little wheel...it's a TdF stage win!). The only teamate of Lance's who was there for all 7 wins. Will he turn into the next grand tour sensation for the US?...I doubt it. He's got too many other fish to fry in the classics to be willing to throw away a whole year in order to train for just one race. With having said that, I do think that no matter what George does for the remainder of his pro career, he'll be viewed as very real threat.

• I wish Tom Boonen was able to finish this year's TdF. Thor Hushovd is a worthy winner of the Maillot Vert, but I feel that Boonen was the most dominate fast guy in the peloton. Sure, Sure... Jason O'mahoney would claim that McEwan was the best sprinter and maybe I would agree with that, but when it comes to being fast AND being able to ride over the mountains Boonen is a monster (yes, even more than O'Grady). I just like Boonen I guess...you got a problem with that?

• Vino is a stud! Anybody who can attack in the high mountains, get into break aways and stay away or beat the sprinters to the line has my vote for most aggressive rider. Even though the cry baby Oscar Pereiro won that distinction, Vino should be awarded with something for all the work he did in this year's TdF (other than his 2 stage wins). I'd venture to say that he'll probably be awarded with a phat contract to be THE man on whatever team can sign him.



• With the greatest American cyclist now retired, who do we root for next year? Levi, Floyd, George, Horner ...they're all capable, but whoever it's going to be probably won't be able to win with the decisiveness that Lance has. We'll probably have to sit a little further towards the edge of our seats and hold out breath a little more. While we've been able to rest assure with the fact that Lance WILL respond the challenges, next year won't come with the same guarantee. The chance of Floyd cracking on a decisive climb, or Levi not making a crucial break, or Horner not turning in a competitive TT are a lot more likely.
Regaurdless of our loss, American cycling has plenty of talent and will definatly remain a factor in pro-cycling for years to come.

• Did you happen to catch the Disco team Kit for the last stage? I think they should consider making that design perminant. The yellow injects a bit of much needed color into a Kit that tends to blend into the peloton too much. I know my wife was always complaining about not being able to differentiate between a few of the teams in the peloton. Fassa, Quickstep, and Disovery all have blue and white kits that do blend from afar. Add to that the blue jerseys of Liberty Seguros, Bouygues Telecom, Gerolsteiner, Ag2r and Lampre...and you've got a lot of blue! (that is Margie Wargo of Nike delivering all of the shwag to the Disco boys the night before the ride into Paris)


Well, now that the Tour is over, what will become of this blog? More recounts of local club rides and the occasional pro-cycling news will probably be the order of the day (s). I'll probably throw things up that are pretty random and not having anything to do with cycling too, but I still encourage you to add your comments regaurdless.

Thanks for reading (I know it got long)
Paul

Teus/Thurs have gotten Hard!

I don't know about the rest of you who regularly attend the tues/thur ride from the Chevron station, but from my point of view...those rides have gotten brutal!
Thursday (7-21) saw a large group start the ride which averaged about 24+ mph in the first half of the ride. By the time we turned north on 239 there were only 8 of us. A new addition to the ride, a mountain biking stud (who's name I'm forgetting at the moment (maybe "Robert"?)) made the ride very fast and very hard. Luckily, Danny was on an easier ride with a friend and we all benefitted by not having him there to duel it out with the new guy.
Joe Brew pulled like an ox as usual and another new addition, Brett Miller from Team Florida, contributed to the pain with his own monster pulls. The only representative of the female gender, Susan, gets the "Stud of the Ride Award". Susan was always there through one of the most punishing rides we've had (or at least I've had) of late.
Cutting to the chase, the final selection saw Joe Brew, Scott, Ira and Brett go to the line with Joe getting around Brett at the line.
*as a side note: Joe will soon be leaving us to go back to college, and I think I speak for all of us when I say HE will be missed, but not his leg breaking attacks up the I-75 overpass!

In closing...I know I've slacked off on the Tour coverage, but just watching it has been a full time gig. After last weekend's two stages that saw such explosive riding, anything short of a 10-page essay wouldn't have done justice to those races. George Hincapie became the first teamate of Lance's to win a stage of the Tour de France since Armstrong started his winning streak in 1999. Paolo Savoldelli followed suit the other day with a win of his own!
It looks like Lance will retire at the top of his game on the 24th of July and the Disco boys seem to have everything in control, once again!


Who will win the Tour next year??? I know Dan is hoping for Jan, and Joe is partial to Basso; but I think it will be Huan!

Hot, Hilly, Hard and HOT!

The title of this post describes the Saturday morning A-GCC ride. I'm not going to give the play by play this time because it's all really a big blur of pain. I will boil (no pun intended) it down to a few key points though.
• Tony, Danny and Joe Brew are sadistic! The three of them were the only ones who never took a break from working at the front of the group. Twords the end of the ride when things went through the hilly parts of Alachua; Tony, Danny and Joe kept driving the pace, leaving the other remaining 5 of us to hang on and suffer.
• the few and proud 8 to make it home in the front were Tony, Danny, Joe, Brett Miller, Ira, Huan, Alex and myself.
• Tony would not be denied the sprint, and he deserved it!
• Did I mention it was HOT!
• Following the ride, a few of us sat in the shade at the Chevron recovering and talking about various cycling related issues. We were just trying to keep our tortured legs from erupting in cramps. Every once in a while, one of us would go to cross our legs and a sudden grunt followed by a quick grasping of a hamstring would follow. Somewhat entertaing (when it was someone else).

I took Sunday off and didn't ride...instead I limped around my yard, getting the lawn mowed and feeling justified in my decision to abstain as the heat was once again Hell-like.

Tuesday Ride (7-12)

Just to catch up on the GCC rides...
Tuesday evening saw 11 of us at the start. We dropped a few early on, mostly due to the 29.5 mph pace that Naked Ed was pulling at. Australian Jason jumped in the mix with his million dallar TT bike and tore things up a bit more; before we knew it the group had dwindled to 7 as we headed north on 239 into the Alachua hills.
Danny M. was taking strong, fast pulls at the front again which kept both the average speed and our heart rates high. Rodrigo decided to ride at his own pace, so then we were six. Joe Brew, Ira, Danny, Lambert, Ed and myself continued through the rolling hills. Shortly after we crossed back over 441 in Alachua, Joe Brew attacked up a little hill and put everyone in trouble, except Danny. I was able to grab Danny's wheel, but I wasn't feeling very strong. The already hard ride got even harder while riding with those two. They pushed the pace the whole way home as I sat at the back a little trying to recover and only pulled through a hand full of times, when I did take a pull it was usually short and lacked the power of my two break away companions.
The three of us picked up Huan just before Millhopper Rd., he was riding the route backwards in order to find us. Huan claims to have given blood the previous day, so he wasn't pulling at all (sandbagger) and was thus a non-factor for the remaining miles.
Since I felt as though I hadn't done my fair share of work in the break, I decided to just do a good lead out for Joe in hopes that he would be able to hold Danny to the line. It seems like all the strategy in the world wouldn't have beaten Danny in a sprint with the way he's been riding (I'm sure Huan will debate that point, but I havn't seen him take Danny in a sprint yet either).

•TdF recaps are on the way...

Saint Bruyneel

Verily I say unto you, "Saint Bruyneel watches over Lance and Team Disco, he haveth a master plan and wilst not let thine Yellow Jersey rest on thine back of CSC. You may not know when and you may not knowest how, but verily I say unto you, Lance will ride again in Yellow"

Amen.

And on the 10th day we Rest!

It's been a few days since I last posted, but I'll touch on a few quick points:

• Last thursday's GCC ride turned out to be FAST! Five of us broke off after only a dozen miles or so and headed north into the hilly part of Alachua. Danny M. was having a great day and pulled like a freeking horse. We all managed to keep a very high pace for the 40 mile ride and even finished strong with a good sprint led out by Huan who joined us for the last 3k. I jumped around Huan and Scott but was overtaken by a hard charging Danny who rode like he had a big bowl of EPO for breakfast. Lil Joe Brew nipped me at the line too, so not a good sprint by yours truly.

• Stage 6 was won by an opportunistic Bernucci from the Fassa team. A huge pile up in the last corner took out most of the sprinters and held up everyone else. Everyone else except Vino, who jumped with 2k to go and ended up 2nd on the day taking 19 sec. out of Armstrongs lead.

• Stage 7, yadda yadda, long solo break yadda yadda, bunch sprint yadda yadda, McEwan wins again.

• Stage 8 saw Armstong isolated on the last climb of the day. Everyone attacked him like crazy, but he marked Vino and Ullrich and everything worked out in the end. Weening wins the stage by the width of a sheet of paper and Lance ratains the Yellow Jersey.

• Stage 9 was the first day of real climbing and Discovery took off thier skirts and rode like the men that they are! Rasmussen was off the front all day and took the stage win as well as solidifying his hold on the Polka dots. The great French hope, Moreau, and CSC rider Jens Voigt finished 2nd and 3rd respectivley. This was enough to put Voigt in Yellow and move Moreau into 2nd overall.
No need to worry folks, Voigt isn't a pure climber and Lance will have his opportunities to get the mellow Johnny back! This way Discovery won't have to defend the jersey when racing resumes on tuesday in the Alps.

• Today is a flight from Mulhouse to Grenoble for the riders during their first rest day. A chance to prepare for the pointy end of the race, they'll be resting up as much as they can and fuelling up for the gruelling road ahead.

• Tomorrow we separate the men from the boys on the 192.5 km stage from Grenoble - Courchevel.
- Will Disco take back the jersey or let CSC play with it for a while?
- Will T-moble see Vino become thier true team leader, or are they still going to pretend that Ullrich can win this?
- Will the sprinters be able to pull themselves over the big mountains and live to fight again when the road flattens out?
- Will Lance solo off the front at the base of the Courchevel and crush his rivals by 20 minutes?
- Will the Tuesday night ride see dry conditions or will another catagory 5 hurricane blow through dumping 15 inches of rain on us consequently blocking all roadways with downed trees and power lines?

- We will just have to wait and see...

Another day another sprint.

• First things first...
Tuesday nights training ride: Only nine of us showed up at the Chevron, maybe the mid-90 degree weather had somthing to do with that? Once we hit 441, we took off and averaged 25mph for the next 6 or so miles, dropping a couple of guys (sorry Doug). We calmed down to a more managable speed throughout the middle of the 40 mile ride. I took a long pull followed by an even longer pull by Lil Joe Brew who has just returned from a trip to Colorado. No serious attack happened at Chestnut Hill, but a steady pace set by the "Moose" led to a break in the "field" and Moose, Mike, Scott and myself were the only ones left. (**In his defense, Joe Brew dropped back to ride with his dad and didn't attempt to follow the break**)
Mike dropped off at the bottom of Millhopper Rd. and left the three of us to ride out the remainder. I was pretty empty by the time we crested the I-75 overpass and it seemed that Moose was always able to pull at about 2mph faster than Scott or I. We took our turns coming up to the sprint line and Moose jumped leaving Scott about 250m out; it took almost all that I had to hold Moose's wheel, but I did and used it as my lead out. I crossed the line first, but Moose was the strongest rider of the day!

• As for the tour...
Another flat fast stage in the Tour de France. An eventual 4-man break was off the front for a good portion of the day only to come back to the charging group with 10k to go. After a few tight corners down the home stretch, Robbie McEwan out-gutted Tom Boonen in the sprint. McEwan was exhuberant at the line to say the least. Being a bit upset at the decision to relagate him to the back of the field in stage 3, McEwan felt as if he had something to prove. With the green jersey just about out of reach for the Aussie sprinter, he's even more focused on the individual stage wins at this point.
I read this morning that McEwan was asked if he thought that maybe Tom Boonen was just riding too strong in this tour and he was pretty adamant that he was NOT unbeatable and that he was going to prove it to us...I guess he backed that bold statement up, didn't he?

Another interesting thing that happened at the start of today's stage was the whole "wearing of the yellow jersy issue." Lance decided to not wear the yellow jersey as a result earning it due to Zabrikie's crash yesterday. Lance said that if he was leading after today's stage then he would don the jersey tomorrow. However, the race officials stopped the entire peloton following the neutral start and threatened to disqulify Lance from the race if he didn't wear the jersey. I don't know about you, but I'm glad that he put the mellow johnny on.



I also read that Chris Brewer, who works with Team Discovery Channel, reported that it WAS the intention of the team to let George Hincapie try to get in a break and take the jersey. Obviously it's not that easy, but there's always tomorrow!

•Here's a Question...
- Tomorrow's stage isn't full of climbs, but it isn't flat either. Four cat 4 climbs could see a long break stick. What do you think the chances of Hincapie trying to get 56 seconds on the field are?
- And let's hypotheticlly say that Hincapie does get into a break that makes all the way to the line. And let's say that the break is 4-5 minutes ahead of the yellow jersey, would George soft pedal so that he could just barely take the jersey, or would he make Lance work a little harder for it???

With the Tour well underway...

Not that any of you really need recapping, but just so we can all get caught up after the long 4th of July weekend.

****Stage one****
Dave Z of team CSC kicked some butt and placed himself atop the leader board on his first ever day at the Tour de France. Lance rolled through the time trial just 2 seconds slower than the young American. Did he sit up a bit in the home stretch so as to not have the burden of the Yellow Jersey so early in the race? We may never know. Either way a great finish as Lance is ahead of all of his rivals and there is still an American in yellow; as a matter of fact, 4 of the top 6 finishers were American!


****Stage Two****
Typical flat stage for the sprinters. Tom Boonen (former US Postal rider) now of team Quick Step showed his power once again this season and took the sprint finish. Boonen gets the green jersey as the leader of the points classifacation.
Fan favorite Thomas Voeckler was able to do enough to get the opportunity to wear the Polka dot Jersy (mountains classifacation)
Lance's team keeps him out of trouble and onto the next stage.


****Stage three****
Another stage for the fast men in the peloton. Boonen proves to be deserving of the Maillot Vert (green jersey) by winning his 2nd stage of this years tour. Robbie McEwan gets relagated to the back of the field for gettin physical with fellow countryman Stuey O'Grady. McEwan claimed that his actions were just part of racing...what do you think?
Erik Dekker earns the Mountains jersey by one point during a long break that didn't get pulled back in until the final few kilometers.



**** Stage four (TTT)****
Lance and the Disco boys three-peat the TTT stage!
In an ironic twist Dave Zabriskie crashed 1.5k from the finish line consequently losing the yellow jersey and arguably losing his CSC team the stage win by a mere 1.79 seconds! Team Discovery averaged a record setting 57.324 km/h (35.619 mph) over the 67.5km TTT course.
Now, I've gone over 35 mph before; but only when I'm sprinting for the line or decending the I-75 overpass on Millhopper Rd.. I can't imaging holding that speed for over an HOUR!
...anyway, the team win today puts Lance Armstrong in the all too familiar color of Yellow for the 67th time in the Tour de France. Of course, as is usually the case following the TTT, the entire Discovery Channel Team is placed very highly in the overall GC. George Hincapie is currently in 2nd place 55 seconds behind Lance. Yaroslav Popovych has also earned himself the White jersey as the best young rider.


Will Lance attempt to defend the jersey all the way to Paris?
Do you think that Johan will let George try to go up the road tomorrow in order to possibly take the Leaders jersey? Ya know, kinda like "hey, thanks for helpin Lance win the Tour for the past million years."
I think it would be awesome if George gets in a break and crosses the line 56 seconds before the field does. George would wear the yellow jersey while still riding in support of Lance, and then when the roads turn upward, Lance does what he does best and crushes the competition.

•IN OTHER NEWS•
I rode with the GCC on Saturday. A nice 60 mile ride with wet roads awaiting us as we got back into G-ville. The rotation back into town started a bit too early for me so I stayed near the back with Lambert. The fast pace started to wear on the guys in the rotation and things got very unorganized. I went to the front and contributed for the last 10-12 miles. Huan was glued to my wheel and I could tell he was motivated for the finishing sprint. As we came down 43rd St. I was looking for a strong lead out and sat on the wheel of Lambert. Unfortunatly, I hesitated too much and Huan came around me soo fast that I never had a chance to jump on his wheel. I sprinted in vein taking 2nd and kicking myself for not initiating the sprint. Maybe I'll get it right this evening on the Tues night ride?

Tour Starts Tomorrow!

The 2005 Tour de France starts tomorrow! I've got my digital video recorder (DVR) programmed to record all of the live stages; my fantasy Tour teams are set up and ready to go and I've read just about all of the pre-tour talk on the internet.
I'll be at the Prologue Party to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation tonight at the Orthapedic and Sports Medicine Institute. If you're planning on attending, search me out and we can talk turkey. I'll be the guy covered in yellow body paint dressed in nothing but an American flag yelling, "viva la Lance!". No, not really...but I may have a yellow shirt on.

I hope ya'll have taken the same pre-tour measures as I have. Check back often throughout the tour to read my take on stages, riders and how the race is developing overall. Make comments about your views on the race or how you think I'm an idiot.
I'm looking forward to a great race!

Paul