Posts Tagged ‘bike racing’
Record Win!
It may be Independence Day in the US today but my attention is on the greatest bike race in the world, the Tour de France. Yesterday, there was a historic sprint finish on Stage 5.
Mark Cavendish beat some amazing sprinters to the line for his record-breaking 35th Stage victory in the Tour de France. At 39 years of age and after overcoming illness, injuries, and depression, Mark came back and achieved what most thought was never going to happen. I had long hoped for him to reach this milestone but I figured it would never come to be. It is so cool that he has proved me wrong.
What a spectacular accomplishment. Bravo and congratulations Mark! I will forever remember how thrilling it was to witness this fabulous sprint win.
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Unfortunate Crashes
This year’s Tour de France bike race has been entertaining but I do not enjoy the added drama of nasty crashes. The worst is when an incident is triggered by the carelessness of a fan as happened this morning.
I love having access to watch from home but it is sad when the motorcycles with the camera operators get in the way of a racer trying to break away from a competitor.
I’m soaking up the race while enjoying fresh-picked wild black raspberries on my yogurt with eggs and toast spread with Cyndie’s blackcap jam.
We are enduring the latest onslaught of dangerous air quality from Canadian wildfires that turns the splashes of color in the woods to an eery shade of orange.
You can see speckles of it on the fresh dirt Asher has thrown as he created a new canyon in a matter of seconds yesterday. He and I spent much of the day alone together while Cyndie attended a funeral in the Cities and then met with a group of her gang of high school friends who got together for lunch to celebrate a series of birthdays.
When Asher wasn’t napping, he demanded constant attention that had me kicking him a ball to chase and then I would need to retrieve it from beneath furniture where he pretended to “bury” it.
He’s almost a year and a half old and shows little indication of growing out of puppy energy any time soon. During this phase, I find I am much more inclined to ‘crash’ long before he does throughout each day.
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Watching France
For the ninth day in a row, I find myself mesmerized by the broadcast of the Tour de France bicycle race and their excellent helicopter views of the greater countryside beyond the roads of the race. I am of the mind that the vantage point of watching the riders fly past from the side of the road can’t hold a candle to the ability to see the many angles provided by the camera operators riding on motorcycles.
Combined with the overhead views from helicopters, which pan across 13th-century architecture and fascinating chateaus, I am left feeling like I have not only been watching racers but I have been watching the fabulous scenes of the country of France.
This morning’s rockin’ climb finish with a (currently as I am writing this) breakaway group over 10 minutes ahead that appears to be threatening the yellow jersey-wearing Jonas Vingegaard’s chance at a stage win on the brutal final ascent.
Jonas was looking all business as they paced along the official car toward the approach of the starting point.
I’m going to stop writing and focus on today’s race excitement for the next hour…
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Stage One
It’s baaaaack! The Le Tour de France bicycle race is grabbing my attention for another year. Too bad broadcast marketing geniuses have their coverage primarily hidden behind a pay-to-view provider to which I am not subscribed. At least the opening stage was teased out for free this morning on NBC.
Yesterday, I gave Asher an extended car ride for his first trip up to the lake. Cyndie came up a couple of hours later with her mom. We face the challenge of introducing Asher to the many other dogs that run loose around the six-family compound.
Fingers crossed that we achieve a comfortable normalcy without incident. I walked Asher down to the lake where he demonstrated a profound disinterest in getting wet. It will be interesting to see how long he maintains that behavior.
I’d say we are at stage one of familiarizing the pup with our lake life. It would be nice if we had a team of 8 to help guide us like the cyclists racing in the Tour de France. In those terms, I suppose Asher would be the leader and we are his domestiques.
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The Race
As unlikely as it seems, one current feature for me of being up at our beautiful lake place is the access to television channels we don’t receive through our antenna at home. The Tour de France bicycle race is of most significant interest to me this time of year. Yesterday, we lucked out with an incredibly dramatic series of race moves in the mountains during stage 11 of the race.
There was a classic series of attacks on the leader in the yellow jersey, Tadej Pogacar, by riders on the Jumbo-Visma team that forced him to expend extra energy to respond to each sprint. By the time the riders reached the last monumental climb, Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visa rider who was 39 seconds behind the leader at the start of the day) seized his opportunity for the ultimate attack on the yellow jersey at about 5km from the summit finish on col du Granon.
Not only did he make up the 39 seconds to claim the yellow jersey, Jonas put 2’22” of time between himself and Tadej. That’s HUGE!
This morning, my broadcast access to stage 12 is going to be time delayed, so I will avoid the news and watch the taped version in the afternoon to preserve the excitement of what happens today. After the monumental effort yesterday in the mountains, it is hard to imagine how these riders get any decent sleep and then get up and compete at the same level for another grueling mountain stage, let alone for all 21 stages of the race.
I plan to take a leisurely stroll on my bike this morning and then watch the racers do battle from the comfort of the couch this afternoon.
Last night we were treated to a gorgeous moonrise over the lake. Cyndie stepped out to capture a picture of our view.
We are having a wonderful time. Wish you were here!
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Race Drama
I need to be careful what I wish for. Yesterday, I tossed out the hope that it might be rainy here at the lake so I wouldn’t feel bad sitting inside to watch the second-to-last mountain stage of the Tour de France. Well, it was storming so bad for a while, there was no signal to the satellite dish for us to receive the telecast of the beginning kilometers.
Luckily, things settled down in time to see much of the excitement. In a dramatic surprise, yellow jersey contender, Thibaut Pinot had to abandon due to a knee injury, but that was greatly overshadowed when the stage was stopped prematurely, mid-descent, due to an epic hail-storm. Times were taken at the top of the previous big climb and resulted in a change in leadership.
Columbian Egan Bernal is now in yellow!
Now the weather here at the lake is gorgeous and I am going to sit inside regardless, to see what drama might top that of yesterday.
It doesn’t solve any problems in the world, but the distraction of a great athletic endeavor for entertainment certainly serves to energize.
Race on!
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High Points
After work yesterday, Cyndie and I hopped in her car and drove up to the lake for the weekend. Leaving on a Thursday night makes for easy driving, in the absence of the typical weekend traffic headed north. Our route took us through some of the damage from last week’s storms that produced near-hurricane force winds and some baseball-sized hail.
It was fruitless to try to capture a representative photo of the large scope of broken trees for miles, but I snapped a few shots on my cell phone through the car window at highway speed.
It was a little easier to capture a sample of some building damage that hadn’t been covered up yet.
The extensive damage to trees was a really sad sight. It gave me a whole new perspective on the comparatively minor issues we are facing at home with a few dead or dying trees leaning across our trails. We’ve got it easy.
High point of the day for me yesterday was finding a neighboring farmer working our fields to finally bale some of the cut hay that has been left on the ground for weeks, repeatedly being rained on instead of properly drying out. The past week offered the longest stretch of dry days that I can recall so far this summer.
The second high point was getting a chance to watch portions of Stage 18 of the Tour de France on the subscription TV channels when we got here. At home, we only pick up what is publicly available through the airwaves, and bike racing coverage is minimal.
Two big mountain stages remain, today and tomorrow, and I am thrilled to be able to view all the drama as it happens.
Maybe it will be rainy here as the morning progresses so I don’t waste sunny lake time sitting indoors in front of the glowing screen getting my bike racing fix.
Honorable mention high point yesterday goes to the Coop’s pizza dinner we devoured when we got to Hayward. Oh, so delicious.
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Relative Something 