Posts Tagged ‘tour de france’
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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Early Start
Like a couple of young newlyweds, Cyndie and I got an early start to the holiday weekend and hustled north to the lake by ourselves a day before the massive crowds that will follow. A stop at Coop’s Pizza for our favorite choice in Hayward, then some authentic ice cream decadence at West’s Dairy for dessert, and we were in full lake-place weekend mode before ever reaching the “cabin.”
For the record, I splurged with one scoop each of Coconut Magic Bar and Chunky Musky.
There was some reminiscing about dining at Coop’s on our honeymoon almost 40-years ago, back when it was located in a former gas station on Highway 63. Cyndie burned her lip so bad when hot cheese pulled off the crust that she blistered.
After we unloaded the car, we topped off our night with access to satellite television Tour de France coverage rerunning the stage of day 6 and another Mark Cavendish sprint to the stage victory. We were happy as clams.
It has been longer than I can recall that we have been up at the lake two weekends in a row. This could get to be a habit. Thank goodness we have found a willing animal sitter in Anna, a student at UW River Falls.
It feels particularly summery, which is just as it should now that we are into July. Obviously, we don’t live in the southern hemisphere.
Watching the professional cyclists racing after having just spent some extended time on my bike tour along the Mississippi River in Minnesota provides a valuable perspective. Their accomplishments are so much more amazing than they make them appear.
I hope they get to have ice cream at the end of their daily races.
I visited a couple of Dairy Queens after my days of biking.
It was an early start to foiling my goals of eating less sugar than my addiction longs for. I can attest that doing so wreaks havoc on my attempts to control the brain’s tendency to crave sweetness full time.
Good thing my healthy routine will be able to resume as soon as this weekend is over. My summer brain is starting to think I should have ice cream every day.
I’m afraid the rest of my body takes exception to that kind of thinking.
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Tour Nightmare
During my final hour of slumber this morning, I was deeply occupied with a new version of a recurring nightmare about the bike tour. The usual scenario involves a classic concern of seeing everyone around me departing well before I am prepared. A common second version I experience has me searching for my shoes or a wheel or some item that I should have but inexplicably discover to be missing.
This morning, it was rather specifically related to my early departure from the ride. I found myself needing to ride my bike back to the original start by myself while the rest of the group was already showered and departing for their homes. I said goodbye to them and set off on my own, trying to figure out how to backtrack the route I had previously ridden at the start.
Multiple disruptions ensued and my slow progress was leading to the hours passing and daylight waning. I was so ensconced in the dream that I continued to work on the details as I awoke and wondered if I was trying to reach our home in Beldenville or the start of this year’s tour in Hastings.
Alas, I am in Hayward and slept late into the morning after a glorious day prior filled with special attention for the occasion of my birthday. The evening was topped with a fabulous outing to the Tally Ho restaurant where the service was superb, the food delicious, and the laughs plentiful.
That was no nightmare.
Now I’m watching television coverage of the second stage of the 2021 Tour de France and contemplating a return to Wintervale today. There are a few animals that I need to get reacquainted with and some chores awaiting that will mark the completion of my days of vacation.
In a lot of ways, I am looking forward to it, but that isn’t a reflection of how I feel about the past week. It’s been grand.
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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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Musings about le Tour
The thing about watching television every night to see the Tour de France is that my mind gets filled with the commercials and that weird collection of information starts to show up in my head against my will. It just forces me to counter by recognizing when it happens and replace it with images of riders and the scenic views of the landscapes of France.
Actually, I have discovered an online source that provides uninterrupted views of the racing and I have seen more of the countryside than ever before. I find it really fascinating to see the variety of backdrops for the race as they speed down straight roads surrounded by farm fields and then come into quaint little villages, but also reach populated areas and ride a bridge over an expressway with all the regular traffic passing underneath and I become aware that not every one there is actually watching the race. There are brief glimpses of the citizens going about their normal activity, regardless the race happening.
It is obvious that their lives are impacted because of the level of interruption to traffic on roads the tour uses is extreme. I like seeing the variety of places they move through, seeing them navigate metropolitan areas that look strange to be so closed to autos and now dominated by the circus of activity that is the racers and their team cars and the motorcycles with television cameras and photographers and the cars of the race officials and the medical personnel. For some reason it doesn’t look so out of place on the rural roads and mountain passes as it does in the populated areas to me.
The one challenge I have when watching the uninterrupted coverage is tearing myself away to accomplish anything while the race is running. This is a big deal because the races can take 3 or 4 hours. I struggle to get myself to take bathroom breaks, even as the riders, themselves, are pulling over to, as the commentators say, take a “nature break”.
I completely understand how this would lack appeal to others, but I find myself absolutely mesmerized by every view they provide. Overall, the changes to the General Classification each day are rarely visible. People ask me each day what there is to report, and for the most part, there is nothing new to offer. But each day there are little dramas that I find exciting. There is always someone to attack out of the group and try to get an insurmountable lead, and the peloton needs to monitor the time gap the breakaway achieves and speed up to control the lead and then calculate when to put in the concerted effort to reel them back in before reaching the finish line, where specialist in the art of sprinting battle it out for the victory of a stage.
There are many things to watch: the way teams are working, how they execute getting through feed zones and eat while they race, how team members take water bottles from the manager driving the car behind all the racers and stuff them in their jersey and ride back up to the rest of the team to pass them out, how riders who have crashed receive treatment from race doctors in cars while racers are still on their bikes, holding onto the car. Meanwhile, there is all the scenery, and the spectacle and artistry of the fans, and the informative and educational narration by Paul Sherwen and Phil Liggett.
Imagine if that didn’t need to be so frequently interrupted to sell me things I don’t want or need or will ever choose to watch. But at least that provides opportunity for tending to nature calls. Bring on the next mountain stages. There’s a little over a week to go. Enjoy it while you can.
Relative Something 