What a day!

What a great stage today at the Tour. Going in there were 6-7 guys with a real shot at winning it. And those guys were duking it out on the mountains. One after the other just kept trying to crack the others. And gradually they started falling off the back until it was down to just 2 guys. I noticed two things that I thought I'd mention.

First, I find myself getting mad at America's best hope, Levi Leipheimer, for never attacking and never exploding up the mountains. He just goes along trying to hang on to someone's wheel. After the stage he said he just doesn't have that kind of acceleration on the mountains and is most concerned with not cracking himself and riding his own race. Then I realized I kind of ride the same way. OK, I'm clearly no Tour rider. What I mean is I don't explode up any hills either (note that I ride hills and not mountains). I just get going at my own pace and get to the top when I get to the top. It's not really cool or anything to brag about. Which kind of describes Leipheimer.

Second, I loved the teamwork by team Discovery today. People will remember Contador winning and Leipheimer gaining time on his rivals, but they were set up by American George Hincapie and Ukrainian Yaroslav Popovych. When you ride behind someone you save about 20 percent of your effort. When you're behind two guys it jumps up to about a third less effort. These guys went all out and gave everything they had, basically cracking themselves so that Contador and Leipheimer would be at the front and ready to go for the win. There's a lot of teamwork in cycling and a lot of strategy too.

One last thing about the Tour. It seems like Wednesday's stage, the last one in the mountains, could be the deciding stage of the tour. If you've been paying attention here and there this is the one to watch. It's got a brutal climb at the finish. The time trial later could be key too, but my guess is after this one we'll have a pretty clear leader.

So after the Tour I went to brunch with my two Amy friends. That was fun. I had the shrimp and crab omelet special. Mmmmm. We wanted to sit outside but all those spots were taken. It was amazing out today. Not too hot, nice breeze, low humidity. It couldn't have been much better. After brunch I got on the bike and rode to the post office. I dropped a couple things in the mail box (I knew where to find this one). Then I rode off to this cemetery uptown (where I got caught in the rain before). It's pretty big and offers a nice place to just do some loops. It's a popular destination for Steve, but I didn't see him there today. He told me he was planning on doing a longer ride today and the cemetery was not in his plans. I rode around in circles, getting my heart rate up on one half of the loop, letting it come back down on the second half. After about 30 minutes I was in a really good grove. I don't know if I was getting to the top of the climbs faster, but I felt like I had a little bit more left in the tank each time I reached the top. I felt like I could have stayed out there forever. Alas, I had to head back and shower before work.

Friday's coming fast. I think it will be an interesting booty this year. Last year I didn't really know what I was doing. I spent as much time socializing as I did riding. This year I think I'll try to have a clearer idea of what my plan of attack is. I don't have a computer on my bike right now. The one I bought is a piece of junk and doesn't work. I don't really want to buy a new one. But having one is by far the easiest way to keep track of how far you've gone. I've toyed with the idea of getting one of these and sticking it on my bike. Of course at some point I'd probably start forgetting to click it. But it'd almost be worth it to see some of the incredulous looks I'd get (I imagine some of them would come from my own teammates). Of course, I have no idea where to find one so I'll probably just end up with another cheap bike computer that'll last 2 months.