Saturday, July 28, 2007

Fit and fast

TOPWLH was busy with her job this morning. Wireless is visiting but she will readily admit that I am an earlier riser than she is. So I went out early for a ride assigning the VCR the duty of facilitating TdF viewership for the today's time trial. I rode to the Cathedral.You probably think that is the Capital, not the Cathedral, and you would be right. However that stone wall in the foreground is the side of the front steps of the Cathedral. So this would be the Capital as photographed from the Cathedral.

The Cathedral is a longish ride for me but it went really well today. I have ridden lots of miles the last two months and as a result I declare myself fit. It was a long ride but it was also one of the fastest of the year. I was fit and fast and therefore am ready for vacation, where as Cuppy says, there will be no riding without Gene.

French girl and I watched the time trial after my return. Well, that was exciting. It made for fine TV, to be sure, but it also served to reinforce my feelings about this year's race. They should not recognize an individual champion this year, the results have been so skewed by the efforts of those who have been dismissed from the race that there just is not any way to know if the time differences separating the top three riders are in any way indicative of the actual differences among those three as racers. There just isn't any way to know. The best thing to do, even at this late date, is to recognize tri-champions. Particularly Cadel and Levi deserve nothing less.

2 comments:

Santini said...

Fit and fast is as good as it gets.
Today's stage was exciting, but did not carry much meaning for me. They might as well decide the outcome on a coin toss -- though 3 headed coins are rare. For a 3 week race to be decided essentially by today's time trial, means team tactics, strategy, etc., count for nothing. TdF is very much a team event ... I don't know. It's way, way out of hand at this point, but there's no way back, so might as well muddle through.

Anonymous said...

Nice shot of the Capitol. It's in a busy area and not too convenient to get to, but the setting is quite nice.

The time trial certainly tightened the competition for "jaune". Discovery Channel seems to be the strongest team again. I wonder how the 2nd and 3rd guys can make up 30 seconds on the last day. It might be interesting.
TT