Friday, July 13, 2007

Owasso tear down

I skipped work today. We have social obligations later which would interfere with my ride. I have plenty of vacation coming so I took a day and got in a ride in the late morning. July mornings, there just are not enough of them in any one person's lifetime to justify spending them all inside the sealed window enclave of the DNR. Today I went for a bicycle ride instead.

We have the tear down phenomenon here too. There used to be a smallish house here on the east shore of Lake Owasso but the new owners wanted something more appropriate to their wealth, I guess.This is also today's wildlife photo as if you look carefully down there by the dock you can see an egret, also known as white heron, also known as big white bird.

I have been watching the live coverage of the Tour on tape every day but today I saw most of it when it actually was live. It was not a very exciting stage. I saw a quote from Wiggins made before the stage. He said that the next few days in the Alps are not going to provide the excitement that many people expect. Wiggins thinks all of the teams are being extremely cautious, waiting for the Pyrenees more than a week away before they make maximum effort. He expects more stages much like the one today and two days ago where the peloton just coasts along in the small ring until 20 kilometers to go and then hammers in, saving energy for later. He certainly was right about today. There was an extreme shortage of risk taking by all of the teams.

I note by the morning paper that the Associated Press does not have an umlaut in their type set either so they have gone with Kloeden. He looked miserable and Vino with all of his gauze and tape looked vaguely like The Mummy. In any case, tomorrow the mountains begin.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I watched the last part of the stage, too. Did you think that the peloton was being mean when it seemed to refuse to overtake Wiggins. And when they went by him, they left him behind. I think he was the only rider to get dropped.

You are right. It was a beautiful day and well worth a day off to have a bike ride.

Emily said...

There is a Mummy in the TdF? Awesome.

It was a good day for a bike ride. Glad you took it off. Also, you have a social obligation?

Anonymous said...

Jimi -- I thought they left Wiggins out there for so long out of respect, not meanness. He was commemorating the death of a British rider in the tour on that date... something the tour organizers had failed to do. Or so my sources said. In one of their articles. www.velonews.com

Gino, July mornings are one of the treats of retirement. I love my morning rides, and the sun has already turned and will eventually rise too late for me to ride early. Also, that whole tear down phenom is inevitable, I guess. But it does change the character of neighborhoods, especially old cottage communities around lakes.
The Alps will be boring? Maybe, but somehow I doubt it. SS