Stone overcast

After a single day of summer, punctuated at the end of the day by our first round of violent summer storms, today dawned sunny but crisp. As the morning progressed even the sunny part went away as a heavy, dense overcast descended. The weather was fine for biking and I did, but only with a return of the jacket. The sun never made even the slightest appearance during my ride and in the subpar light conditions I declined each and every photo opportunity.

But I had scanned this. I have heard that this may not be its only appearance on the web but I haven't checked JQ's site yet so I do not know for sure whether it has been posted or not.Pictured at the Anderson homestead, photo circa 1941 or 2: Foreground left, clockwise to right: Tom and Lillie Miller, Marvin Anderson, Leona and Al Hoffman. The object of the rapt attention of Leona and Al is the oldest cousin, Anita Hoffman.

The Giro continues to descend into the morass. Today's stage was short, but difficult. It was an uphill time trial, a single climb, of 12.9km, averaging 8.4 percent. The route started out easy, but riders paid for that near the top, where portions of the climb hit a whopping 24 percent.

Part of this route was on gravel roads and that involved the steepest parts. The first half of the course covered a steep, paved section which climbed nearly 500 vertical meters with ramps as steep as 16 percent, and that's the easy part!

Near the top the route followed 5km of narrow forest road winding to a mountain-top finish. The gravel section of this road rose nearly 600 vertical feet.

An early finisher criticized the route, saying, "This is just a spectacle. This isn't road racing. This is mountain biking."

Race leader Contador continues to ride much better than anyone can believe possible, as today he takes fourth, adding time to his advantage over all of the GC contenders except Simoni, who finishes third, 5 seconds better. All of this from a guy who 6 days before the start was relaxing on the beach in Spain, not training. All of this from a guy who is not even in peak condition. Imagine how much of a farce the race would be if he were actually in shape.