The bicycle race starts tomorrow

According to my version of the local listings Versus coverage begins at 5:30am CDT, adjust accordingly for other time zones. It seems to me that a person could probably miss the first couple of hours and not miss anything but the set up. I personally love the set up and I will be watching. But by starting so early Versus only guarantees that they will be giving complete coverage to the flat bit before the climbs. This will include the always exciting feed zone and the possibly interesting sprint.

*yawn*

The meat comes later in the stage. I suspect we will see the complete climb of la Hourquette d'Anzican, a category 1 climb being climbed for the first time. Nothing of importance will happen on that climb. Next up is the out of category Col du Tourmalet, a legendary climb. It is unlikely that anything of importance will happen on the Tourmalet. The interesting bits will be the final climb of Luz-Ardiden to a mountaintop finish. Now, THAT should be fun.

In another bit of TdeF minutia, today I saw Thomas Voeckler interviewed in English for the first time. He has been a character of sufficient interest for a long enough time that I found it unusual that Versus had never interviewed him. I assumed it was because Voeckler's English was deficient in his mind and he preferred not to be interviewed in English. For comparison Contador is only very rarely asked even the simplest of questions in English and the reason is clearly because Alberto is uncomfortable in English. Look, I am a guy with very, very rudimentary French language skills and I am about to spend two weeks in France. These observations about Voeckler and Contador should not be construed as criticism, only as observation. But today Hummer and Voeckler were on camera for Versus after the conclusion of the stage and I will say about Thomas what I say about virtually every French person I have ever come into contact with, his English is way better than my French. Thomas conversed comfortably at the level required to answer questions about a bicycle race and said he will do his best to defend the leadership of the race but he does expect that tomorrow he will lose the yellow jersey.

On to the World Cup, international and professional football awards 3 points for a game victory and 1 point for a draw. I take credit for only a single point for my preview of today's USA v. France semi-final. Certainly I nailed the winner and the goal differential but that was absolutely NOT the game I expected to see. France was dominant for long, long periods, the USA seemed very flat. But in the end as I expected, France did not have a goal scoring finisher and as a result they could not turn their dominance of ball possession into goals. And despite what I said, when the game was on the line somehow Abby Wambach got open at the back post for a headed goal to turn the game finally to the USA's favor. Wambach again today was too big, too strong, too good. Japan may find the same thing to be true in the Sunday final. I think USA, again I think by two goals.

I rode my bicycle today. This is certainly not on the order of the Hope College tree downings but I thought I heard the overnight windstorm here a couple of days ago and finally have spotted some evidence that it was not auditory hallucination. This is at Sucker Lake, a tree down covering part of the road. It is a puny tree but it is all I have.Within about 100 yards of taking that picture I had an opportunity for an extended sit down at this location.As may be evident from my bicycle and from the tools strewn about, today I had my first on the road repair of a flat tire in the last couple of years. I chose this place to stop because it was the nearest to me shady area with a good place to sit after it became apparent that I had two options, either stop or stop. It isn't a bench, it is a table, but it should qualify for inclusion in the bench category as it certainly has bench like qualities.

I have had a flat on the road earlier this year but that time I used my get out of jail free card. Today I knew that I had no such card to play, TOPWLH was at work and not available for anything as frivolous as rescuing me from a bicycle repair issue for which I carry in my pockets and on my bicycle all of the necessities with which to rescue myself.

I sat down at the table and rescued myself.

Actually, it was really, really pleasant out there today. There was a summer school group of some kind nearby, children and their teachers also on their bicycles. With them providing ambient human background noise I found that I had no where to go and all day to get there. I took my sweet time and ended up actually enjoying the whole thing.

Most urban flat tires are caused by one of the trillions of bits of broken glass littering the edges of urban roadways. For a change this one was not glass, instead a really sharp rock shard. Shoreview (the location of Sucker Lake) is doing that chip and seal thing, also known as "Caution: Loose Gravel", on some of the streets that I usually ride on when I am out there. I turned away before getting my tires heavily oiled but obviously not before picking up a tiny but really sharp piece of rock. My usual inspection found the rock fairly quickly and I was able to remove it from its position embedded on the inside of the tire without any bloodshed, always a good thing. I patched the tube and decided to try to inflate the tire not with the CO2 inflator that I carry in my bicycle tote bag but with the mini-pump that I carry in my back jersey pocket. Yes, you read that correctly, I carry TWO tire inflation tools with me at all times when I ride. There is actually a good reason for this which I am not going to go into at this time. OK, the mini-pump is to find the leak, the CO2 is to inflate the tire. You have to find the cause of the leak, if you don't find it and remove it you will more or less instantaneously find yourself with another flat tire. But you don't want to waste CO2 finding the cause. I carry the mini-pump to find the cause of the leak. I carry the CO2 inflator to get the repaired tire back up to a pressure close to the pressure that I prefer for riding.

There is a learning curve for every new competence and today I made major strides up the mini-pump curve. I have used the pump a few times before but today I was in absolutely NO hurry and was therefore able to make significant competence advances. I used the mini-pump for inflation of the tire and actually got the tire pressure up to a level which certainly no one would want to race at but which was way more than adequate for riding.

With the repair complete, as is usual with such occasions, I departed from the bicycle repair site and took the most direct and shortest distance from that spot to my floor pump. Back at home in the garage I got the tire pumped back up to the pressure that I prefer to ride and went back out and finished the ride.

I pronounce the whole thing to have been good, despite the flat. It was a very pleasant day out there, it was good to have an excuse to be out there in it.