Rest day musings

Three days off in a row in mid-July.  How can this be?  Surely in the absolute middle of the season there has to be bicycling, right?  This cannot possibly have ever happened before.  Turns out the last time this happened was LAST year.

But rest days are good.  I have been nursing along a right big toe sprain.  Nothing at all serious, it doesn't hurt when I walk, it doesn't hurt when I ride.  It only hurts after I ride when I am trying to settle down for some quiet relaxation.  Three days off seems to have totally fixed that deal.

How three days off?  Saturday it rained.  Sunday World Cup final, a must see even if it occurred right in the middle of the most likely part of the day for bicycling.  I watched with TCWUTH.  We spent part of the second half looking at the Germans and trying to find someone who did NOT have an umlaut in his name.  Actually it was pretty easy:  Klose.  Lots and lots of the others did have the double dot above one of the vowels in their name though.

Then yesterday was the coldest July 14 ever experienced in Minnesota by each and every living Minnesotan.  The high temperature for the day was the lowest for that date since 1874.  Did I mention that it was also extremely windy?

This morning it was still pretty dang chilly, I think 53 when I went out to get the newspaper at about 6:30am.  I was starting to wonder about four days off in a row.  But it was sunny enough and eventually by about 2pm it was in the mid-60s.  Well, mid-60s?  I ride lots and lots of times when that would be balmy.  I went to the closet and got the gear and went ahead and started out to see if I could get some miles.

It was pretty nice for a jacket weather day in July.

A northwest wind had me thinking Vadnais until I came to this.

That's an important choke point in the ride north.  Sometimes I ride up that hill, sometimes a turn left and go down a block and attack a slightly more gentle version of the elevation change.  Today I looked across the way and all I could see was little oil covered pebbles on my tires.

I turned back.

So it ended up being a bit more of JRA than what I was hoping for but did I mention that it was pretty nice?  For jacket weather in July?

I had to ride a loop to the south to get enough miles.

EG: 69
CB: 67
Always optimistic WG: 75

That west grandstand thing has to have its temperature sensor in a spot exposed to direct sunlight in the afternoon because 75 it was not.

I was thinking the gravel would be the only photo but on the way home I rode past the rain garden and it occurred to me that it is nearly time for those red flowers to appear.  I doubled back to have a look.

No red flowers yet but the rain garden is entering a pretty attractive phase.

There are never enough photos of orange flowers.

I was pretty sure that was that when quite unexpectedly wildlife appeared.

I learned a lot about taking pictures from Joe Valentinetti and Joe always emphasized that to achieve good photos you HAVE to learn to and then force yourself to edit.  One of the photos is the best one, figure it out and dispense with the others.

This time I couldn't decide.

OK, actually I think the first one is slightly better.  The upright stalk on the right there is further removed from the edge making it a far more interesting element and there is even some orange up in the corner.  The second one has a more close up view of the wildlife.

And now for the continuing cynical review of the bicycle race.

First, those weren't even mountains.  There were trees next to the road.  When the race gets to the mountains the summit finishes will be above the tree line.

But they were really steep hills.  But short.  But really steep.

So OK.  Porte hangs with the lead group as it gradually winnows down to an extremely elite set of riders.  Eight guys!  And Richie is still there.  The good news for the race though is that in the end eighth ended up being the best he could do.  Five of the guys ahead of him in the general classification could not do even that well.  Porte moves up to second.

There has been a lot of talk about how with Froome out one of the strongest teams (Sky) was removed from the front of the peloton.  Well, welcome back to the front of the bunch for Team Sky.  They now have to defend Porte's potential position on the podium in Paris.

And that is just what the race needs to remain interesting after Contador's broken tibia.  Will Astana and Sky work together to get to the final time trial to let that stage decide the race?  Or will they attack each other?

Apparently Contador's bike got broken in a car accident, not in the incident where he broke his leg.  Read the article though, lots of guys saying pretty negative things about Alberto.  Like "his own mistake", "didn't seem necessary", "very stupid".  Good stuff.

Relatively flat stage tomorrow, rolling with four small climbs (a 3, a 3, a 4 and another 3) quite near the end of the stage.  Sagan?  Or maybe Kittel.