Retired again

Having successfully completed one of my two weeks of employment limbo I have returned to the ranks of the retired. As with the first time through with this not going to work thing, I proclaim the new status to be good. However, I have one more go round of this minor harassment to go at the end of which I will get my two watches and leave the building for good. Yes, two watches. I am entitled to a retirement watch and I also am in line for a 30 year watch (again, yes, these are separate deals) for having completed 30 years of service in April. August 4 is in all respects now official, I will receive my watches and start whatever it is that comes next.

As a retired person I did not have to tape le Tour de France today but instead had the opportunity to watch live. I hailed TOPWLH to watch the final 5 kilometers with me as Thomas Voeckler assured himself of never having to work a day in his life. Here he is at the end of today's Stage 5 with the peloton looming in the background but looming just a tiny bit too late. The have misjudged the sprint and will not catch the last survivor of the breakaway.Thomas crossed the line 7 seconds ahead of the bunch sprint, securing a stage victory and a permanent place in the pantheon of minor French sports heroes. It may be a minor place but it is most certainly a place nonetheless. Voeckler cements his credentials as a French national hero and assures that like a previous only partly successful French bicyclist, Richard Virenque, after his bicycling career is over Voeckler will be able to ride this minor celebrity into a career which does not involve showing up anywhere for work.

Thomas is already famous in France for having led the 2004 Tour for 10 stages and perhaps most famously rallying late in Stage 14 that year to limit his losses just enough to remain in the maillot jaune for another day even after eventual race winner Lance Armstrong had left him reeling far behind on a mountaintop finish stage. Thomas exhibited courage and pluck in retaining the jersey even though it had become obvious that he had no chance whatsoever of actually winning the race overall. He added to his reputation by sneaking out on a breakaway in Stage 1 of the 2008 Tour to capture the lead in the mountains classification. He successfully retained the spotty jersey awarded to the mountains leader for 5 stages or until le Tour arrived at some actual mountains. Today he completed some sort of triple crown for French bicyclists. He has held the yellow jersey, he has held the spotty jersey, and now he has won a stage.

The French have not won their own national race since 1986 (Bernard Hinault). Voeckler has had the most prominent successes in the last several years and is widely celebrated in France for those successes. Today's result only adds to his legend. If you click on the link above with his name you can find that his Wikipedia page has already been updated and the Stage victory occurred less that 7 hours ago.

Bravo, Thomas!

I rode almost immediately after the race was over. The wind was out of the east today, an extremely rare occurrence which I believe is related to the rotation of the planet. I headed for Lake Phalen on Saint Paul's East Side. At first I became a little discouraged as the skies clouded up and temperatures remained a bit on the cool side. I considered riding just to Lake Gervais and returning home. But the sun came out as I arrived at Lake Gervais so I continued on. I completed a Five Lake Tour. This is only half of the more usual Ten Lake Tour but I did not have the Guest Rider with me. Today's rule is that half as many people out bike touring only have to visit half as many lakes.

This is Lake Gervais from the east shore. The sun had ducked back behind the clouds at this point but fishing was going on in that boat out on the lake.I continued on to the east and discovered that there is something over there called Spoon Lake. I have ridden past this spot before but either the sign is new or I never looked at it before.It doesn't really look like a lake to me, it looks more like a wide spot in the creek connecting Gervais and the next lake in the chain. But the sign says Spoon Lake so Spoon Lake it is. My take is that the whole wide spot in the creek thing is vaguely spoon shaped.

This is south shore of Keller lake from the picnic grounds on the west side of Highway 61.I had to do a little cyclocross riding at this point, mounting and dismounting a curb and riding across the grass of the picnic area but I persevered. Here is the south shore of Lake Phalen.Those native plantings along the shoreline were a project worked on by one of GRider's somewhat shirt tail in-laws, someone with the same last name but only by marriage.

The wind was mostly from the east but by the time I was approaching home it had also assumed a slightly southerly component and I felt pretty good as I passed Lake Como which you may know is located southeast of where I live.My legs were still pretty good today although not as good as they have been. My two hour ride today took two hours to ride. Even so I was still on the upper edge of what my normal average speed is so I still think I was doing pretty well. I trace the slight decline in the leg quality to increasing distance from the hot dog extravaganza which is now another full day further into the past.

Even having suggested that my strength comes from hot dogs, I concur in principle with the comment that if it were solely hot dogs that Gus would win the Tour de France. Except that Gus would actually only be a contender. The winner would be one of these guys.That's Joey Chestnut, current world record holder and now three time defending champion of the Nathan's hot dog eating contest on Coney Island, New York, taking the lead over former world record holder and former six time champion Takeru Kobayashi. The signs behind the eaters indicate how many hot dogs they have consumed to this point in the contest and at this point near the end of the contest Chestnut leads 65-62 on his way to a new world record of 68 hot dogs, including buns, in 10 minutes. Gus may be a local legend but I don't think there is any possible way that Gus would be able to compete with these world renowned eating legends.