Stage One

Nice to be in a house with cable for stage one! Much better start than the standard prologue. Valverde's bike? That is an over the top Italian color scheme more that Spanish,but it has been a while since a true contender has been Spanish national champion. At least the yellow will match his jersey tomorrow. I would have been too superstitious to ride that bike myself.
That super fast downhill run into the right turn on the bridge was sick. Valverde's attack was gnarly-massive acceleration. That was as impressive as Boonen on the Roubaix Velodrome this spring. Top 30 of the stage had all the GC contenders and most of the sprinters and strong men represented. Nice. Tomorrow should be just as hectic.
McEwen is on the Campy 11? He must have been riding it for a while, if he is running it at the tour. No Super-Record for him, though. 3 bikes, 3 groups. Although Velonews said he rode 10 speed today. Extra 11 speed info here
And speaking of Ridleys. The bike featured here doesn't look much like the bike Cadel is riding here....
The giant logos on this one are a bit much. Just as bad as the new Giant TCR Advanced. If you are going to cover a frame with giant logos, can you at least have the downtube ones line up? That ad in the new Velonews looks terrible.
Saunier Duval went heavy on the white to prevent yellow jersey confusion with their team kit. Would have been cooler if they went pink like Once did.
Soler came to grief but still looks better than that Bianchi color scheme.
Hinault looked skinner than usual shaking hands with Valverde. He must really be back riding. Watch out Eddy!
Since when did New England get the NW weather??? Overcast and scattered showers for what 10 days now? Cranky.
Campy 10 speed stuff already getting marked down on the interweb. Nice!

TED LEO RUDE BOYS

Go ride a bike and watch fireworks!

Reason number by 2000 why Jens Voigt rules

"....sometimes the attack is the best defense and that will be my job". "I would be delighhted if Bjarne says 'Hey, Jens we need a little chaos and stress in the peloton so you go today' I'm looking forward to that" I can only hope Jens gets to fly in the 1st week.

One day to go

Hold your doping comments for the moment and think back to this attack. Unreal moment.

Hopefully the mountains this year will provide some equally compelling( and drug free) moments

Bike Blog Round Up

4th of July weekend. Go ride a bike. But if you have any spare time check these out.
Bicylce Design showed a cool self serve bike parts machine here. Very interesting.
Cool interview with Scott Sunderland here. Riding advice,humor, and a ghetto-tech innovation.
Already metioned the JV interview, but check out some of the other things at the times online. Such as this Chris Boardman super secret track parts article. He is really starting to look like Mr.Bean.

More cool food and parts list for the tour at the slipstream blog. Full on drool as you read about all those parts....

Super funny regrets list here.

And you might think you are deep in the bike game. You might think you are rolling deep with gear and tools but do you have this? Come on. You know you are deeepp in the game when you have a 100 meter roll of this hanging around! You wouldn't want to use just any tin wire to tye and soder your spokes would you. Before you do watch out Jobst Brandt says it doesn't help. Tell that to every old Belgian at Roubaix!

And Fitchburg-Longso starts tomorrow. So keep an eye on some racing in Mass.

Getatchew Mekuria, the Ex, and Guests- Moa Anbessa

Ethio-punk? I was pretty skeptical when this cd got handed to me, but it came with a strong thumbs up from a reliable source. The Ex team up with an Ethiopian saxophonist? Sounds like the anarchist Graceland to me. I have also slept on the whole African/Ethiopique renaissance of music and rereleases, so I didn't have a good frame of reference outside of what I would here on college radio. But skeptical or not, you gotta let the music do the talking.
11 tracks some(5 or 6) with vocals. It is a pretty amazing combination. The Ex chug along and bash out some solid work that meshes well with the horns. Surprisingly well.
Several of the tracks are well known Ethiopian classics that the Ex reworked and added vocals to. The whole adding vocals thing is another can of worms that was more likely to go wrong than right, but even this is done well. I think the horns and more traditional songs kept the Ex coloring inside the lines more than they might usually. Some songs have almost a Morphine or Tom Waits sound to them.
I am looking forward to seeing the documentary about this as apparently the whole collaboration took place with little common language between the musicians.


And as if all this isn't enough they are on tour and playing the Middle East on 08/15.Check it.

This kind of makes me wonder what would come out of a Fugazi/Trouble Funk collaboration or something......

2 days to go ....

The sprinters.... No Boonen, Bennati, and no Pettachi makes a McEwen vs Cavendish showdown look likely. Who will spoil the party? Cooke, Hunter,Hushvod,Ciolek, O'Grady,Dean,Zabel,Lancaster,Nibali,Steegmans, or Freire?
Never mind the guys that can win in from a breakaway or steal it from the sprinters- Backtedt,Voigt,Ballan,Pozzatto, Flecha,Hoste,Schumacher,etc,
The countdown begins. At least by skipping the prologue this year, you get right to the action. Prologue has always felt anti-climatic to me.