Archive: July 13, 2010

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TDF stage 9 / mountains / Casar wins as Contador and Schleck pull time on GC

Tuesday,  07/13/10  10:48 AM

Today was an amazing stage in the Tour de France, on a day which you might have thought ho hum, despite a lot of big Alpine climbs...  An early break which you might have thought would succeed built a huge lead, but then on the final climb, the HC Col de la Madeleine, Saxo Bank cranked up the energy, cracking Cadel Evans among others, and then Andy Schleck attacked the elite group containing the remaining GC contenders.  Alberto Contador grabbed his wheel - the only one who could do so - and the two strong men of this year's tour took off, pulling time on everyone and nearly catching the breakaway.   The carnage on that climb was amazing, the peloton was spread all over the hill.  It was a great race on a day when nothing amazing was expected...

Sandy Casar survived to win the stage and Schleck took over the yellow jersey, by 41s.  It is now evident that either Schleck or Contador are going to win, and there is a four-way battle for third between Samuel Sanchez, Denis Menchov (go Rabobank!), Jurgen Van Den Broek, and Levi Leipheimer (go Shack!).

Tomorrow seems to be one of those transitional stages with enough climbing to prevent a field sprint but not enough to have a GC shootout; could be a "breakaway" stage.  But nothing has been normal in this year's Tour, so stay tuned!

[ Tour de France 2010: all postsindex ]

 

bad day, good night

Tuesday,  07/13/10  11:04 PM

Encinitas sunset - on an beautiful evening...Whew, a long bad day today; many meetings and much to do.  And at the end I am left feeling I made no progress :)  But the good news was that I was able to get in a great ride tonight - beautiful evening, rode down the coast with the sun setting over the Pacific - and then retired to the 3rd Corner, my sanctuary, and enjoyed watching the Tour on my laptop via Slingbox to Tivo, while enjoying a great cheese plate and a nice Pinot.  And then, blogging...

The White House, the House, and the impact of a majority in the balance.  "Democrats are being forced into a process conversation about whether or not their majority is in jeopardy -- a conversation that the House leadership did their damnedest to avoid by adopting a concerted strategy not to mention publicly the idea that control was at stake in the fall."  Even the threat of losing their majority is causing Democrats to act as if they don't have one - and this is a good thing. 

Yay: Nuclear power could see a revival.  I honestly think in the long run this is our only way out.  You see the BP Gulf spill disaster and you just know fossil fuels cannot be the future of our civilization.  Onward! 

Andrew Grumet is a sucker for a good pun :) 

This is cool: the cell counting cryptogram challenge. "If you can decipher the posted cryptogram, you get a cash prize as well as a free lab analyzer of your choice! Let the nerdy fun ensue…"

Man, this looks tempting...

 

 
 

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