Boring? Maybe, but He's in Yellow.

After yesterday's near disaster fall for Cadel Evans, you just knew it was gonna be interesting today. Well, Cadel answered most questions people may have had as to his condition with a brave performance today to take the yellow jersey by 1 second over Frank Schleck of CSC/Saxo Bank. My new favorite Christian Vande Velde of Garmin-Chipotle came in with Evans and is still holding down the 3rd spot.

Observations: Ricco is a serious threat as long as there's mountains to be climbed, but can he TT well enough? Evan's made a few jumps today to try and drop his group but was not successful. Is he in trouble? People aren't sure what to make of Vande Velde right now but the longer this race goes with him hanging around like this,... Who Knows? We may have seen the last of Valverde today, unless it was just a bad day and he comes back after the day off with a big one.

Except for the stupid positive drug test for the Liquigas rider Beltran, this tour is turning out to be VERY exciting.

How Far Will He Go?

Christian Vande Velde is sitting in 3rd and seems to be hanging on pretty well so far. I wonder how far he can go? I'll be cheering for him. Top 10 would be amazing.

Bike Review: Trek Madone

One of the more interesting bikes introduced over the last year for me was the new Madone series of bikes from Trek. Over the last 10 years I always kinda saw Trek road bikes as competent yet somewhat pedestrian looking compared to some other top of the line bikes. Lance's tour wins aboard them surely helped sell a lot of bikes but it was time for a change. I'm no expert reviewer of bikes but I thought I'd share my views from a recent 50+ mile evening I had aboard a new Trek Madone 5.1.

First off, it's my understanding that 5.1 has been discontinued by Trek and they will replace it with the slightly less expensive Taiwanese built Madone 4.7. Having said that, I believe the ride characteristics of this bike will very much follow every Madone whether it's made of OCLV White, Black or Red series carbon, especially the 5.2. The weight differences are not that significant in the frame and the geometries are similar, coming in Pro fit and Performance Fit. The Performance fit models have a 30mm taller head tube for added comfort. The 5.2 Madone is the one Alberto Contador and Levi rode in last year's Tour de France.

The Ride: My ride started out when my wife dropped me off at the bike shop to pick up the bike. The mechanic at the shop used my bike as a guide to set up the seat position, handlebars, reach and swapped pedals. It was waiting for me when I got there. He got close with everything except for the seat to handlebar drop. The longer headtube on the Madone did not allow for as much drop as there is on my current race bike.

Soon I was walking out the door and heading across the parking lot towards the road. I immediately noticed the slightly more upright position. My first thought wasn't oh crap this is going to catch a lot of wind, but more like,.. Hey this is comfortable! More on this later. Shifting through the Ultegra gearset was as smooth and precise as I thought it would be, with very little slop in both the braking and shifting motion. Typically good Shimano. In fact, it's oh so close to Dura-Ace I'm thinking the new Dura-Ace better be a BIG improvement or their gonna sell a lot of Ultegra SL based bikes.

After 5 minutes of weaving through traffic I finally made it to some good riding roads. I wanted to ride on one of my normal training routes so the memory I built up riding my current bike would be a good comparison. As soon as I got off Reisterstown Road and started uphill for the first time I immediately noticed one thing about this Madone. Every bit of energy you put into this bike wants to push you forward. Straight Forward! I guess I would attribute it's stout bottom bracket and head tube for it's almost total lack of lateral movement. Speaking of which, Trek has a few novel ideas in the bottom bracket, head tube and in the seat tube/seat post area. I won't get into that except to tell you to head to their website for more info if you wish there. Personally, I'm more interested in what you feel riding the thing.

I crested the hill and powered along some flats before coming to the next real test on this ride. High speed downhill corning. Here again is a place the Madone shines. This bike tracks completely predictably and inspires total confidence. Holding a line through a curve is a total no brainer. You think, it goes where you want it to go with an almost eerie smoothness. I believe it can help you descend faster because of this. At Lance's Madone intro press conference he mentioned something that I found amusing at the time but understood now. He said the bike feels like a motorcycle. That's NOT a bad thing in this case, and as a motorcycle rider myself, I know the feeling. Sweeping through corners on the Madone at 45mph downhill is fun!

OK, you're thinking Motorcycle? heavy. This bike is not heavy. In fact, I say if you traded in it's relatively heavy stock Bontrager wheels for some great lightweight climbing wheels it would be ideal for a rider like me who is more of a climber, rouleur wanna-be.

Soon I was out in horse country on deserted country roads. Turns, rollers, smooth roads, potholed roads, gravel and hills. The Madone ate up the miles in comfort. This bike is both faster "feeling" yet definitely more forgiving in bumps than my Alu/Carbon framed bike any day of the week. Oh, about that more upright position? With the Madone (performance fit), there's an easy solution, spend more time in the drops. You'll be comfy down there all day, and when you want even more comfort? Head for the brake hoods. If current fads dictate, I suppose most people will opt for the Pro Fit Madones. That's fine, but I think that's a shame since the comfort you have on this bike, just 30mm higher up front is impressive to say the least.

Looks: The new Trek Madone is a huge step up in the looks department over the old Madone. It looks faster and more modern all the way around. Having said that. It's still a step or two behind the exotics out there like the Pinarello Prince. I think it's not because of the frame or graphics. Both are extremely well done and modern, but in the choice of colors. If you noticed the Astana Treks and the Pink Madone Contador had at the Giro, it's obvious the frame and graphics are spot on. Looking through the stock color combos though, they are a bit conservative for this rider. I want something that looks MEAN!

Downsides? This bike is Not MEAN! (All Caps) I think a hardcore crit rider or the Tom Boonen types out there might want a more twitchy bike. To me, this bike is an all day road race or stage racing bike. That's not to say this bike couldn't do great in a sprinter's hands. I don't doubt it could, but over the last 10 years with Lance and now Alberto/Levi, you know Trek went more stage racer with the Madone. I think it's obvious in the way it rides and shows where Trek feels most comfortable making bikes.

At about 30 miles into my ride it started to rain so I began working my way back towards home, enjoying every minute of the ride and the Madone. I was thinking to myself, it'll be hard to return this bike tomorrow. I can't be sure if I'm faster on the Madone than I am on my current bike, but I will say this. After 50 miles I "feel" faster and definitely arrive home more fresh on the Madone.

If blistering acceleration, confidence inspiring high speed cornering, smooth ride and all day comfort is what you are looking for. Check out the Madone.

Thursday Night

Remember back in college when Thursday nights were reserved for PARTAY at the Frat Houses? Bah! I was too busy racing bikes and running back then for parties. Ok maybe a few.

Well, now my Thursdays are for group rides with the team, and some guys from other teams. It was a great night for a ride. One guy went down and banged up his brake lever, but other than that it was cool. I got to ride with a new guy (to me) named Chris that has one heck of a strong TT style. It seems like he can just pull and pull and pull.

I tried some jumps on the hills and a couple sprints tonight. Overall, a great ride.

Racing Update: It seems like a bunch of guys are racing up in PA this weekend, Good Luck! I'll be busy training on some SERIOUS mountains for a change back home in PA, it'll be my last chance to get 2, or 3 days of long sustained climbing in for awhile.

Great Stage 4 Story.

Here's a recount of one rider's Tour Stage 4. If you've raced long enough you'll know EXACTLY how this feels. Something similar to this happened to me at the Mt. Joy race this year. Watching the pack pull away from you as you blow yourself up in the wind trying to latch back on is not fun. It's also a great example of teamwork. Yeah I ripped the article but I want to keep it handy on my blog.

By David Millar, for bicycling.com ...There was another episode that day that showed how well we ride and look after each other. Anyone who watched the stage may have seen a little moment just as the peloton got split up in the crosswinds where there was a helicopter shot of three Garmin riders hovering off the back of the front peloton. This was due to a stupid momentary lapse of vigilance by me. We turned left out of a roundabout into tail crosswind, and I still can't fathom what I was doing so far back, but I was too far back. There was a horrendous crash right next to me as we turned into it, we came sprinting out of the roundabout and had our heads down, at the last moment I hear a yell and the guys in front of me split either side of a central reservation. I was on the left already so I was OK but the guy next to me had his head down sprinting as hard as he could and went straight into a road sign. He stopped dead. It was a horrific and I can still picture it perfectly in my head. I don't know how he got back up again and finished but he did, Nicki Sorenson is a hard bastard. So that crash then set cat amongst the pigeons and strung it out even more. I was feeling good and didn't think there was any real danger, just as I was thinking this Danny pulls up next to me and tells me he's going to take me up. He then sprinted for about 500m and somehow managed to move me up the line out. At this point I realized that the shit was hitting the fan, and it became more apparent as I saw Fedrigo pulling out of the line further ahead, then Cobo, then Kreuziger. This is when I knew that all hell had broken loose. When riders of that quality can't hold the wheel you have to face the fact that the race is ON and you're on your own. I could see the main peloton drifting away and knew what I had to do. I paused for a few seconds and then went as hard as I could for as long as I could. On the file downloaded from Garmin that evening Allen Lim was able to see that I did 4.1km in 4 minutes 12 seconds averaging 533 watts at an average speed of 58.7km/h. So if you ever wonder why it splits in a crosswind, that's why. I was the last rider to make it across, but even that effort didn't quite get me there. I got to within 50m of the back of the group, and this was the worse bit, which was tightly packed and protected itself from the wind, the guys at the back of the group were oblivious to the carnage behind. I in the meantime was dangling 50m off the back nuking from the effort and those 50m may as well have been 10km, I felt like an astronaut whose tether has been cut. Then I saw Martyn and Maggy at the back of the group, I shouted on the radio (what Maggy would later describe as screaming), 'Maggy, Martyn, LOOK BEHIND!'. The first time they didn't turn, the second time I screamed Martyn looked behind. Without hesitating he dropped out of the safety of the group and came back to me. At this moment I was literally blowing up, I couldn't even hold his wheel as he tried to accelerate me back into the group, after trying three times, he turned around and reached out his hand. It was a ballsy move as we were going very fast and it would transfer all his energy to me leaving him stranded and on his own. He did it though. I took it and he slung me as hard as he could, by this time Maggy had dropped out of the group and was awaiting me a little further up the road, the momentum Martyn had given me allowed me to get onto the accelerating sanctuary of Maggy's wheel and he towed me back on. The relief to find myself back in the front group was almost as strong as the few minutes of fear and pain I'd just put myself through. I spent the next 25km disgusted at myself and much more vigilant, but it wasn't fun, in the meantime, Will was up the road almost winning the stage clueless to the chaos behind, that's always one of the interesting things about this race. There are so many different races and experiences being lived each day, dozens of stories and events for each and every stage. That's what makes it what it is I suppose...

L'Étape du Tour: Left Nut of the Week!

After a brief hiatus, and it being Tour de France month, I'm reviving my Left Nut of the Week. This week, my left nut is going not to a product, but to an event. A real once in a lifetime kind of event that I must do someday. The L'Etape du Tour in France allows the amateur cyclist a chance to test his/her legs on a real honest to goodness stage of the Tour de France. This year they did the 156km stage 10 route from Pau to Hautacam.

Oh how I would have loved to be there. Ahhh someday.

What If?

Just imagine for a second what the Tour de France would look like if the NFL or the WWE ran the show.

I heard the NFL tried to do a random drug test once. The testing machine went into a roid rage, busted up the lab and shot a guy.

Group Ride Night

Fairly uneventful ride tonight. I took it easier after last night's fast ride. Enjoying a Negroni Zimbabwe and some excellent pasta with home-made sauce my wife just whipped up for me. YUM!

Stronger Every Day.

I went for a two hour ride on one of my most familiar routes tonight. I was killing it out there. I don't use a computer on my bike but can tell how I'm doing based on what gears I'm using at different points in the ride. It feels good to be back in the swing of things. Tomorrow I'm due to go hard, but after tonight's ride it may be time to step back and take it easy. This was my third day back and it's getting better every day.

Now to go find some more races to enter.

You Don't Mess with the Badger!

Anyone who's been a fan of the tour and bicycle racing long enough knows who that guy is on the right up on the podium since, well, forever. That's right, Bernard Hinault (The Badger) really earned his keep today at the tour. Notice the pencil neck geek trying to make some sort of statement up on the podium in the first pic. Then, notice how The Badger jumps on the scene layin down the most aggressive bouncer move I've ever seen on the poor punk.

Greg LeMond's exploits back in the day just earned more of my respect after witnessing this smackdown. Imagine racing against that day-in day-out. No,... You don't mess with the Badger!