writ. dodging classification

So Supposedly I’m going biking with Dan today. Hopefully the rain clears up and this is a reality.

Rain Rain Go away…

Maybe.

I road up the North Central Railroad bike trail today that starts in cockeysville and goes all the way up to York PA.

I set my goal at going to the PA state line and coming back, thats 20 miles just to get to the line. I did it .. I’m pooped.

40 miles in 2h52 minutes on a gravel trail…. most of the 20 miles to the state line is slightly up hill .. which was really killing me about 5 miles from my turn around point…

So i figure it’d be a good idea to go cycling up the North Central Railroad trail that starts here in Cockeysville. Don’t worry I’m bringing a camel back, backpack of water and a water bottle. I’ll be fine ;).

I had a fun weekend of visiting my family with Laurie. We went out to dinner with my brother and sister-in-law to this Mexican restaurant that has some pretty good and very strong margaritas. Then on Sunday we were walking around Tyler Arboretum. I’m guessing one of the highlights for Laurie was finding old photo albums that have a billion pictures of me when I was a little kid, and of course embarrassing stories from my parents to go along with them ha ha.

EDIT at 3:15pm: Well when we were driving up to the trail. The temperature on a sign said 101. Who cares ! i got water. And it turns out the NCR trail is mostly shaded by trees, so it really wasn’t a bad ride at all, with the air current moving past you on the bike. It felt really nice actually.

that is all.

I find myself thinking today about the tour de france. I’ve been following it about as hard as I follow it every year. Which means when I’ve got time, i sit down and watch the end of whatever stage is on that day, and I’ve tracked and read the news logs off of the tour website for the day. Its pretty neat to read each report as they came in sequentially. It almost gives you a feel of actually watching the race, just compacted down into little reports that you can read in 15 minutes instead of watching the 4 hours of the race. Todays stage was won by a guy named Alexandre Vinokourov. He and another rider got out quite a bit in front of the peloton on todays mountain stage, and while they were pursued by about 20 some riders being led by Lance Armstrong’s Discovery team, they were not caught. Lance and the crew with him tried, to reclaim the time lost, but could only make up to being 1 minute 15 seconds behind the 2 leaders. It wasn’t quite as important for Lance to make up the whole gap today, because neither of the 2 made up much time on Lance’s overall lead with that 1min15sec time gap. The big thing for the rest of the field was the big group that came with lance’s attack. All of his rivals who wanted to stay in contention came on this attack of the 2 leaders. These including Jan Ulrich, and Ivan Basso.

But I digress… for the most part i’d say you don’t care about this.. but I like writing it none the less. The big thing I’ve been thinking about is… that i kind of want Lance to lose… sort of. I mean of the big names, Lance is the guy i want to see win. I almost really want to see some darkhorse rider no name young guy come out and challenge lance for his win. Somebody nobody thinks of. There’s a couple of people in the standings right now that have a chance to do that. Who knows though. In the end I guess i really do want to see Lance get a 7th tour win and retire like that, it just seems fitting. The guys physical fitness is amazing.

Yes its that time of year again. I’m addicted to following the Tour de France. Today was Stage 4. The Team Time Trial stage. Its a little different from any other stage on the tour. 1. Its a team stage, which means teams need to stay together. Each team needs to stay together, and work together to get a time on the stage. 2. Its a time trial. This means each team goes it alone. The teams start 5 minutes apart. The team with the lowest overall standing starts first, and so on to the top ranked team in the Tour thus far.

Check here for the recap of the day.
http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/tdf2005/news/story?id=2100726

You just gotta feel for Zabriskie. He’s overall leader, and if he hadn’t fell his team may very well have pulled out that 2 seconds and been able to beat Discovery today. That is a serious accomplishment. Its not that suprising also considering that Zabriskie is a former team mate of Armstrongs.

I really want to see this Zabriskie guy have a run for the Tour, if he can stick with it. I love watching Lance ride, and the shear machinelike determination of his team, now sponsored by Discovery Channel. I just like seeing these younger guys really come out and challenge the juggernaut that is Lance Armstrong.

I still don’t really understand why I’m so fascinated with watching the Tour de France. Its not like I follow cycling all that well throughout the rest of the year. Then again if it was more publicised I’m sure I would follow it as much as I follow baseball, or how much some other people follow Nascar.

Well its only day 4. There’s a whole lot more riding to go on. Its this time of year I really do wish i had Tivo… then again OLN network plays repeats the race like 3 times later in the day after the live morning broadcast. So i guess i don’t really need it for this lol.