Sunday, June 13, 2010

HOT SULTRY SUNDAY WITH RACE RECAPS

 

Links to current races/tours I  am following:

 

That crunching sound run to ground… maybe!

I guess better late than never applies to this inspection or lack of timely inspection. I now realize I’d better add to my normal scheduled inspection, check those cleats! On the left you can see the condition of my cleats after hitting the deep pothole last week and beginning to hear a crunching sound. On the right, is my shoes with newly replaced cleats. Hmm, there is a difference!

Cleats01 Cleats03

Note sharp point on shoe on right.

Newly replaced cleats.

I now think that bottoming out the pothole broke off a remaining portion of the thin cleat on my left shoe (shown on right in left image above) and that resulted in the crunching sound that I was getting. I sure hope so because the next option is my knee! I hope to test my theory later today.

Artis arrives in Bar Harbor…

Cadillac Mountain Sunrise(Jim Artis image of sunrise on Cadillac Mountain, Bar Harbor. Click on the image to see more Artis imagery.) 

The final stages of preparation for tomorrow’s Tour of Discovery: Ride for the Republic are underway. Cycling Experiences Jim Artis arrived in Bar Harbor, ME after having driven straight through from Fayetteville, NC. If I am correctly interpreting his SPOT markers, Jim arrived in Bar Harbor around 9:30 p.m. last night (Saturday). According to email I received from him this morning, he spent the night in his van. He now appears to have ridden to the top of Cadillac Mountain and reconnoitered tomorrow's starting location. As of this writing, I do not know if his touring partner, Rafael Giraldo, has arrived in Bar Harbor. The tour begins tomorrow morning when the first rays of sun hit Cadillac Mountain.

“Mountain Turtle” continues “hastening slowly”…

Kent “Mountain Turtle” Peterson has reentered the good old USA approximately one hour ago, which would be around 2:00 p.m. EDT. A quick look at the Tour Divide Leader Board shows “Mountain Turtle” near a number of racers as they approach Eureka, Montana. Matthew Lee and Erik Lobeck appear to be in the over-all lead. Keep in mind that “Mountain Turtle” is racing a single speed bike!

Team Bent Up Cycles moves into 3rd place…

In the 4 man team category, Bent Up Cycles has captured 3rd place behind second place team Doc2doc and first place team Bandwidth.com, Inc. Teams in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th place are only separated by seconds at this point. They have travelled 441 miles and are maintaining an average speed of 20.77 mph. You may find current standings for all categories at the RAAM Leader Board.

The Tour of Switzerland, Stage 2…

Heinrich Haussler took the stage victory and Fabrian Cancellara retained the yellow jersey following the sprint finish. In a tweet to his followers, Lance Armstrong indicated “I felt o.k. Not great, not terrible”. Armstrong is in 46th place after stage 2. Andreas Kloden and Levi Leipheimer, also of Team Radio Shack, are in 28th and 42nd positions respectively. Congratulations to Janez Brajkovic for his win in the Critérium du Dauphiné 2010.

The coming week…

Be sure to “tune in” tomorrow for the start of the Tour of Discovery: Ride for the Republic. Tomorrow will be our first chance to see the technological goodies planned by Jim Artis. Jim will have posts at Cycling Experiences and I’ll do my best to keep updates fresh here as well. Also, check out the interactive site for the Tour of Discovery setup by the South Florida Sun Sentinel.

I hope to hear that Bro Dave got confirmation on the sale of his crankforward in Los Angeles yesterday. If so, there may be a Fargo Salsa in his near future! As in all things, time will tell…

Until later,

- Zeke

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