I was able to work in two bicycle rides, since I haven't ridden since I climbed to Petersberg on June 30th (thanks to travel and good ol' Mother Nature), I decided to go with shorter rides - 26KM yesterday and 36KM today. Overall, great rides. Saturday was my usual flat ride along the river, maintained close to my best average for the ride. Today's was my usual ride to the southwest with some rolling hills and a long ride along the river to end. This was the best ride, I beat my best average by 1 km/h, doesn't sound like much, but at this point, a pretty big gain for me.
Finally, a true sign of July, the Tour de France. Now cycling has not necessarily been in good light lately with all of the doping scandals. This has eased some of my excitement around the tour this year and there really hasn't been anything to get excited about until this weekend. Yesterday was a great time trial, which really sorted out who was there to play and who was there to win. Then today's stage was amazing! A mountain top finish with 6 of the top ten riders in a break away group leading up the final 16k climb. Best of all, Discovery Channel had 3 of their riders in the group. Disco then won the stage thanks to Alberto Contador and also moved into the "Top Team" spot. They are definitely making amends for a rather poor showing last year. This final week of the Tour should be exciting and culminates with another time trial on Saturday. I don't think we will really know who will win until then. If you get a chance to catch a mountain stage I highly recommend it. Especially since Versus (formerly OLN) shows only the highlights, so you can skip the boring parts.
