Sunday ride on the last day of the Tour

I was up and out fairly early this morning for a ride. I wanted to get back in time to finish watching the final stage of the Tour de France, and I did.

The ride was good. I managed a little over 36 miles at about 16.2 mph and ascended close to 1500 feet of overall climbing. Weather was warm, but not too hot.

Today, on the ride, I saw a box turtle debating whether to cross the road, and I saw a fox run into an empty, weed-overgrown lot carrying something in its jaws, and there were a good many horses and donkeys in pasture.

As for the Tour, I was glad to see Alberto Contador wrap up the race in the yellow jersey. He had been my pick all along. I’m also pretty amazed at Mark Cavendish and the Columbia-HTC team. They have just dominated the sprinting at this Tour. I think much of Cavendish’s success is due to his leadout and Mark Renshaw in particular is just setting him up to perfection.

All in all it was a good race, and I find it strange to think that there hasn’t been a single doping controversy this year…so far—there is always the chance a test result will come back in the week after the race. Armstrong generated the usual controversy and attention, and that is to be expected. Overall it is good for the sport. It gets eyeballs watching the race that might not tune in otherwise.

There is a part of me that is glad that it is done now. As much as I love it—for three weeks I don’t accomplish much of anything except watch the daily stage and talk about the next day and what it holds. Now I can get back to a semblance of normalcy, and perhaps get in a little more time on my own bike.

Quiet Weekend

It’s been a quiet weekend consisting mostly of sleeping late and reading. I decided to stay off the bike this weekend since I’ve been struggling with a cold for the past week or so, and I thought it would be better to just rest and try and recuperate. I think the decision has worked, I’m feeling much better today. The lungs are still clearing out, but I have the sense that’s exactly what is happening now when I cough…clearing. Sorry for sharing so much!

Mostly I read from The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which is a novel, but I also read a fair bit of the latest issue of The Atlantic—July/August Issue. And today is Sunday so there was an article or two in the NY Times that Marcella gets every weekend; in particular a story in the Travel section about cycle touring in France that was interesting—maybe, someday!

And now I’m watching some of the Tour du Suisse on Versus channel on TV. It’s only about three weeks away from the beginning of the Tour de France. That time frame also means time for controversy and doping allegations to emerge. There seems to be a pattern of these things being revealed in the couple of weeks immediately prior to the beginning of the race. Oh well, we shall see.

Wilmington NC going digital first

I thought this was kind of interesting. Apparently Wilmington, NC is going to be the first city to transition from analog to digital television broadcasts.

Wilmington, NC, population 96,000, has agreed to become the first city in the country to turn off its analog TV stations and switch to digital. The FCC said that the city will thereby become a test market on Sept. 8 to determine what problems, if any, the nation may experience as a whole on Feb. 18, when broadcasters in the rest of the country will be required the make the same switchover.

This was from imdb studio brief.

Doctor Who: Blink

Last night I watched the latest episode of Doctor Who to air in the US. The episode was entitled Blink. I’m a fan of the show, and usually enjoy the episodes for the most part, but this episode was terrific. The performances were really good all around, even by the players who are in it just for this one episode. Which is pretty much everybody besides Martha and the Doctor. And the direction was spot on. They managed to create a genuine sense of tension with these truly creepy statues who move when nobody is looking.

There probably aren’t too many fans of the show who read this blog, or rather, most of my readers likely aren’t fans of the show, or may not have even heard of the show, but this episode was some damn fine television. Very entertaining.

Rose

I’ve been watching the new Doctor Who. I know, what a geek! But I miss Rose. Martha is okay, and from the most recent episode I’ve seen they are setting up a nice conflict involving Martha’s family, her mother in particular. But I still miss Rose. I dunno, just one of those things. I seem to be having a harder time adapting to her being gone than I had to the casting change of the Doctor himself between the previous two seasons.