Whatever will be will be.
I’ll be a happy chappy.
It’s now the Tourmalet, I can barely keep my eyes open and I’m watching the rain and the gloss on the road. A dark stage, full of fog, crap weather and frozen weather. I’ve been exhausted, elated, excited, irritated and shocked. We’re getting there. This is the last stage in the Pyrennes and it’s Contador and Schleck and despite being a two horse race (Sammy seems nice but yeah, whatever if he wins and boof – Denis Menchov), there’s much excitement to come. If Schleck wants it, he’s going to have to come and get it. Chain or no chain.
In the mean time,
Jens.
(rob wilmot via cycling tips)
You are an astonishment. There’s a lot of Jens hype, silly man kerfuffle about “shut up legs” and the road getting Jens rash. I’ve had to hear it from others and now, I understand. I’m late to the party, but I’ve brought a big bottle of wine and I’m ready to rock the house. In a way that says, frick you road, and the silly rashy gravel you rode in on. I’m riding to Paris and eff you very much. Whatever, some little kid’s bike will do me just fine.
This may be the last post from me for a while. I’ve got to head to Papua New Guinea, where no one where’s helmets (sigh). Give me a few weeks off and we can get back to normal transmission. So much has occurred. I almost thought Lance had it in him.
(Bettini)
Sentiment shall only get you so far though. And your ghost rider still sucks.
Oh, and though I’ll be out of internet commission for a while, I’m heading to Wye River, to the lovely general store, for five courses of French food and time trialing. Bring it on
In the mean time…
From Bicycling.com:
I came over the top only 20 seconds down on the front group, but about 2 kilometers into the descent my front tire blew and I thought, “Oh God,” and I went down. Just one year after my horrible crash, and there I was tumbling on another mountain descent. And let me tell you, about the only place that feels good right now is my right ankle. The rest of me is all road rash. Plus I’ve got five stitches in my left elbow and then there are some ribs that are not in the right place! I may have to get x-rays, but I hate x-rays (the radiation), and plus, if I’ve got a fractured rib, what can anyone do about it?
The worst thing of all was that I almost got forced out of the Tour for a second year in a row. The problem was that the first team car was behind Andy Schleck, and the second had decided to go up ahead to hand out water bottles at the foot of the next climb. As a result I had no bike, because mine was shattered.
So then the broom wagon pulled up and was like, “Do you want to just get in?” And I said, “Oh no, I don’t need YOU!” But there I am with blood spurting out my left elbow and no bike. Finally, the race organizers got me a bike, but it was this little yellow junior bike. It was way too small for me and even had old-fashioned toe-clip pedals. But that is the only way I could get down the mountain, so I had to ride it for like 15-20 kilometers until I finally got to a team car with my bike.
Then, I still had to get up to the grupetto. All I can say is that that desperate times need desperate measures, but I got up there. And once I did it was grupetto all day long.
Needless to say, I had plenty of time to come up with a fitting book of the day. It’s from the Disk World series by Terry Pratchett. In it, the protagonist is Conan the Barbarian, who is a 70-year-old who has just survived everything. At one point he, and his other old warrior friends capture this village, but then they find that they are surrounded by an army of tens of thousands, and his only reaction is, “Oh man, it’s going to take days to kill all these people!” And that’s the way I was today when I was lying on the ground. I just thought, “Oh no, I’m going to Paris this year, I’m going to Paris. There’s just no way you are going to get me out of this race for the second year in a row!”
eleanor j jackson 