Paris at the end of July


Well, that was exciting! I really thought old Lance was looking weak..something seemed wrong, didn't it? "Lance never crashes.." yea, right. Seems he crashed once a week between the Dauphine Libere and then the tour: crash on stage 1, almost crash with Beloki, then the Pyrenees crash - but in the end he prevailed, barely.

My guess is he'll go for 6 and (then if and only if he wins 6) 7. I also have a hunch he won't end up like my boyhood hero, Eddy "the cannibal" Merckx shown in the top photo in the center. He's the overweight guy, and probably the greatest bike racer of all time. Looks like "the cannibal" has been eating quite a bit. Not that it detracts from his accomplishments, which are astounding.

OK. end of the bike racing posts for another year.

Unsung Wireless Leader

I had a chance recently to speak with one of the unsung leaders of modern digital wireless communicaitons - Qualcomm's CTO (on the right). He has led the teams that developed much of the detailed modem design work on the CDMA standards, and, he worked tirelessly to get the modem through the standard groups. While QUALCOMM certainly has made significant strides in advancing digital communications, there are other technologies out there providing competitive forces and pushing technology further, faster. "the struggle never ends"

Never give up...never surrender

I suppose that phrase applies as much to barbarians like Quasay and Odai as it does to heroes like Tyler Hamilton who won his first TDF stage today, broken collarbone and all. After breaking away VERY early, he held to about a 5 minute lead for most of the day. Unlike every other long solo break, he was not reeled in by the peleton, but managed to hold on for the victory. He's close to 3rd place now, and how sweet it would be to have two Americans in the top three of the TDF on the podium in Paris next weekend!

Clever Personal Web Site:

Elsa Dorfman, Portrait Photographer

Cockeyed.com: Always bring your camera great page layout

"It was an epic day"

That was exciting. After watching the tour day after day in the mountains one always wonders "do the riders ever run into the fans? They are so close!" Well, yea, they do. Lance's handelbars hooked onto a lurch bag ("musette") of a spectator and pulled him to the ground just after had launched an attack on the final climb (Luz Ardiden). Jan Ullrich and Tyler Hamilton slowed the pack down to wait - which did not take long - and Lance caught up and then blew the group apart and went on to win the stage. "I saw at the last second that I was going to hook the bag and thought 'oh shit', but there was nothing I could do". Ullrich led the chase group and his face was the picture of stress.

With a 67 second leading margin he looks to like more of a lock on the tour than before today's stage. Next "big" stage is the last one - the time trial in Paris.

<:: Welcome to Slowtwitch.com ::>
I stumbled accross this one the other day. It's devoted to triathletes and looks like a good resource

two more big climbs

Ullrich was not as big a surprise to Lance as he seemed to be to other tour followers. Simoni's stage victory (while 90 minutes behind) was a bit like sinking a 30 foot putt for a triple bogey: great putt, but you still have a lousy overall score. Lots of good riding in the second set of mountains....but until this moment...still no Armstrong attack.

Best Tour in the last several years


Well well well. What a struggle in the mountains today! according to Lance's trainer, he ran our of water in the time trial yesterday and had sort of an "aqua bonk" since team cars are not allowed to provide drinks to the riders during the time trial. He finished well anyway but it took a lot out of him. If you saw the coverage this morning on OLN you noticed that, unlike yesterday, he was a cool cumcumber in the interviews. Not a care in the world. Cannot wait until tomorrow - but (boo hoo) the event will be on CBS at 2:00 PM PDT rather than OLN at 5 am. Have to resist checking the web in the morning.

Yahoo! News - Las Vegas Groups Protest

If peopel are now protesting, that it MUST be true!

Is the truth stranger than fiction??

Return of the German cycling Machine

Remember the Canadian snow-boarding gold medalist that was dinged by revelations that he smoked pot? well more than dinged, they took the medal away...then gave it back. Seems that their focus on performance-enhancing drugs never really included pot. Nor should it. It's not like the drug-cycling issues of recent years with EPO and other banned drugs.

When Jan Ullrich, who was the last man to win le tour besides our hero, and who has never finished lower than second, was arrested for "drug" charges one might have expected the same. Nope. More like the canadian - extasy in a nightclub, not EPO in the mountains. Unlike Simoni's positive for cocaine (and his amusing reasons: "my dentist gave it to me", and later "it was in my mom's candy when she returne from Peru") Ullrich simply said "yep. I took it...it was dumb". that's a man that want's to put the past behind him and excel.

today he slammed Lance and the rest of the tour with a stunning victory while Lance was literally foaming at the mouth. This weekend may be the most interesting 3 days of the last 5 years of the tour. Here's the TV schedule on OLN and CBS.

I don't know if this guy is onto something, or simply on something. In 25 years of studying aerobic conditioning, I've never heard of using an inversion table to strengthen your right ventricle. Worth a look:


RowersWorld.com | The Sport Jester - Hanging Around

I'm participating in the on-line chat with Always-on and a fellow chatter passed along this media-site:

mediAgora

Only 2% of the musicians have recording contents (I'm a musician...maybe less than 2%). An all-digital world should be a boon to artists - for once - and eliminate the ton of middlemen that take a bite.

CDMA works on the principle that the most benign interference appears as random "white" noise. In order to modulate users signals (with unique Walsh codes) pseudo random noise generators are used to create the "PN" sequence. As it turns out, random numbers are of critical use in so many areas of the internet - primarily for security - as well as in radio technology like CDMA. I don't think that PN generators will ever be replace by lava lamps and web cams...but hey - this is a unique solution to "creating" randomness from Wired magazine


Wired 11.08: Totally Random

Lance avoids the fallen Beloki...heads into a field.

I promise, this is the last photo of this terrible accident. I forgot to mention what the linked article below pointed out: the great Eddy Merckx was only really challenged by another great cyclist, Luis Ocana. Virtually the exact same thing occured over 30 years ago (except at that time Ocana was leading by nine minutes, this week Lance was leading):

But it was riding for the Bic team in the 1971 Tour that Oca?a sealed his place among the cycling greats, when he took almost nine minutes out of Merckx on the stage to Orcieres, in the Alps. Three stages later, almost certain victory turned to disaster in the stormy Pyrenees when Oca?a crashed out of the race, leaving Merckx to complete a third consecutive Tour win.

More on the Ocana story, including his tragic suicide here.

Always-on Summit at Stanford

AO, or Always-On is a CA based organization that promotes the connected lifestyle. Their proposition reads as if it's right out of the Cluetrain Mainfesto:

The AO Proposition

In the next wave, media companies will have to share control with the audience they serve. eBay taught us the power and profitability of that idea in the first wave. But giving up control is a huge challenge for an old, crusty and entrenched industry. At AlwaysOn, we invite some of the smartest chiefs, geeks, investors, boosters and wonks to come play in our spontaneous and uncensored arena.

A recent featured blog from their group proclaims 802.11 "the greatest wireless technology ever". Wow. I love WiFi too, but you can take my WiFi away before I'll let you pry my IR remote control out of my hand (or my garage door opener). I guess that also leaves bluetooth as the "joseba beloki" of wireless standards (see below).

they've got what looks to be a great conference going on this week. Check it out.

Joseba Beloki, shown here on the right, was the main rival for Lance Armstrong's attempted 5th consecutive Tour de France victory, until yesterday. Always a bridesmaid, he was up there on the podium with Lance at the end of the tour and it looked like he had a shot at the top spot until his terrible crash on a steep mountain descent.

His team is blaming the race organizers for neglecting safety concerns, but, c'mon guys - nobody else crashed going down that hill; 170 riders passed over the same spot without crashing. Who could blame Beloki for attacking going up the hill and then down the other side? He wanted to beat Lance and was doing a fine job of pressuring him. Some said the unusually high heat (91 degrees) in France was causing the pavement to melt and become precarious. However, British rider David Millar (with his typical candor) said "“He made a professional error... it’s a misconception that the roads are more dangerous in conditions like that. It’s actually better for descending because the roads are tacky, so there’s less risk of your wheel sliding away.”

Well, anyway, it's a sad day for racing fans as this was shaping up to be one of the all time classic tours. It may well be, but Beloki will be missed.

Google Toolbar Installed

A very old trophy

This trophy came from the 1974 75-mile Tecate-Ensenada bike race. I was the youngest finisher (my friend Tad Simons, also 13 at the time has one of his own). As it was raining and hailing during this hilly 75 mile ride, and my trusty schwinn varsity - which weighed in at a hefty 50 lbs, I felt I earned it. Hard to believe that was nearly 30 years ago. One vivid memory I have is of finishing, freezing, my hands unable to to form anything other than the shape of the handlebars, and being so hungry. My friend said "here" and dropped a beef (I guess) taco into my hand, which I promptly dropped only to witness being eaten by a stray dog at my feet. Being too young to join in the fun at Hussongs, I don't have too many fond memories of that ride. It has since been replaced by the even more popular (and wimpier) Rosarito-Ensenada ride. Not only is this ride 25 miles shorter, it avoids the big hills and pothole-strewn road. Not quite like today's ride.

Well, the Tour de Lance, um, France is forging onward. Today featured the USPS team finishing with the yellow jersey, and, 8 of the top 10 places all "gone postal" as it were. How about that other US rider, Tyler Hamilton, who - after a collar bone breaking crash - is still riding? As we Americans tough or what??

Q: Do the following people have full time jobs:

1) Protesters in the mideast
2) the thousands of omnipresent cyclists and joggers
3) Active War Drivers
4) prolific bloggers
5) all of the above

A: I don't know, but is sure seems like 5 sometimes

I guess I can understand the protesters. They've got nothing else to do, and to get on TV you don't have to protest much. I'm not talking about this guy, but if you've ever seen a televised protest you know what I mean. The "protesters" sit around smoking until the TV crew shows up, then walk in a circle for 5 minutes, then go home. I'm talking about those unionized protestors with the "shame on beaver construction" signs that spend the better part of a day outside different places, but your run-of-the-mill protesters. Well, I've not been in the mideast and cannot say what type these guys fall into, but geez, they sure do protest a lot. Since it is their very life that's in jeopardy it's somewhat understandable. So, I suppose, it is for the pseudo-athletes. Prolific bloggers may make friends and some rare cases profit from their blogger profile, but I doubt it. But those nefarious war drivers, that's a puzzle.

First, it changes all the time - I mean every day. Second, who really cares if I have an access point? I can change my SSID and WEP key every couple of days to make it somewhat of a challenge for the hackers. Maybe it's one of those activities that makes one feel as if they are doing something when in fact, they are doing nothing. I'd walk a mile for a camel access point? some are trying to trick them with a wireless "honeypot". Maybe they could also "light drive" and write down everybody that has an outdoor light. That can save all the cheapskates who don't want to waste money on their electric bill money by finding a place they can take the bus to where the light is on "24/7". I suppose it's doing more for society than watching re-runs of The Jetsons.