Tour Stage 10

Mark Cavendish has been beat again. This time by former teammate and not best friend, Andre Griepel. And there was not pouting, has Cav grown up?
Johnny Hoogerland is a new favorite tour rider. And has good teammates, Marco Marcato went into the break and got all the mountain points he could to keep Johnny in the pokadot jersey. This is so a team sport.
For those that watched the stage of Versus, how many times have you changed your shoe while riding at 60 kmh, then end up peddling with just your sock?
Uh oh, Jens is on Twitter @thejensie. He had to use that because Floyd Landis took every variant on his name. That's just not nice Floyd.
-Star

Who's sick of Jens?

Not me!!
-Star

Tour of Cali stage 3

The British are coming!! The British are coming!!
Wait, Greg Henderson is from New Zealand, but that's close to Australia and he does ride for Sky, so we're going to just call him British. And he won today's stage and took the leaders jersey from teammate and fellow countryman Ben Swift. Now wake up Americans and win some stages in out biggest cycling race!!! Seventh is not good enough Taylor Phinney!
Thor Hoshovd if you do win, I'm totally claiming that as an American win. You ride of Gamin and I actually wish we had riders as cool as you, that goes for you too Jen Voigt (I hope you are feeling better).
I'm sorry to Nic Hamilton who rides for Jelly Belly, our Lanton Rouge. Yes, the ToC is officially recognizing the rider in last place. That's what you get when riding with just jelly beans as fuel.
-Star

Post Tour

I was going to do a post on all my thoughts of the Tour, blah, blah, blah, then I stumbled on a little more info on the Jens crash, which explains this. And then there was more Jens videos. Oh Jens.
My only regret for this tour, besides not enough Jens, was that I didn't get to mention Lars "here comes the" Boom.

Tour of Missouri - !JENS!

For those new to cycling and this blog might not know how awesome Jens Voigt, hereby known as !Jens!, is. Here are a few !Jens! related stories from the Tour of Missouri.


-We saw 2 people sporting "WWJD? What would Jens Do?" shirts. Come on, that shirt is so 3 years ago.

-About a block from where the finish was, we were waiting to storm the podium and !Jens! came soft pedaling by 2 minutes after the pelaton finished. Boo and I yell "Good Job Jens" he turns and smiles. I think that is what caused the next story.

-Picture this, you're standing just to the right of the awards stage and Team Saxo Bank is being honored as the winner of the team category. All the riders get flowers and have just finished spraying and drinking their champagne. A few riders throw out their flowers into the crowd, then a few more. So you make eye contact with !Jens! and put of you hands as to say "!Jens! you're a rock star, throw me your flowers" and so he tosses them under-handed.....to the lady in front of you. Come on !Jens! she's wearing Garmin gear, I know you only use your arms to steer, but just one more person back. Maybe I looked like I didn't have any ups? Anyway, I think he did look sorry that he didn't get them to me.
And he must have remembered he stiffed me later when he rushed from hotel lobby to avoid me.

Get better soon ¡Jens!

That's exactily how the conversation went. Then I laughed. - Star

Tour de France - Stage 16

Ok - I was looking on YouTube for Jens' crash. (I haven't watched the stage yet.) But I came upon one super funny video about the top 3 bike fights. You got to check it out. Never mind that it is in Flemish. You get the drift when they mention in English about the "Rumble in the Jungle"! Sorry I know I'm off task, but it was distracting.... - boo

Oh, just saw the crash.... OUCHIE.... Hope he's ok. Between the 70KPH faceplant and the sparks coming off the bike... That kind of made me a little sick to my stomach.



Oh Jens, I was going to post this pic when he won a stage this year. But alas, maybe next year. Get well soon Jens!!!
Good, Bad and Ugly of the stage today:
Good: Dave Z keeping within reach of the GC group, the bombing it down the last decent
Bad: Frank Schleck getting dropped when Jens, his own teammate, is putting in the tempo on the last climb
Ugly: Jens crash - I guess he won't finish 2nd this year Lil
And another Tip of the Hat to Kenny Robert van Hummel. Get this, he lost 34 min today, 7 more then the last group on the road. He is now 3:35 behind Little Al, 45 min behind his closest competitor for the Lanterne Rouge. -Star

As not-a-lance-fan, I have to give him his due. He saw the podium riding away and went after it. In the process he managed to confuse Andy enough that VdV, Dave Z & Gang made it back. Thanks Lance!

¡Jens! - that was too scary-don't do that again. Get better soon. Here's a link to a great Jens article. Sample quote: "The grass is always greener on the other side. Unless Jens Voigt has been riding on the other side in which case it’s white with the salty, dried tears of all the riders whose souls he has crushed." - Lil

Lilly, that article brought me to tears I was laughing so much. -Star

OMG, I know. Laugh out loud funny. Don't read at work.

Another favorite is: Jens Voigt doesn’t have a shadow because he dropped it repeatedly until it retired, climbing into the CSC team car and claiming a stomach ailment.

- Lil

Stage 9 - quick observation

Pellizotti (Liquigas) has some very pretty blond curls coming out of the back of his helmet as he stays away on the break. Got to go to Wahoo now, so more later.

Happy Birthday Big Guy!! Have a good one!

Today was about one rider - ¡Jens! I wish the Lance network would have a jens cam. Today he gets in the chase group of 8 - when he gets dropped towards the top of the HC climb up Col dTourmalet, it appears that he might die from pain. Gets picked up by the peleton, next shot of him is loading up with new bottles from the team car. Then Andy Shleck gets a flat at 4k from the finish (worst place ever!) Jens dropped back and pulled him to the peleton in about 15 seconds. I think he should have a reality show - "¡Jens! Crazy, Painful, Perfect Day"

France wins its 3 stage of the race, as a nation they are overachieving. It was a Bbox rider, the team appears to be moving past their inglorious TTT performance.

It was No-Shave Sunday for Levi & Thor. And in other facial hair news, Phil described a Rabobank rider's "goaty beard thing" - I think he meant goatee.

Lil

I heard that comment by Phil as well. I also just saw a bunch of Aussies looking like marigolds with yellow bushy things on their head and flags as capes. At least they weren't naked. - boo

I would totally watch a !Jens! reality show.

***Congrats goes out to our sister Bones, she's prego. Now Squeaky and Squirmy are going to have a new littler sis or brother in January!

-star

Tour de France Preview One Final Time

Tom Boonen was not going to race because of testing positive for cocaine twice in the last year. But now he's in. So we'll see tomorrow if he is at the starting gate of Stage 1. I'm looking forward to seeing the big Belgian.
But Tommeke will have to battle Mark Cavendish in all the sprint finishes. It should get interesting.
The rider I'm really, really looking forward to seeing in big George Hincapie. Yep, I'll enjoy seeing him again.
Although I'm excited to see Jens Voigt race. He is my favorite racer that reminds me of a Malmo farmer.
I'm not sure how much time and effort I want to devote to the continuing saga that is life in Astana. The latest rumour is that Alexander Vinokourov has got the Kazakh backers to bump Johan & Lance out of the organization, and make the team up of Spanish and Kazakh riders starting with Alberto and Vino. How many times does Johan have to say that the team is united for it to actually be so?
I think we should just start racing!
-Star

'staches: tell me why again?

Dback's not-a-rookie reliever Clay Zavada has been getting alot of publicity lately for his mustache. It's very old school. He has a great life story (read this article from the NY Times). 

But in the best of obscure sporting mustache gallery there must be room for Dave Z. Lots of room. Also for his teammate Steve Cozza (thanks star)

Of course there is one cyclist that could totally pull it off.

¡Jens!

Giro Update (stage 4) - by star

Oh Jens Voigt, it would have been soooo awesome to see you take the stage after being in a break all day. It was very hard to watch Jens get caught with 3 K to go.

I need to check to see who's all in this race, it seems to be Columbia and LPR....they've taken all the stages and worn all the pink jerseys. Hhmmm.

Ivan Basso was on the front for parts of this stage, he makes my eyes happy.

Solar tried out his impression of Vino...it was pretty dead on. That had to be the longest last K of his life, and then to get passed up by Di Luca in the last 200 meters....pretty heartbreaking.

It was kind of funny to watch the pictures on the last climb the difference between the from of the leading peloton and then the autobus in the back. Just looking at the faces I would have rather been in the back, they looked like they were having fun, and Dave Z was there to tell stories!

My little mountain goat Chechu moved up a few spots, he's 55th, 4:40 back.