Tour Down Under: Stage 2

It was a bloody crashtastophy (literally, consider yourself warned when opening links from this page). There were several crashes in the last 3 k's. Some finished worse off then when they started. Lesson one on crashing: don't use your forehead to catch you.
Oh, and the winner was Ben Swift.
-Star

Tour Down Under: Stage 1

It's a sprinters stage race, so the winner of the first stage will be a sprinter, and the winner of the whole race will be a sprinter. The peloton is packed with sprinters that will probably be racing in France in July. So the winner is . . . . Matt Goss of HTC-Highroad!! What the what? Who is this?
This is Matt Goss.
The ironic thing is, is that Andre Greipel's was second. Andre used to ride for HTC-Highroad and has had words with Mark Cavendish. So Mark sent Andre's replacement to the front of the peloton to beat Andre. It's Mark's world, we're just living in it.
-Star

A new cycling year

so let's get you updated on the news of the off season. The Schleck boys have a name for the Luxembourgian team, Leopard-Trek. The team's introduction was very scarfy, which I believe is a major export of that country. But I think the sleeves of their kits should have pading to make them look tougher. And the newest member of Leopard-Trek is Jakob Fuglsang. He will help fill the gaping hole of cuteness the peloton will be suffering with the retirement of my Chechu.
Garmin has come out with their new kit after taking on Cervelo...it doesn't have enough argyle and it looks like a lot of other kits. You would think a guy with sideburns like this, would come up with something more original.
Others have spent more time and effort going over all the kits....good on them.
Johnass Bruyneel won't be around a few races this spring all because he can't keep his mouth shut. And that's a surprise because...?
-Star

Nice socks...

didn't some of you have these in the 80's?
-Star

JOCKEY FIGHT!!!

Just when you thought Calvin Borel couldn't get more ridiculous....

The Day We Didn't Kill Star

No worries everyone - Star survived our super fun Grand Canyon hike.

First off we caught the 7am bus to South Kaibab Trail head. But to backtrack in the story just a bit...the food on the rim of the G.C. is terrible, almost indigestible. People come from all over the world to visit the G.C. and they feed them total crap. So despite our encounter with half-raw pizza the evening before, Star recovered enough to give the go-ahead, although it was touch and go for a bit.

The weather was perfect - just a bit chilly for the start. South Kaibab starts out at 7260 ft and drops down to 3870 ft in a hurry (4.6 mi) to Tipoff point- where we turned west on Tonto trail.

Tonto trail rolled along, I was hoping for more bike path, but that's not the case. It crossed two small streams and skirted side canyons. Including one Star & I renamed - One Mis-step And Welcome Into The Canyon Of Death Abyss - not the catchiest, but we were under a bit of stress. The trail we followed wasn't very wide, and as you can see below it came across the face of a shale covered slope that was at the edge of a sheer drop into the canyon. It was easily the scariest part the trip (even scarier than the pizza). In the picture below you can barely see the trail about 30 feet from the edge. yeah, that scary,

We rolled into Indian Gardens and stopped for a lunch of delicious beef sticks, crackers and peanut butter (it's better then you think). Indian Gardens is a popular stop for lunch the the benches were full of all kinds of hikers. The European's were easily identified by their baguettes and chunks of cheese, the Americans by their powerbars.

Then we headed up Bright Angel Trail. Climbed 3800 ft to 6860 ft in 4.9 miles to the top. It was totally easy, except for the hiking part. Actually we ripped it up - got up in 2hrs 45 mi which is pretty good, didn't get passed by many but passed plenty. There's water 3 miles and 1.5 miles from the top, so we stopped to rest and eat a bit at those but otherwise just kept going.

Then we ate doritos.

For those keep score at home - that's 13.8 miles, about 6000 ft of elevation, in just over 7 hours (with a 1/2 hour lunch). Yep, we owned the Grand Canyon. Not really, but it's fun to say. Below are more pics.

Rainbow Argyle?

What would that look like? We'll find out next year and how a God can rock it!! Yeah, our favorite Viking out kicked everyone else to the line in the World Champions down in Australia. Now next year when he joins Garmin, he'll be sportin' the argyle in all the colors.
And congrats to our favorite Swiss rider for winning the time trial....4th in a row. He's really fast on a bike. And David Millar won silver, good on 'im!
In other cycling news:
Milram has dropped thier sponsorship, so no more kits with blue cow spots (frowny face).
Alberto Contador has got himself in a mess (heavy sigh).
-Star

Yep, it's NBA time already

Well, I know it's been awhile. But finally, after a long and terribly scorching summer of being forced to watch the D-backs it's NBA training camp! Yeah! I know. Exciting stuff.

Your Phoenix Suns brought back Grant Hill and Steve Nash and other guys you don't know. Amar'e bolted for the asphalted pastures in New York. Because the Knick are so good and D'Antoni will never make him learn defensive rotations (that's pure speculation, not the defensive rotation part).

Sorry Boo, but Lou bolted for higher paying pastures also. He signed with Golden State where by default he will be the hardest working player. Since they fired Nellie as their "Coach" they might be good. Kidding. Will not be good. But the bench will reek of run less with Nellie gone.

Goran is back! El Dragon attempted to grow a mustache over the summer. But the results were fairly embarrassing, and also represented Slovenia at the FIBA Worlds. Yes, Slovenia has enough athletes to field a team.

Tonight MPSteve has his 30 for 30 documentary on ESPN. Am assuming it will make me bawl like a baby.

And you can read about Kurt Warner's DWTS here.

Good to be back.

I Heart Tyler and Taylor...

Tyler Farrar won the last stage of the Vuetla a Espana over Cavendish!! Cav ended up winning the green jersey, but not with out some crying.
Taylor Martinez, or T-Magic as we all like to call him, is fast, too. He might be the savior of Husker football.

Tyler Farrar is Fast!!!

How fast, you ask? Faster then everyone else in Spain today!! Yeah him!! Tyler passed Cav at the finish.