… and the Amgen Tour of California! Here’s a few long-overdue photos of the 2012 ATOC, Stage 1. The race passed through the beautiful little town of Monte Rio, on the Russian River. And finally, a few photos of the Sonoma coast — very beautiful in the very last week of 2012. And one of the more interesting sites we’ve seen while driving up and down Highway 1 — or anywhere else, for that matter!
Stage 8: So, Lance had a bad day today, and it certainly looks like his hopes for a podium finish are shattered. Yep. He blew out, hard. From the VeloNews live commentary: The really frustrating moment was atop the climb at Les Gets. It was a weird accident and, from the look on his face, it became readily apparent that it was the final straw for Armstrong. It’s remarkable that he never had a day even remotely like this in his seven-Tour run. He always appeared to have luck on his side – recall the Beloki crash among other moments. As I was following along with today’s stage I thought, Man, Lance NEVER used to fall of the bike! But then I remembered 2003. That was the first year I actually watched the Tour, and it had to be the toughest of Lance’s Tour wins. Not knowing any better at the time, I thought that was the way all Tours were supposed to go. He’d crashed earlier in the Dauphine, and he came into the Tour with stomach problems and hip tendinitis. He suffered on L’Alpe D’Huez, narrowly escaped disaster when Beloki crashed on Stage 9, overheated himself in the Stage 12 time trial, and continued to falter on the next day’s stage. The climax came on the road to Luz-Ardiden, where Armstrong was knocked off his bike by a spectator’s bag and later nearly fell off again when […]
I can hardly believe it’s July already, but we’re a week into the 2010 Tour de France, so it’s time for me to drag myself out from under my rock again and get blogging. This will be my catch-up post, and then hopefully I’ll be able to write more about the Tour next time. I meant to get back earlier […]
I love autumn. I’m just beginning to realize that this is probably my favorite time of the year, when the heat of the Northern California summer is reluctantly fading away, the mornings are crisp but the afternoons are still tee shirt weather. I can sense the change in the earth’s position to the sun; the light has a different quality […]
Once again it’s the height of summer, that time when we crank up the A/C and spend much of every day inside, watching “Le Tour.” It’s one of the highlights of my year, and for the second time I’m also taking part in Ravelry’s Tour de France Knit-along. In 2008, I was assigned to Team Columbia-High Road; for 2009 it’s […]
Well, it was windy and rainy and cold — but there was nowhere else I would have rather been yesterday but at the top of Howell Mountain watching the Tour of California go by. Two days before the race, Friday, the Big Guy and I drove from Sacramento to Napa to scope everything out and pick a good place to […]
I’ve been away for a bit — ran out of things to say, I guess, and then I got very busy. Keeping up a blog is a serious business! It takes dedication, organization, and discipline; and while I’ve got the dedication I don’t have a whole lot of the other two ingredients. Oh, well. This week’s been busy, as I […]
My purple SKB is not yet finished. Last night I was certain I could finish up the neck trim and then proceed to the sleeves the following morning; but it didn’t work. Instead I ended up ripping out everything I’d done on the neck trim and starting over. Seems I can’t quite work out the difference between RS (right side) […]
In a way, it’s a relief that Le Tour is over for this year; the Big Guy and I have had a tough time keeping up with watching every stage, and to miss one would be unthinkable. But I’m still going to miss it — at least I always knew there was something good on TV! In fact, I still […]