the bike tour: Nashua NH via Adarondaks
SO I finished the muskoka tri, hung out 5h for awards (plaque and socks) drove home slept 2h, ate supper, and jumped into the subie for the 5h drive to Ogdensburg NY and the start of my bike tour. I cracked after 4h and put the tent up behind a church and slept. (yes this is a slightly old post, but I have posted the pic’s up on-line).
Plus I just got a holla from Kurt and Jen’s 2WD Euro Tour. They’re over in in Norway still at the start of a multi month, multi country euro tour.
All told the weather was consistant for what we’ve been having up here in the east coast. Pockets of rain hit me almost every day, making me regret not having fenders along. I was also able to hang out with some old team mates, and good friends from my road cyclist days. The Vermont Crew are still doing well, and Kurt was just finishing his packing for his euro tour, and
rocking out some of the best loaves of bread you’ve ever eaten (confirmed by Greg Lemond).
The wedding, was also a blast.
Nicole’s family is Italian from NYC, and fulfil almost every applicable cliche. The accents were awesome. Somehow I ended up (I was a paid escort to one of the bridesmaids) hanging out at the brides house the morning of the wedding, and having all those girls scurrying around getting make-up, dresses, flowers, etc sorted out seemed like a stark contrast to the pre-show routine that guys usually follow. Is it bad, or good luck to see the bride in her… the morning before the wedding. Or because I wasn’t the groom maybe it didn’t matter. Ah well, I guess that makes me family now.
Leaving mid rainstorm, I’m seen off at the back door, but as I ride up the driveway I can see mom and day on the front deck waving good bye, rounding the corner Grandma’s out on the porch also waving. Then I ride. The final 
day I decided to see what I was made of and rocked out a solid 10h. Around hour 8 I stopped in at a gas station to re-fuel. Somehow in my feeding frenzy I came out with a 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk - which I tossed on raw oatmeal, home made brownie for the road, and garlic cheese curds (eh?). Zoom off.
Heading the other way it’s where I chatted with Henry the Mormon who had ridden his horse and buggy to the gas station to fill up his jerry cans with diesel!? He’s got 5 children under 10… to help him on the farm. He didn’t say I couldn’t take his picture, but ‘would prefer that I didn’t. I didn’t.
Otherwise today’s tour stage was exciting, though it looks like Cadel will take back the time he lost in Saturdays time trial.
Interestingly here are the 2005 tour final results:
1 Lance Armstrong (USA) Discovery Channel 86.15.02 (41.654 km/h) doped and bribed his way out of it 2 Ivan Basso (Ita) Team CSC 4.40
busted Puerto Affair 3 Jan Ullrich (Ger) T-Mobile Team 6.21
busted Puerto Affair 4 Francisco Mancebo (Spa) Illes Balears-Caisse d'Epargne 9.59
busted for I forget what 5 Alexandre Vinokourov (Kaz) T-Mobile Team 11.01
busted with someone else's blood in his veins 6 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Gerolsteiner 11.21
team too dirty to allow into the race 7 Michael Rasmussen (Den) Rabobank 11.33
banned from last years tour 8 Cadel Evans (Aus) Davitamon-Lotto 11.55
lucky enough not to be caught yet 9 Floyd Landis (USA) Phonak Hearing Systems 12.44
busted testosterone Other riders who beat Cadel in past tours but who were named or implicated in doping investigations thus not contesting this year are -Bert Contador (Puerto and super doper team) -Tyler Hamilton (too many affairs to list)
-Oscer Sevilla (Puerto)
Yeah, so essentially Cadel should be around 12th place right now, but he has just chosen doctors not yet implicated in any scandals.
Enough of that, I’m off to go swimming, and plan a long bike ride.
N
