PS – The day Frank Schleck crashed out on the cobbles, my Facebook status said I hoped Andy Schleck wins. I’m standing by it.

When Ben was three, we bought him a nice Gary Fisher bicycle. He finally got the training wheels off last year, and now he’s outgrown it.

So we slapped the trainers back on and gave it to Miles. No, we didn’t count it as a birthday present (though the thought did cross our minds).

Yeah, right. Like I can get anything done when the Tour of California is on. I’ve heard it said that football was made for television: It has built-in commercial and replay breaks. Well, cycling was made to watch online. Take a look at the new-and-improved Tour Tracker (click for a larger view):

On the left you have a chat history for the commentators; on the right are the GPS-tracked rider and a map of their locations; the bottom shows the stage profile and the location of the tracked riders; in the middle is the all-important video feed – this year with pitcure-in-picture so you can follow the breakaway and peleton at the same time; above that is a time, which I’ve minimized here to show more video.

Yeah…. I’m getting nothing done today.

If you ever decide to steal a bicycle, don’t steal a one-of-a-kind model that was custom-made (and custom-painted) for Lance. I mean, you can’t ride it in public (I’m fairly certain someone would recognize it); you can’t sell it, not even on ebay. It’d be a lot of work for a rig that would sit in the basement (or on a trainer).

Details from VeloNews.

Oh, and the ever-clever Patrick O’Grady offers another distinguishing feature of the bike: It’s “speckled with the slobber of doe-eyed fanboys with man-crushes.”

Velonews.com (caution: for major bike geeks only) reviewed the new Elite Realpower CT stationary trainer this month. For the uninitiated, a bike “trainer” is a little frame that holds your bike’s back wheel off the ground so you can “spin” it as a stationary bike. Of course, trainers also have various methods for adding resistance to the back wheel to make pedaling harder.

According to the Velonews review, the CT can connect to a computer and alter its resistance in time with video of popular climbs. This isn’t totally new, but the CT software allows riders to compete online against other riders. So, during the frigid Upstate winters, I could ride with my father and brother-in-law who are snowed under in the Rocky Mountains.

That would be cool. Geeky? Sure, but still cool. All I need is $2,500.

What is a criterium (or ‘crit, for short)? It’s a bike race around a short course rather than along the road. Both formats are fun to watch, but crits more so because you can follow the action from start to finish. (A road race is difficult to follow in person, unless you’re lucky enough to drive support.) This “twilight” crit has nothing to do with vampires; It’s called “twilight” because the professional heat is held at night.

Rochester has hosted this crit for a few years, but this is the first time it’s been associated with a larger tour-like race series. These riders had participated in a short time trial the day before, and would be competing in a 100-mile road race the next day. You would think this would give the organizers a reason to shorten the crit from its unusually long two hours, but they didn’t.

We arrived downtown a few minutes after the starting gun. As usual, it was hard to find parking with some streets being cordoned off, but we did find a garage not far from the finish line. We meandered our way along the course, pausing to cheer on the riders as they passed, then scored some prime real eastate.

The finish line was at the east end of the Broad Street Bridge over the Genesee River. We got seats at the top of the bleachers ON THE BRIDGE, facing south. The course took the riders a few blocks east, south around Bausch & Lomb Place, and then West on Court Street, which has another bridge. So, we would see the riders pass us and the finish line, then a minute later we would see them riding on the other bridge (in front of the Dinosaur BBQ).

Besides being a great vantage point for following the race, we could see the small falls on the river and the fireworks behind us from the minor league baseball game. We also caught flashes of lightning from Lake Ontario. It did rain a few times, but nothing too hard (by Rochester standards).

(Don’t let the photo fool you. This was taken very early in the race while most people were still spread out along the course. With ten laps to go, it got very crowded. Also, if you look closely, you can see the cyclists blurring as they co by.)

At one point, I looked around and thought, “Gee Rochester is actually a pretty cool place.”

The one downside of the activity (besides the tired, whiny kids) was the commentators. While I understand that they’re accustomed to crowds that are ignorant of cycling (we are in the USA, after all), it would have been nice if they would have given more split times during the race.

“The breakaway is not, I repeat, NOT gaining any time one the peloton! They’ll probably get reeled in here soon!” The announcers would… er… announce.

I would show Brooke the cell phone stopwatch, which I had been using to time the gaps. The peleton had lost two second on the last lap and had been steadily falling back for the last twenty laps. Hey, Mr. Announcer, follow the race a bit better, m’K?

As for the race, a solo break became a duo, then a group of eight by the halfway point, and they kept the peloton at bay the rest of the race. The harder the peloton worked to catch them, the more riders they lost off the back. With fewer and fewer riders to pull, they just couldn’t mount a successful chase. In fact, 91 riders started, 11 didn’t even make it halfway through, and two score more quit at the halfway point (which was the minimum qualification for starting the next day’s race). Less than 40 riders actually rode the whole two hours.

The carnage ended when Dominique Rollin, a Canadian on Toyota United, broke from the lead group at the start of the final lap and stayed away to the finish. His victory was appropriate because his team causing havoc in the peloton was a big reason the break was never caught.

This site will never (do you hear me? NEVER!) have advertising on it. So, why is there a banner at the top? To encourage every concerned person that visits this blog to support American Levi Leipheimer. His team was unfairly removed from this year’s Tour de France despite the fact that they have a ProTour license, and, therefore, are supposed to have an automatic bid.

He and his team will still be riding in the Grio (Italy) and Veulta (Spain), so whatever rationale the Tour de France has for excluding him doesn’t seem to be universally acceptable.

I wrote earlier how the organizers of the Tour de France has excluded a team that supposedly has an automatic invitation. The biggest disappointment is that last year’s champion, Alberto Cantador, will not be able to defend his title.

But, what may be the even more unfair is that Levi Leipheimer won’t get to ride either. Levi is much older than Cantador, so he has fewer years left in the saddle. He is also the quintessential teammate: He said he would sacrifice his chance at the podium to help Cantador keep his yellow jersey.

There is site and petition trying to convince the organizers to Let Levi Ride. I doubt it will have much of an effect, but I want one of the hats.

Two years ago I lambasted ESPN2 for winning the broadcast rights to the inaugural Tour of California, and then moving the coverage to the wee hours of the morning. Reruns of morning radio shows and poker tournaments were more important than the most well attended sporting event in California history.

Well, Versus, formally OLN, is covering the Tour of California this time. You might think that cycling would have a better chance there. After all, a network known for bull riding and extreme cage fighting should be able to find some primetime space for world class cycling. One glance at the coverage times is enough to dash those hopes:

2/17/2008 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
2/18/2008 1:00 am – 2:00 am
2/18/2008 11:00 pm – 12:00 am
2/19/2008 11:00 pm – 12:00 am
2/20/2008 11:00 pm – 12:00 am
2/21/2008 11:00 pm – 12:00 am
2/23/2008 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
2/24/2008 1:00 am – 2:00 am
2/24/2008 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm
2/25/2008 1:00 am – 2:00 am

How sad is it that it’s easier to find figure skating than cycling, even with cable?

Well, the world of professional cycling is gearing up for its 2008 season, and, in an effort to outdo the last two years of controversy, the organizers of the Tour de France have decided to preempt any controversy by causing some of their own. Instead of waiting for someone to actually dope, or even be accused of doping, or even to just miss a random drug screening, they are dismissing an entire team from this year’s Tour… five months before it starts.

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