Friday, July 25, 2014

The Day in Cycling

It quit raining!  Yay for that.  We headed out to do the ride around Lake Sammamish after it warmed up some.  We've been using the electric blanket at night - in July.  When we got to Marymoor  Park we noticed people on the velodrome.  This was the coffee truck.  It's a big Mercedes of some sort.


Today's racing was pursuit.  Teams are typically four riders, but only three have to finish.  It's like a team time trial, but on a track.  The team rides around as fast as they can; at the end they all sprint and the third rider's time over the line is the team's time.


This is a different team on the track.  The woman higher up on the track just came off the lead by swinging high on the track and then waiting for the other three to come through. 


Here we see the Center Cycling team.  They dropped one of their riders, which is not unusual.  Then their lead rider dropped the other two riders for almost all of the last lap.  That's stupid tactics because they did not get the benefit of his slipstream, and his time across the line was not important.  It's the third rider.


I took this picture of the television watching today's stage in the Tour de France.  This is good bike handling.  He's riding in a peloton, at great speed and he's peeing.  As a rule, French TV doesn't show this sort of thing.


Here is more excellent bike handling.  This is Peter Sagan, who is from Slovakia.  He's a former mountain biker, and is generally acknowledged to be the best bike handler in the tour.  Here he is doing a wheelie on a road bike with no hands.   Sagan has run away with the green jersey this year, but has yet to win a stage victory.  It's a bummer, I would have liked to see him win a stage.


There are only two more days left in the TdF.  Then we'll be left to our own devices for entertainment.

I do have a laundry tip for you bicyclists.  For years we have been throwing our gloves in the washing machine.  They come out clean, but crunchy.  If you wash them by hand in Woolite, they will be soft and supple, and will smell very nice.  So there you go.

5 comments:

  1. Sure do miss watching the Tour. It always amazes me how agile those guys are on a bike, eating, peeing, dressing, undressing. I can barely take one hand off the bars and stay upright.
    Gayle

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  2. I'm with Gayle. I find taking photos while riding a major hurdle. I can't imagine all they do while racing. But then they probably ride better than they walk.

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  3. I had never thought about bathroom breaks on such a race...and to learn they pee while riding is just bizarre! Talk about multitasking!

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  4. Wow! Allison, you have just answered one of my all-time nagging questions. I am truly surprised that no one in the media has ever published a picture of one of the racers peeing. Some unwritten code? BTW, I am so jealous about the electric blanket. 100+ degrees here in Texas is brutal!

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  5. We will miss our daily Tour fix as well. It's been fun watching it at 5pm daily rather than having to wait til 8pm as we did in the east when work kept me from watching during the day. As for the peeing while riding, they don't always do that. Sometimes they still take "natural breaks" by the side of the road. Guess it depends on the stage and how competitive they are?

    Your comments about the rain and cold weather makes us even gladder we decided to spend July/Aug in eastern WA rather than western. Hope you'll get some warmer, sunnier weather in days to come. It's been cool-ISH for here but is going to warm up a LOT starting tomorrow. We had a little rain but mostly at night and never missed a day of riding because of it.

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