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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jul 19, 2018 - 12:48pm PT
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I used to go down to Temecula and help Floyd and Saris put on Floyd's Power Camp(2005-2007). In 2007, when all the crap had hit the fan I was down at the camp when Dr. Kay, Floyd's good friend, drove up to the hotel in a Mustang GT with wicked slick tires on it. I turned to Floyd and said, "hey we should take this car out and see what it can do."
Floyd replied, "Dr. Kay, toss me the keys!" It took a little urging on FLoyd's part, but he finally got the keys. We got in, buckled up, then FLoyd looked over at me and said "you are going to regret this decision."
We headed up into the hills just west of Temecula and for the next 15-20 minutes Floyd flung that car all over the network of narrow, steep roads that criss cross that area at speeds reaching 120mph! It was all I could do not to take a huge chunk out of the dash with my fingernails. It was definitely Mr. Floyd's Wild Ride.
Finally, he slowed down and headed back to Temecula remarking, "you can relax now, we're gonna live." Dr. Kay told me a couple of years later that the car never did drive the same after that.
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jul 19, 2018 - 01:03pm PT
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After an unforgettable day on Alpe d'Huez, remembering Andy Hampsten's historic win.
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mooch
Trad climber
Tribal Base Camp (Riverkern Annex)
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Jul 19, 2018 - 01:37pm PT
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So much for Gaviria. He withdrew today, leaving a HUGE gap of 200+ point between Sagan and Kristoff. I also saw on Peter's FB page that he's separating from Katie. Sad to hear.
Andy is one of the reasons I got into cycling but it wouldn't happpen for me until 2003. What a show of climbing prowess!
Hey Bruce, did you ever ride over past the Santa Rosa plateau and climb that BEASTLY one-mile section of Los Gatos Road? It's west of Murrieta. Holy Hell!! Pretty sure the average was 15%, with many pitches checking in at 23%. I rode with Jon Hornbeck, who as you remember raced with Hollowesko and made the TOC in 2016, up Los Gatos one day. Of course, he dropped me half way up. But when I caught up with him at the top, he turns to me and says, "Did you happen to see one of my lungs back there?"
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10b4me
Social climber
Lida Junction
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Jul 19, 2018 - 02:11pm PT
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Nice win by Thomas, but he is wrong when he says Froome is the best TdF rider ever.
Sorry to see Nibali go down, he might have had a chance for the win.
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ms55401
Trad climber
minneapolis, mn
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Jul 19, 2018 - 07:45pm PT
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Tyler Hamilton vid is worth a look.
TDF is arguably the pinnacle of sports. I try imagining what it's like to be one of the backbenchers. Maybe 24 or 25 years old. Better at cycling than all the world outside of perhaps two dozen mutants. Grinding every day for three weeks.
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jul 19, 2018 - 07:53pm PT
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Mooch,
Floyd never took me on that ride. One day, Floyd and Dr. Kay took me on what they called the "Hour of Power" which climbed a bunch of short, but really steep, mostly one way(up then back down the way we came) hills west of I-15 in Temecula. A lot of the climbs were in the 25-30% range with a few in the 30+% range including one that measured 38%!
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Jul 19, 2018 - 09:36pm PT
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Mooch...I have a friend , Jean Louis , who lived close to Floyd maybe next door...Wonder if you ever met him...?
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jul 19, 2018 - 11:24pm PT
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What Team Sky tried to do during the Alpe d'Huez stage was textbook bike racing. Tom Dumoulin is probably the greatest threat to Team Sky and with Tom in third only 15 seconds behind 2nd place Froome at the start of the stage it was key for Sky to try and increase the time gap between Froome and Dumouin, especially because Dumoulin is as good, or better, than Froome in the time trials.
In the end it didn't work out, but look for that plan to be replayed in the Pyrenees. Team Sky might add in a bit of a wrinkle in having Thomas attack to make Dumoulin chase with Froome on Tom's wheel. Froome would then launch a counter attack when Thomas is caught and hopefully Dumoulin can't respond. It's another textbook example of team racing.
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10b4me
Social climber
Lida Junction
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Jul 20, 2018 - 08:01am PT
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Nibali is out with a cracked vertabrae.
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phylp
Trad climber
Upland, CA
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Jul 20, 2018 - 08:28am PT
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A short story while watching the last 7 km of today’s stage:
My husband was telling me about a very funny commercial he saw of Peter Sagan racing his grandmother uphill. She’s riding one of Specialized’s electric mountain bikes.
We were amazed at how many of these types of bikes we just saw in the French Alps. We stayed in a small ski town with a lot of mountain bike trails and all the shops in town were renting and selling them.
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okie
Trad climber
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Jul 20, 2018 - 09:13am PT
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Definitely a team sport. Must be sweet to ride all the way in the slipstream of really strong guys and then slingshot at the end. That acceleration was a bit much, wasn't it? Was Froome holding back? Starting to disbelieve Thomas' "aww shucks, I'm no Froomey, just happy to be here" line.
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mooch
Trad climber
Tribal Base Camp (Riverkern Annex)
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Jul 20, 2018 - 09:29am PT
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Must be sweet to ride all the way in the slipstream of really strong guys and then slingshot at the end.
That's called 'tactics'. ;) And in this particular case, Sagan is one of the smartest, most patient tacticians in the sport. Demare and Kristoff put themselves in that position and look how it played out.
"Work smarter, not harder."
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mawk
Big Wall climber
White Bear Lake, MN
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Jul 20, 2018 - 09:31am PT
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Is it just me, or is the Tour getting boring with one team being so dominant? The commentators occasionally mention that Sky has a larger budget than any other team.
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BigB
Trad climber
Red Rock
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Jul 20, 2018 - 09:54am PT
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Is it just me, or is the Tour getting boring with one team being so dominant? The commentators occasionally mention that Sky has a larger budget than any other team. been that way since the days of uniball
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BruceHildenbrand
Social climber
Mountain View/Boulder
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Jul 20, 2018 - 11:12am PT
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With Nibali running into the back of a police motor bike and crashing out it brings back memories of Andy Hampsten's win in 1992. Andy was away solo and heading for the win when, about 4km from the top, a young boy jumped out right in his path. Andy reacted quickly and basically shoved the boy out of his way. As Andy told me later his reaction was quick and swift because if he had been knocked down and lost lead the Tour organizers would not have given him any consideration for what had happened. Luckily, his quick reaction saved the day(and the stage).
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Kalimon
Social climber
Ridgway, CO
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Jul 20, 2018 - 05:14pm PT
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Is it just me, or is the Tour getting boring with one team being so dominant?
There is still plenty of excitement to be had every day on the Tour, but you are not alone when it comes to tiring of Team Sky's stranglehold, superior doping protocol and boring riders.
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Jul 20, 2018 - 07:21pm PT
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Went running one cold december day with Bob Roll out behind Sunny Slopes...Bob borrowed Inga Thompsons red 914 Porsche...Bob wore silver snake-skin tights....Bob shared that he use to ditch school and go running and that the teachers always thought he was out smoking weed...towards the end of the loop i did a couple surges to test Bob...Bob responded to each surge like a champion reminding me that i was not worthy....On the drive back to Mammoth i was clearing out the bronchials...Each time i rolled the electric window down to spit , the window would mysteriously roll back up...being a little slow it took me 3 times to figure out Bobke , with his toothy grin , was controlling my window from the drivers seat...
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Tarbuster
climber
right here, right now
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Jul 20, 2018 - 08:24pm PT
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So tomorrow morning, 4 AM MST, starts a TV broadcast of the final stage of the 2018 women's TDF. It was completed on Tuesday.
Who knew?
My wife has been in two of them.
She's longtime pals with Davis Phinney and Connie Carpenter. Sometimes we break bread with them and I've been along for a few pleasure rides, including a 90 mile pedal stomp from Frisco to Leadville, around Turquoise Lake, over Independence Pass, and down to Carbondale.
Davis is about as down-to-earth as a guy can get.
About 15 years ago, midmorning on my birthday, I was shrugging off a mild red wine hangover. Hampsten, Doug Emerson and the crew from Boulder's University Bikes unloaded off the bus here in Nederland and we all began a ride up the Peak to Peak Highway, down to Lyons and on toward Boulder. Andy, having learned it was my birthday, just happened to be packing a handful of carrot cake in his jersey, and handed me some while we gained altitude out of town.
Down on Highway 36, riding in a pace line with them, he asked me why my form was so good. I told him several years of suffering Colorado hills on a 20-year-old “steel-is-real” Miyata behind Lisa while she spun the crank arms on her aluminum Cannondale had something to do with it. Oh, and I added that maybe climbing teaches one how to quiet the body.
End of shameless name dropping session!
I've never been a bike racer, but I sure am enjoying the TDF from the couch this year, and would like to tell Donini that the sprint stages have been spectacular!
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rottingjohnny
Sport climber
Sands Motel , Las Vegas
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Jul 20, 2018 - 08:30pm PT
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Cool roy boy...!!
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