Viva La France...Beppu, Arashiro, and Miyazato...

This past weekend was probably one of the biggest weekends for anyone interested in cycling and golf and, who is of Japanese (esp. Okinawan) heritage!

TDF: AWESOME JOB ARASHIRO AND FUMI !!!


I've (and I'm sure a lot of other people) always wondered why there were no Asians in the Tour.....I just figured it was for the same reason you don't see any Africans in the Tour.....just not "made" for cycling at the highest level. But in this past tour, Fumiyuki Beppu and Yukia Arashiro (born in Okinawa) put an end to those thoughts.

For the first time EVER, these 2 Japanese riders FINISHED the biggest, baddest, most crazy bike race in the world. They even showed really good in several stages, and Beppu showed especially good in the last stage where he absolutely dropped the hammer and started the only breakaway on the Champs-Élysées! He even won the "Most Combative" award for his exploits on the final stage. Hopefully...they'll be more to come, especially with all the good track Keirin sprinters in Japan. I wouldn't be surprised to one day see an awesome road sprinter come out of Japan...
Oui...Beppu flashin the Shaka!!! w/ Arashiro...


Evian Masters: CONGRATULATIONS AI MIYAZATO
A Happy Ai on a Sunny Sunday Afternoon in France...

Must have been a great for Ai Miyazato (born in Okinawa) to finally get her first win...and a MAJOR at that!!! She did it the hard way too, by having to win in a playoff.

TDF - Stages 16 - 21...

What a great race it was.....and the scenery of France was stunning in HD.

The last week was as exciting as advertised and we saw how mortal LA was when he couldn't go with the initial moves of Contador. Then we saw how awesome LA was when he attacked. We also know that Cavendish is by far the fastest man in the sprint. And the Schleck brothers will be force to be delt with in the future.

But after the race, it was really sad to see that LA and Contador were not getting along at all. Right or wrong, I think LA should have been like a "big brother" to Contador and just be the bigger man...I mean, Contador is still so young compared to LA!

The way I kind of see it, Contador attacking probably assured the team of the yellow jersey, cause who knows if Contador may have had a bad day, and that time he made would have been the cushion for him to keep the yellow!!! Cause if Contador had a bad day...there's no guarantee that LA or Kloden would have made it into the yellow jersey...especially without Levi being there.

Until the real stories come out as to what really happened during the race.....I guess it's all soap opera gossiping...

TDF - Stage 15 and Tantalus

TDF: Sunday was a pivotal day in the TDF w/ Contador flexing his muscles showing everyone who was the strongest on the hilltop finish. Too bad Sastre and Cadel couldn't show any better than they did, hopefully they will do better in the remaining climbing stages.

LA just couldn't match the pace of Contador, but he still did damn good considering...in fact, gotta really watch for him this coming week to see if he gets stronger...

Tantalus: And, since Sunday was a climbing stage, I did my own little climb of Tantalus this weekend. I was really surprised when I stopped the clock in 24:33 as I haven't climbed up there for a long time. Gotta say that my new Kinlins performed really really well as the added stiffness really helps when you climb standing. I also am pedaling with a new technique and I "think" it is helping cause my legs never got that blown out feeling at any time. Usually, at 24:30, my legs and lungs should have been feeling really blown! Gotta test out my new techinque again on Tantalus sometime again soon...

The Power and the Heartbreak TDF - Stage 14 and 13

Stage 13 - Break went away again and Cervelo Test Team soloed in for the win - great for this young guy.

Stage 14 - Today's stage was super exciting and super frustrating.

The Power - Ivanov rode away from his breakaway companions just like he did in 2001. What a pedaling style that guy has...just super smooth and powerful - awesome to watch! And he did it EXACTLY like he did in 2001 when my and my brother were watching the tour...I remember us thinking how awesome it was back then and it was just even fore awesome in HD.

The Heartbreak - 1st of all, I think Astana really &^%%# Big George. There was NO REASON for Astana to be on the front of the peleton...infact, per the TV, at one time they were on the front for over 30 minutes straight with about 60 to 80kms to go. I was thinking to myself...what are these guys doing...why the hell don't they FORCE the yellow jersey to chase????? It's not their kuleana to do sh!t so why burn any of your matches on the day before the big climbing stage....their tactics surely closed down WAY more than 6 seconds today and if they had just backed off a bit to keep the gap at like 10 minutes or so...it would have been FINE cause Big George is surely going to loose over 10 minute tomorrow...

2nd, I'm glad I don't have any Garmin stuff cause this American team really %^$^%$#& Big George in pushing the pace in the last 5 to 10km or so. I mean, the French teams would NEVER chase down their own country men, especially if they had a chance for the Yellow Jersey...but these clowns are so @#@#%$! that instead of having an icon of American cycling in Yellow today, they HELPED to rip vertual jersey OFF of a FELLOW Amercian's back. Big George has been representing America for over 14 years in the pro pelton and what these guys did to help AG2R shut down the last minute or so is inexcusable...what a heartbreak for George...

Leipheimer Out & TDF - Stages 9, 10,11,12

Per LA's Twitter (twitter.com/Lancearmstrong), Levi is out of the TDF with a broken wrist...bummer for Lance though...I'm thinking they could have "tag teamed" their cards to some awesome results in the last week...

Stage 9 - Breakaway makes it to the end.

Stage 10 - No Radios = Rider Boycott w/ no real racing till the last 5k or so...never even bothered to watch.

Stage 11 - Most exciting, crazy and dangerous sprint finish yet when Garmin's Farrar ALMOST comes over the top of Cavindish...he actually made up big gournd to the finish...but he just had to start from too far back...

Stage 12 - With 1.5kms to go on a solo break, my DVR runs out of "tape" and I can't see the finish. Had to check the internet to see if Sorensen actually won...

TDF - Stages 7 & 8....ZZZzzzzz...and Radios...

Borrriinnnggg.....as far as for the overall...

What a waste of good mountians. At least one of those stages should have been a mountian top finish (2 would have been asking too much of the riders I think). It got to the point where I just FF to watch the last 10 minutes or so of racing.

Good for the stage winners though. And good for Thor H. on how he ripped the Green Jersey off of Cavindish's back by hanging tough on the first couple of climbs. It was intersting to see Thor sprinting against Hincapie for the intermediate sprints...really no contest. But even if George won, it wouldn't have made any differnce cause Thor was only down by 1 point going into the stage, so he would have gotten 2nd place points anyway.

Also, I'm really interested in seeing the stages with no radios allowed. I think it's going to make for some really exciting and more confusing racing. You'll only be able to get your time splits from the motorbikes and I think it will really add a new facet to the "text book" racing that goes on now...

Also.....I think Lance really wants to WIN his 8th TDF...and I think he is going to really let loose in the last week...we'll see...

TDF - Stages 3,4,5 & 6

Stage 3 - What an awesome race that was - especially watching in HiDef when Columbia initially split the field. I'm sure every bike rider has experienced a situation where someone opens up a gap, and it's do-or-die and you try to bridge using all your matches...and you get so close to making contact, but no matter how hard you go, you just can't get across that last 20 or 30 meters...then you pop and that gap just explodes - never to be seen again - lol. It was especially cool to see Beppu putting the hammer down in the break in the beginning and end!

Stage 4 - That TTT course was just a little tight for 9 men. In fact, having less people, like Garmin had, might have even been better since you could rip through the tighter sections without worrying about loosing your last couple of guys. I felt especially sorry for Cadel cause he lost BIG time in that stage - and through no real fault of his own...though...he really didn't help himself when he accelerated at the end and dropped 3 of his riders!

Also LA and Cancellara really put on a show pounding at the front for both of there respective teams - especially awesome was Cancellara cause he needed to do all the work in the last 10k since his team doesn't have the class of Big Dogs like Astana does. And...LA ends up like 22/100th of a second OUT of the yellow jersey...well...LA WAS the 5th man for Astana across the finish...he should have just thrown his bike and it might have been his...

Stage 5 - Thomas Voeckler really had some big b@lls in attacking from KM 1 and holding off the field by 7 seconds! That was a fabulous ride for him and the 5 other breakaways to keep the field at bay for so long!!!

Stage 6 - Just got through watching Stage 6 and all I can say is what a crash fest. I hate those white lines, that's why for the wet TT a couple of weeks ago, I decided to sport the "dork mirror" so I could ride in the road as much as possible...keeping crossing the white lines to a minimum.
Also, the TDF just wouldn't be the same (or as exciting) without Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. You just gotta just love Phil Liggett's commentary, something like..."he should keep a little in reserve cause when David hits the final climb, his legs are going to burn like a furnace!" Lol...What a great race the TDF is...

TDF - Stages 1 and 2, and Training

TDF: Can't believe it but, their OLN is broadcasting the TDF in HIGH DEF!!! Now this is really living in luxury! Makes the racing way more vivid and intense...

Stage 1 - I thought Cancellara would win...and he did by a big margin. LA did really good coming in 10th? He should get better as the race goes on...so who knows what will happen on the Astana team. Could it be another Hinault (Armstrong) vs Lemond (Contador) soap opera type of TDF???

Stage 2 - What a fabulous finish for Japanese rider Yukiya Arashiro of BBOX Bouygues Telecom - who came in 5th place sprinting against best in the world!!! I hope this wasn't just a one time flash and I hope he can contend in all the future sprints. Cavendish, as usual, was just too fast for anyone pulling out a 2 or 3 bike win...I think the only way you beat him is to jump first, and force Cavendish to come around your top speed.

4th of July Weekend Training - I'm hoping I didn't over do it.....got in 2.5 on Friday, 3.5 on Saturday, and 2.5 today...not bad considering how cr@ppy my pulled groin muscles feel. I even did 4 loops of Aliamanu on Friday, the first medium hard climbing I've done in probably 2 months or so. On Saturday I did about 2 hours in the CRAZY crazy 4th of July trafic with the T-man. And today, wanting to just take it easy, I rode my old school Bridgestone - which is always retro fun!

But, what WASN'T fun, was using some large leaves (as gloves) to work out a kink in the B-stone's non-DuraAce chain under Nimitz Highway! On a bike you don't ride often, don't ever buy anything else BUT DA, unless you want your chain to rust and kink...