Radios, racing and sundries

Yesterday I gave myself an ill-deserved "rest day". That is to say I did not ride my bike. Today it was back to "training" (I believe the use of quotations is appropriate). The plan was to wake up and do my 2x20s early in the morning. However, my body apparently wanted _more_ rest. I slept for like 10 hours. After finally dragging myself out of bed after multiple alarm resets I started watching the recording of today's stage of the tour- note: also not my intervals. I watched about an hour or so before heading out to ride at like 11:00 or something.

I found myself riding with thoughts about today's stage on my mind.

First off- no radios today. My first feeling about this was more power to Garmin and the French teams that didn't protest this. Whatever, right? I still kind of thing that all the teams that complained and protested are a lot of little bitches.

That said, as I was thinking about it, I couldn't figure out why they were removing radios from the race. I remember hearing some vague argument that the added information takes suspense out of the race. Examples being breakaway's being chased down 300 meters from the line. This was the only thing I remember having heard. How does this hurt the race? Bike racing is supposed to be tactical. In addition, if a sprinters team wants a break to be chased down, they still have to do it. Not knowing time splits every 30 seconds doesn't change this. Honestly, I think that the more information riders have the more exciting and tactical a race can be. This is bike racing as the sport is right now. We are not going to harken back to the days of Eddie Merchx by removing radios, and why would we want to? Seriously, cycling is a technological sport these days... I think most of us involved actually kind of like that.

I had left the last 45 minutes of the race to watch when I got home. I was really amused to see that in the end the break was caught and the sprinters teams lined up their leadouts... and Mark Cavendish won. That is to say, the race played out pretty much exactly like it would have either way.



That said, I thought the finish was amazing. The sprint was won by Cavendish- no surprise there. However, the perfection of the Columbia-HTC leadout was nothing short of awesome to watch. This was punctuated when Garmin tried to move in and disrupt the Columbia-HTC leadout and George Hincapie shouldered him off (apparently they don't know you are supposed to hold your line while racing). The Columbia leadout put Cavendish right in front of Thor Hushovd and Tyler Farrar... and neither of them has the power to pass. It was a great 25 seconds of bike racing...

Also, where is Tom Boonen? Is he planning to show up at all this race? Is Quick Step not doing a good enough job getting him to the front? I don't know. Its like he's not even there.

As a side note, I must be getting faster. I thought that I felt like crap and had done worthless intervals. I looked at my power after the workout and it was nearly identical to last week when I was feeling really good...