Here’s a ride I did recently, unfortunately I can’t seem to get the 3d video embedded as before though. Montacute Rd is a great climb, it starts with a gentle slope up the valley before you climb up onto a ridge which takes you pretty much all the way over to Norton Summit. The view on the way up the climb was beautiful, I imagine that it could be quite spectacular up on the ridge but yesterday all you could see was fog. Thanks to Ianto for recommending the ride (go buy his book here.) Also thanks to Cakesy for the photos
I’ve been pretty busy, on the weekend I hope to find time for some more posts, in particular soon the candidates will be declared and I can do part 2 of my Be an Informed Voter post, in the meantime I’ll just link to some recommended reading:
John Quiggin in not impressed by the campaign, he calls it a race to the bottom.
Antony Green has linked to his Senate analysis page at the ABC (though note that the full details won’t be available until candidates are declared – the deadline for that is today, they will be publicly available tomorrow afternoon), and he also has a useful Q&A page.
I just found this feature on MapMyRide, after mapping out a route you can show a 3d video of it. Here is a ride I did yesterday (with full details here):
Tonight sees the final stage of the 2009 Tour de France, which finishes as always in Paris. Overall I’ve found the 2009 tour to be enjoyable, I think that the organisers came up with an interesting route. Monaco was a great place for the opening time trial, Annecy was also a good time trial setting (especially for a Rohmer fan), the stage finish in Barcelona (nasty weather though), the exciting mountain finish in Andorra, some spectacular descents in the Alps and of course the famous Mont Ventoux last night.
Of course the tour has been heavily dominated by to riders, both backed by strong support from their teams. The tour leader Alberto Contador and the incredibly strong Astana team with the likes of Armstrong and Kloden (and Leipheimer until his early withdrawal), but also there is Mark Cavendish who has been incredibly dominant in the sprints with numerous stage wins. His team (Columbia) did a great hob of getting him into the best position each time, especially his lead out man Mark Renshaw. Thor Hushovd has kept things interesting by aggressively going for points to get ahead of Cavendish for the green jersey, there should be enough points up for grabs for them to fight it out tonight.
It’s hard not to wonder what we might have seen if Contador and Armstrong had have gone head to head rather than being team mates, but it looks like we’ll get that next year. Also strong this year was their team mate Kloden, the Schleck brothers and I was impressed by the Liquigas team who had a great team time trial and have the King of the Mountains (Pellizotti) plus two top ten finshers (Nibali, Kreuziger). The other big standout was Bradley Wiggins who put in a great effort to threaten the other big names, and was well supported by Vande Velde.
A number of big names struggled to make an impact, of course the focus was on Cadel Evans here in Australia, but also last year’s winner Carols Sastre, and Giro d’Italia winner Denis Menchov also failed to finish high in the GC.
One big difference this year from recent years is the lack of a drug scandal, which is something of a relief for the follower of the tour, however given the events of recent years you can’t help but wonder whether the riders are clean or the cheats are once again gaining the upper hand over the testers.
Anyway, even with the GC decided firmly in favour of Contador there is still plenty of interest tonight, can Cavendish grab yet another stage win, or can Hushovd gain the upper hand to keep the green jersey. On top of that there’s the usual spectacular backgroung of Paris.
Dreams on Wheels is the title of a free exhibition about Danish Cycling culture. I highly recommend it for any Adelaide cycling enthusiasts. As well as a nice range of innovative bikes on display there is also some interesting information about urban planning and other issues behind getting people onto bikes in modern cities. It’s open weekdays until next Thursday at 25 Pirie St, full details from the Adelaide City Council.
It’s on right now, in Australia you can watch it on SBS. Here’s the starting list. Lot’s of great riders who would be familiar to Tour de France fans. The Spanish team looks very hard to beat with 2008 Tour winner Sastre, 2007 winner Contador plus Freire, Valverde and Sanchez. There are plenty of other strong looking teams though, such as the USA, Germany, Italy, Russia and Australia. Also notable are the Luxembourg trio of the two Schleck brothers plus Kim Kirchen.
UPDATE: As expected Spain took the gold with Sanchez coming first in what was a great finish with six riders in a sprint to the finish. There was some great riding from Andy Schleck, and particularly Switzerland’s Fabian Cancellara who came out of nowhere to catch up to the main group, bringing a couple of other with him (including Australia’s Michael Rogers) to boost the lead group from three riders to six. Cancellara ended up with bronze behind Italy’s Rebellin who got silver.
Lots more cycling to come with the women’s road race tomorrow, and both women’s and men’s individual time trials on Wednesday.
Tonight is the last stage in this year’s Tour de France. Unfortunately Cadel Evans was not able to get back into the yellow jersey yesterday, so barring any unfortunate accidents the winner will be Spain’s Carlos Sastre. There is obviously a lot of disappointment here in Australia over Cadel not winning, but it’s fair to say that it is a well deserved win for Sastre. His team, CSC, have been well ahead of the others. Some people are lamenting that Silence-Lotto were not able to provide better support for Evans, but it is really that CSC were the odd one out in being so good. Many other riders who will finish near the top of the GC like Menchov and Vandevelde were also largely on their own. It wasn’t just that CSC had just a great group of riders, but they played it perfectly as far as tactics go. They really showed the extent to which it is a team sport, and brought back memories of Team Discovery Channel supporting Lance Armstrong.
I’ve seen a few comments around the place, which I also saw when Evans went into the last stage in second place last year, to the effect that Evans should forget about tradition and race for the win. While it is something of a tradition to take it easy on the last day, as the riders celebrate just making it to the end (and make sure that they do indeed get all the way to the end), it is not as if he is giving up a chance to win just to be polite. In reality there is no real opportunity to succeed in a breakaway on a flat stage if there is a team that doesn’t want you to. There is no way CSC would let Evans get anywhere off the front.
The TV coverage has just started up so time to enjoy the great views as the tour moves into Paris.
The Vinokourov betrayal has been a blow to many people. He has betrayed the other riders, paricularly Evans and Kirchen who came second in his two stage wins, and all of the clean riders who suffer from the knock to the already damaged reputation of the tour. His team Astana has withdrawn from the tour and have been the subject of police investigation. They were already the subject of controversy last year but at this stage there are no accusations against the other Astana riders, so it is fair to say that they have been let down hugely by Vinokourov. They miss the chance to finish the race, and in particular it is a betrayal of Andreas Kloden, who has tested negative, and who damaged his own chances at a top position by dropping back to assist Vinokourov, even though Kloden was well ahead in the overall classification. I also remember another Astana rider (I thin it was Ivanov) on the big climb in Vinokourov’s second stage win who dropped back from the breakaway and gave everything to get Vinokourov up there, before struggling, exhausted, just to make it to the end. Furthermore the Astana team represents Kazakhstan so Vinokourov has betrayed his country.
Finally, it is a massive betrayal of the tour fans who watched what appeared to be a courageous comeback by Vinokourov after his accident. I have watched every stage of the tour from the beginning, and now with a few days to go I am almost ready to switch off. What is the point when every time you see a good performance you suspect cheating? Of course, given all the past controversy I’m not so naive as to have not considered the possibility of doping. To commit to watching this event you need to put aside doubts and watch with a (admittedly unreasonable) assumption that the riders are clean and that the testing regime will ensure that. When a big rider is caught out it weakens your suspension of disbelief, and there has to be a point where you just give it up. This time I’m going to hang in there this just to see Cadel Evans through to the finish. I’ll be watching the outcome of this latest scandal closely to decide whether I’ll watch the tour next time though.
UPDATE : Team Rabobank have withdrawn Rasmussen from the tour (and fired him from the team) for lying about his whereabouts when he missed a doping test. On top of that the whole Cofidis team has withdrawn after their rider Moreni tested positive. While the whole saga is terribly disappointing, at least it shows that they are prepared to turn the whole event on its head to rid the sport of drug cheats. Hopefully the mess that this year’s tour has become will give the event a future.
Now you know what a bike bus is, if you live in Sydney you can join one, check out the details at http://www.bikebus.org.au/I don’t know of any operating in Adelaide, though with the smaller volume of traffic, and generally better conditions for cyclists there may be less demand, though I expect that it’s only a matter of time before they get going here.
Via Pedaller.
Update: Not a bike bus, but there is something happening in Adelaide that’s worth mentioning, a Bicycle Users Group (BUG) is being established for the Western Suburbs, read about it at the What’s On in Adelaide blog. Not my area, but there has also recently been established a BUG for people like myself who work in the North Terrace precinct (ie the Universities, RAH etc). You can sign up to the mailing list here if that sounds like you.
I have also...