View From the Bushes

Someone visited the vast wasteland that is our General Discussion Forum and asked when the Midnight adventure is going to be released. Here's what I told him:

I've got it penciled in on my schedule for the 10th of July. That's a little over a week, so it's probably optimistic, mostly because I have to let FFG have a final look at things and I'm not sure how long that is going to take. Still, I am keeping my fingers crossed that it won't be much later than that.

Midnight Art Preview

In other news, Greece stunned the Czech Republic to advance to the finals against Portugal, whom they already beat in the very first match of the tournament; it should be exciting. I also discovered that they changed the rules of the Team Time Trial at the Tour more than I thought. I knew they had put a cap on the maximum amount of time which could be lost but it turns out that its even more complicated than that. Here's what VeloNews summed it up:

A major change this year is that there will be a limit on the time lost by any team (and consequently by each rider who arrives with the first man to finish in the team) in the team time trial. The riders on the winning team (except for those who are dropped by their team) will all have their actual finish time added to GC, but there will be a maximum loss of 20 seconds for the second team, 30 seconds for the third, then 10-second gaps to 13th place (a 2:20 maximum loss), and then five-second gaps down to 2:50 for the 21st (and last) team.

Also, 18th-placed Euskaltel-Euskadi, instead of losing 3:22, would have lost only 2:35. If the new system had been in place last year, Iban Mayo would have taken over the yellow jersey at L'Alpe d'Huez, not Lance Armstrong; and Alex Vinokourov would have displaced Armstrong as the race leader at Loudenvielle on stage 14.

It should be a good tour.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross