View From the Bushes

I just found out that OLN is not going to broadcast any of the Vuelta (the Tour of Spain). I'm rather disappointed by this, since I would much rather watch it than the Giro (the Tour of Italy), which OLN did broadcast, essentially in its entirety. There's a petition online for those who want to try and convince OLN to cover the Vuelta, but I can't imagine that even if OLN changed their minds today that there is sufficient time or money for them to reverse course. At this point my assessment would be that it's a lost cause, though I signed the petition anyway.

The reason I enjoy the Vuelta more than the Giro is that it seems to resemble the tour more closely. None of the big Tour contenders ride the Giro because it's too difficult too peak twice in such a short space of time, and in fact, none of the big names ride the Vuelta either unless they had a really crappy tour, at which point they go to the Vuelta for redemption. So Tyler Hamilton, Iban Mayo, Roberto Heras and even Beloki will all probably be riding the Vuelta. Plus, even though the climbs of the tour are legendary, the Vuelta includes climbs which, although not part of the legend, make l'Alpe d'Huez look like a hill rather than a mountain. I think the highest grade on the Alpe is 11%. A couple of years ago the Vuelta had a climb with a 23.6% grade (see article above).

I realize I broke my self-imposed limit of one paragraph on cycling per entry, and I'm going to compound it by writing about my ride in this morning. I had a hard time falling asleep. I normally don't even need an alarm, but this morning I slept through it. It didn't help that it was set to radio and it wasn't tuned to any station and the volume was down, and as a result the alarm was just quiet static which blended perfectly with the fan I had running. As a result, I got a late start which always discombobulates you. On top of that, one of the straps to my helmet was soaking wet when I went to put it on. I leave it in the garage so I can't imagine how it (and only half of it) got so wet. Finally, I was trying out carrying an MP3 player for the first time, which actually worked out pretty well. I think I may have to add that. I guess the point of all this meaningless rambling is that it was kind of a weird ride.

Carpe Diem Quam Minimum Credula Postero
Ross