Txzen

Hard to imagine he’ll be in fighting shape for the European championship which practically runs by his front door this year. Damn shame.

Brutal. Fist sized rock on the side of the road took out his wheel. Injury it to the left shoulder and even a cut above the left eye. Still tried to get on his bike.

I see these images and the scene from Life of Brian always comes to mind...

There's a lot of conflating information here. The lab was set up, and the region was a huge focus because of, the SARS and H1N1 outbreaks...along with the wet markets. There's also a lot of sinister intent implied here : 'brought it back', and 'production of a cleavage site' (spike protein - are we really still litigating this?), and the pandemic 'lo and behold' just happening to break out at the wet market which were always known as a conglomeration of all sorts of primary vectors. You say synthesis, I say study. And yeah, they undoubtedly had lapses because of poor oversight and training - even in more well-meaning environments all sorts of bad things can happen. We (and the world) funded it to address the growing threat of emerging pathogens being haphazardly encountered in historic wet markets. I prefer the idea of US finding work in the US, but to use another example, if we're looking to study the emergence of Ebola, it probably makes sense to fund some studies in country.

I'll probably regret this, but what do you mean by this? Assuming you mean the Wuhan Institute of Virology, what do you think the purpose of this research was?

Agreed, maybe the first time I've had a positive thought about him! Also add to that list, Remco who showed up relatively svelte this year, still able to dish pain in the ITT but physically and mentally strong enough to ride the high alps with the best in week 3. He may have figured some things out.

That may be the greatest stage I’ve ever seen. While the overall didn’t change there were so many races within the race. The Croix is awful. Never ridden it just drove over it to take the picture. So much slogging in a forest, so many sharp ups and downs. Fuck all that. I did the Telegraph-Galibier in 2019. I was far far undertrained for it and it was the worst day on the bike I’ve ever had. I know I was proper fucked at the top of the Telegraph as my legs were not feeling super. Did you know you could climb for hours averaging under 5mph? Indeed you can. Gutted for Sepp, happy for Carapaz. What a day. Here’s my 5+ hour pain fest on the Telegraph/Galibier , which is about the amount of time it took them to do that…and the Croix and the Sarenne. Hard to fathom.

Nice! My best (2008, thank you) was 1:28. Pleased with this over a decade later. Uploading Attachment...

Alpe d’Huez One of 21

What a stage. What a crowd - it gets crazier (or better) every year. Love Carapaz in polka dots. If the break had worked together they might have taken the stage. Maybe. Not sure how I feel about Tadej taking the all time climbing record. But also, Remco was 20” off fully doped Lance, so it really does depend on so many other factors. I think. Let’s do it again tomorrow.

Man, I've done Alpe d'Huez twice but never the Sarenne, which seems like my kind of jam. Saw from videos from the Etape and it looks incredible. Le Bourg-de-Oisains is a lovely little town, and totally cycling mad. You could also do a lot worse than the Hotel Cassini up the road in Le Freney - stayed with them twice. It's basically at the foot of the Sarenne, though I would not want to ride down the hill to BdO for the AdH climb on that road - kind of congested with truck traffic (for me, at least). Would love to be there for the Tour someday. Seeing Greg Lemond climb that in the 80's is what got me into this weird sport to begin with, and I'd love to see it in all it's glory on a race day. Madness.

From that 'E report. Maybe they are on to (no pun intended) some short half-life microdosed peptide or the like. Dunno. But unless we think the leaders have compromised the judicial/testing process, perhaps the (hopefully) non-result will put some of the concerns to rest. For a second or two at least...

Perhaps. By the letter of the law, apparently they always had the right, just never took it. I personally am not a fan of this, even though I hate hate hate fucking hate what doping did to this sport I love. But these are high performance athletes in the middle of a three-week stage race, where they literally put their health and life on the line in the course of racing. They need to sleep. Counterpoint: Uploading Attachment...

Sucks to lose Jonas. Terrible corner that everyone got wrong. But I’m not sure why Visma was chasing like that anyway. Great rise by Quinn, but also not sure what the plan was - he’s just not going to win an 11k HC climb. Would seem he should have saved some matches for a lumpier stage. The race for the podium and white jersey heats up. Remco is going to make a statement in the TT for sure.