Someone had a good ride yesterday.

Cadel Evans!

Today is being declared a national holiday as Cadel Evans is the first Australian to win the Tour de France! He has taken over the yellow jersey decisively in the individual time trial on the second to the last day of the tour.

I have been following the tour for 15 years and this is the best one by far. The other races have also been very tightly contested, young rider, points, king of the mountains, and the daily winner. Every day was exciting.

Slowly over the past years one starts believing everyone is doping and when someone wins we say "he got the dope right". This tour I get the impression it is pretty clean and it made for a hotly contested tour.

And my favorite rider was instrumental in getting Cadel Evans a win. Way to go George Hincapie! Cadel gave all his teammates their due, and said " When a rider like George believes in you it is hard not to believe in yourself." This is George's 15th tour finish.

It was a tour to feel good about. Motivates me to ride my bike more. Get out and ride your bike.

Backwards

Saturday a motley crew joined up here and there and were all together in Akheri. We road last mtn bike race backwards. It was like riding a new route.

So much of the time you are screaming down hill seeing very little. I enjoyed making our way up the East Meru slopes. Somehow we recognizied the turns.


It was a mellow ride but with climbing 800m my legs felt it.