Tour of Elk Grove – Stage 1

This was a pro-only stage, so I didn’t race today. Still, I drove part of the way to Elk Grove and then biked the rest of the way so that I could watch a few of the pros and warm up the legs. I was very surprised by the roads (much better condition and much less traffic than I was expecting). This really is a beautiful part of Chicago. I was really surprised, beautiful roads and land out here just west of the Chicago O’Hare airport. Here’s a map of the route I took:

Biking in the western Chicago suburbs

The pros were racing a 4.5 mile prologue time trial that overlapped with part of the circuit race course that I’ll be racing tomorrow. Fast and flat, the results showed a lot of people including Matt Winstead, within 20 seconds of the lead. Check out the results.

Take Back the Tour

If you click on “real-time”, you can watch several of the riders heart rate, power, cadence, and speed statistics in real-time. It’s pretty cool! Give it a minute or so to update itself before you first start seeing any real values.

Versus! Tour de France Stage 11

We found out yesterday that we could add Versus to our extremely cheap cable lineup for only $10/month. I am sure that it is a mistake somehow, but we now have Charter 10Meg Internet, basic digital service (channels 2-13), the discovery channel (23), and the sports package including Versus (212) for only $45/month! Anyway, I’m totally excited that Kristine and I just got to watch the finish of today’s stage live on our very own TV.