Thread: le tour!!!!
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#11 Re: le tour!!!!
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#12 Re: le tour!!!!07-09-2010, 01:09 PM
I wish I get part one of three part report done today. One dude named Aristotle said a story should have beginning, middle, and ending. So have to make a three part report :) I Have selected the pictures for the first part already, only need to write stuff and I have some kind of mood to write. In part two will be pictures of me. I don't take self portraits because the only tripod I have at the moment is wooden Berlebach weighting almost 3kg and, a great tripod but a little bit unpractical for touring with a bike and I haven't yet found practical and good small tripod. However one motorcyclist had a tripod in Alta Norway and some unknown man volunteered to photoraph me later too.
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#13 Re: le tour!!!!
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#14 Re: le tour!!!!07-10-2010, 12:11 AM
Perhaps Moilami is one of these gentlemen?http://sites.google.com/site/dustywobblssnow/home
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#15 Re: le tour!!!!07-10-2010, 07:06 AM
Huh, haha, I am not one of those xD Those are some seriously crazy Finlanders. It is pure and total insanity to travel to arctic circle and back in February in Finland by that kind of motorcycles I can say that and it is much said by me. There is freezing cold, pitch dark, and icy road. To do it in less than 24 hours requires guts big time. I haven't seen more insane trip done.
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#16 Re: le tour!!!!
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07-11-2010, 04:16 PMOut of curiosity, I googled to see if I could find out anything about the motorcycles you see amidst the Tour de France riders. There's not a ton of information, but I did find two interesting pages. Turns out Kawasaki is an official sponsor, and provide all the bikes for the official Tour organizers, about 27 in all. But there are many accredited news organizations as well, and most ride BMW. It's reported that some of the bimmers are very old, with six figures on their metric odometers (km not miles).
Models, totals and usage:
KLV 1000 x 3 Regulators. Used to position service vehicles behind the riders
ZRX 1200 x 3 Information. Used within the group of bicycles to take the timings and give the information to race control.
KLV 1000 x 1 Info Board. Used to inform break away groups of the advance they have.
ZRX 1200 x 2 Arrival Judges. Used to judge intermediate sprint results during the stage.
KLV 1000 x 6 Stewards. Used to make sure nothing illegal happens during the race.
ZRX 1200 x 2 Drinks. Serve drinks to racers who have not been able to get drinks from alongside the road.
ZRX 1200 x 1 Medical. Used to for following the break away groups.
KLV 1000 x 3 Photographers. Used to carry the official photographers.
KLV 1000 x 3 Journalists. Used to carry by rotate, the official written press.
ZRX 1200 x 3 Caravan Regulators. Used to regulate traffic behind the race of all the publicity caravans.
Here is one representative picture, followed by two links for further reading.
Le Tour motorcycles
Le Tour 2010---motorcycle facts & figuresjkp
Shanghai
2010 JH600 "Merkin Muffley" (in Shanghai)
2000 KLR650 "Feezer Ablanalp" (in California)
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#17 Re: le tour!!!!
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07-11-2010, 04:47 PMOh, and for those of you following le Tour, today's stage just finished an hour ago and there were major developments. Lance Armstrong was embarrassed in the first serious stage in the Alps by a ton of younger turks, and almost certainly will have to hand over leadership of the RadioShack team to Levi Leipheimer, from my home town of Santa Rosa, California, who finished in the lead group about 8 minutes ahead of Armstrong. Leipheimer is now placed No.8 in the overall standings, and is well positioned for a crack at the podium. If Leipheimer indeed is named leader, it will be interesting to see what Armstrong does next. Will he drop out, board his helicopter and blow out of town? Or will he do what so, so, so many unheralded riders did for him so many times over the past decade or more: Ride thanklessly as a supporting domestique, doing anything in his power to help Leipheimer. I'm guessing the former.
Yeah, and Armstrong was described in Today's NYTimes as "under federal investigation for fraud and doping during the years he rode on the United States Postal Service team."
cheers!jkp
Shanghai
2010 JH600 "Merkin Muffley" (in Shanghai)
2000 KLR650 "Feezer Ablanalp" (in California)
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#18 Re: le tour!!!!07-16-2010, 12:08 AM
The 15th July stage ended with the disqualification of Mark Renshaw after bashing his head onto another contestant.
at 00:04 it is clearly visible, sorry YT only
Andy
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#19 Re: le tour!!!!07-16-2010, 03:27 AM
Bloody woosies disqualifying him, he couldn't punch him, he was holding on to the bars, and he couldn't kick him, he was pedalling! What else was he meant to use? Do not expect gentlemanly behaviour from sprinters, they are NOT gentlemen, and in fact are mostly foreigners. ;-p
And do not expect drug free professional sports on any field with high wages and prizes of a milliion bucks. having said that, I reckon Lance has been accused and cleared before of the same drugs and for the same period. This time it is just the biggest hypocritical wanker of all time, Landis, having a spit. If I ever met him I would pound a stake up his arse, pile more faggots round it and set light happily, whistling while he popped and spattered.
There was a period when it was accepted as 'cool' by most teams and individuals that many drugs or 'substances' were to be used if they were not explicitly banned; for such things as blood transfusions to be seen as clever rather than cheating etc. Times change but few, if any, take no drugs. Depends where you draw the line. Our local aussie footballers speed up with buckets of caffeine quite without censure, then come down on prescribed 'downers', then get very pissed. I have partied with top flight golfers once on a stopover in a hotel in Dubai where the coke was flowing very freely. I have valid information about top politicians taking drugs and what is worse, have personal knowledge of a few 'bent' police over the years that not only took anything going but stole and sold it, controlled drug resources and didn't mind a bit of sex on the side either. Not just the odd cyclist doing it folks. Oh yeah and the USA Onward Christian Soldiers in Iraq and Aghanistan use many drugs without censure as well. I have that from currently serving mates working alongside them. Must make it easier to kill kids and women.
It is the world we live in. Brutal, corrupt and sometimes fun if you have the balls to play in it. Otherwise known as Hell by many who live in it. I still reckon anyone who enjoys cycling up and down mountains and for many kilometers fast along french roads is worth watching. I never said they were anything but mad, drugged or violent though, that just makes then fairly representative of the common man?
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#20 Re: le tour!!!!
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07-16-2010, 03:46 AMJape, Nice rant and in principle I agree that it's a nasty durty world out there. And it's fun to watch these guys go at it on the mountain. Yes, as humans we are all basically fallen. Yet what would happen if all controls, perhaps all rules, were removed from the game altogether? Now that would be a Tour de France worth watching, including sag wagons to shovel up the bodies.
As for the credibility of Armstrong and Landis, before you go selecting that stake and faggots, please have a read of what Landis has been saying, if you haven't. Though of course everyone in the peloton, and the corporate world, wants to impugn his credibility, he speaks from an interesting position -- a guy who's lost everything through his deceits. Armstrong, whether or not you can extend him the full benefit of the doubt, is on top of the world and has everything to lose. A lie has real value for him.
And Landis is being taken seriously by US prosecutors, and major media like the Wall Street Journal. OK, it's Murdoch's paper now, and Rupert (speaking of dark forces) has a dog in the fight (sponsors a team in the tour, don't remember which). But have a read through THIS ARTICLE if you haven't already. It might revise your thinking. Then again, it might now. I have a friend who has a cabin in Idyllwild where Landis lives, and he's going to go buy him a beer and get him talking. I imagine Landis is feeling pretty damned lonely right not. All the more so if he's telling the truth. One final word: Armstrong seems always quite careful in saying he never used "performance enhancing substances" but Landis' allegations are entirely about blood doping. If this was true, there should be plenty of other witnesses who will come out of the woodwork. I think there are at least two others who corroborate Landis' story. I'd just like to see all this come out in the wash, once and for all.
Now back onto the bike. I'm in Zhenjiang, heading north to ZMC888's turf, via Nanjing, which is TexasAggie's turf. It's been pissing rain all morning, so my hotel room exerted a particularly strong magnetic attraction. But it's breaking now so I'm up for a good 8 hours of northbound riding. The G312 to the G104 in Chuzhou. On to Beijing and Shenyang!
cheers!jkp
Shanghai
2010 JH600 "Merkin Muffley" (in Shanghai)
2000 KLR650 "Feezer Ablanalp" (in California)
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