ride report: Kent Eriksen's Tour de Steamboat

at the start with Kent, founder of Moots Cycles, Mountain Bike Hall of Fame resident, proprietor of Eriksen Cycles

he's also pretty darn fit for an older guy who spends all day in the shop building some of the finest bikes anywhere


at the east summit of the passage d'oreilles de lapin (rabbit ears pass for y'all in English). nothing like 1000 meters straight up a 1st category climb right after morning coffee. i was the first chaser of a solo rider at this point.


ditch the warm clothes with the support team (Danny and Jen) and take off in pursuit of the leader.


i rode with my friend Ian Pritchard for the last 90 kilometers, from the top of the Passage de Fuseau (Gore Pass). he's an old bro from back in the more serious racing days and he was a solid top 10 to 20 rider in pretty much all of the races he entered. i was usually a bit further down the pile being as i am sized too small to produce a lot of power in the time trial. we're approaching Toponas (in the distance) on S.H. 134 and about to turn north towards a 25 to 30 kilometer per hour headwind for the last 70 kilometers of the ride. the altitude here is right at about 3000 meters and it's a long, long way to anything that even remotely looks like a tree. Ian was a good person to be riding with at this point.


it feels good to head for the barn after 6 hour ride.


images courtesy of Danny Rietz (with the exception of the image of Ian Pritchard)

the official bouncer of le Tour de France

Bernard Hinault AKA "the Badger", runs a tight show and keeps the podium free of any accumulations of unwanted riff-raff. if ya didn't earn the spot, ya better not step up... suckas.

le Blaireau in action after last year's stage that finished in Nantes (image: Bettiniphoto)


back at it again this year in Besancon (image: cyclingnews.com)


just another reason why i love le Tour.

ride for saturday july18,2009

rolling out early for our local cyclosportif, Ken't Eriksen's Tour de Steamboat (somewhat of a misnomer as most of the parcours passes through south Routt and Grand county). nonetheless, i'm looking forward to doing this ride with a large group of participants, it should be alot of fun. here's the particulars for now, stay tuned for a photo report tomorrow as well as more commentary and prognostications on le Grand Boucle going on over there in France.

Kent Eriksen's Tour de Steamboat

the 96th Tour de France 2009

what an fantastic, exciting start to this year's Tour. there has been no shortage of great racing and drama. the race is now headed to the Pyrenees and etape 8 will pass directly through an area where i visited a few years ago. there will be some great images posted here from some of the awesome rides i did as well as some from le Tour when it passed by.

stay tuned for more.


etape 8 parcours


etape 8 profil

the 96th Tour de France 2009

stage two will be one for the sprinters- i predict Thor Hushovd to take the win as well as the maillot vert when the peloton rolls across the line in Brignoles.
in honor of the sprinter's stage, i am posting am image from our garden, which is looking quite nice lately. a sort of jardine vert, if you will, with all of the rain we have been getting here in south Routt so far this spring.
more about the garden in later installments.



for all of the Tour junkies out there who can't get enough from the usual outlets, here's a link to the reference archive of live internet broadcasts in just about any language you want. this is much needed relief from the usual serving of Lance/commercial/Lance/commercial/Lance... etc., etc., etc. that we get here in the U.S. from the only network that will even bother covering a ProTour cycling event, Verses (formerly known as OLN- Only Lance Network).

apparently there are 179 other riders contesting le Tour this year. sometimes it's just kind of hard to tell otherwise.

copious amounts of Tour coverage can be found here

the 96th Tour de France 2009

there is nothing more refreshing than an ice cold Coca-Cola after a long, hard ride in the high mountains on a hot day in France in the middle of July. that much i know to be true.

i predict:
that Fabian Cancellara will win the 1st etape, that a Frenchman will win on Bastille Day after a long solo breakaway, that Contador and Armstrong will be so busy watching each other that Lepheimer will sneak away and win the overall, that the eternal struggle between good and evil has never been portrayed more dramatically than the struggle between the two teamates- one who wears white shoes and white socks and the other who wears black shoes and black socks, that an Italian or Belgian sprinter with lots of hair gel will win at least one flat stage, that Mark Cavendish will say something really stupid at least six or seven times (as will Bernard Hinault and Greg Lemond), that the super annoying guy with the big horns and texas flag will be back again this year, that the voice of Phil Liggett will give me goosebumps on the back of my neck when he says "ooooh, they're reeeally sooferin' now, Paul...

stay tuned for more, we still have 23 days to go.