Bradley Wiggins' Breakaway on the Tour today

I had the Tour de France live coverage on this morning but I was working so I could only glance at it from time to time. I do have to say that I am stumped by the Cofidis strategy of sending Bradley Wiggins' on the breakaway. It seems like Codifis has sent someone on every breakaway this week. As Brettok has commented sometimes it is all about getting the sponsor some TV exposure. Certaintly Cofidis has gotten plenty of negative exposure here in the US.

I do not always know who the riders are. Since I am American I usually aware of the US riders so I often have to use the Internet to find out about the riders that are part of these breakaways. I was certaintly impressed with Bradley Wiggins' Wikipedia Profile. This is a man with obvious skills. Several Olympic medals including a Gold for Individual Pursuit. Now that I am riding the Single Speed Langster I am paying for attention to Track Cycling.

I keep looking for Robbie McEwen to pull out another win. He is starting to drop down in the points. I am beginning to wonder if both Robbie McEwen and Fred Rodriguez were hurt more than originally thought in the early stage crashes. Mr. Rodriguez was vocal about his displeasure with the course setups (I am looking for the reference but I cannot find it).

Since Tom Boonen is a Specialized rider I was happy for him to get his stage win today. I think I heard someone say that Mr. Boonen is the highest paid rider on the tour. Now he has the Green Jersey back.

I had a Friday the 13 day today. It was a series of events that just made me think.

1. The lawn sprinklers surrounding my house did not turn off and continued to run well into late morning
2. My cell phone stopped working
3. I had a flat on the Langster (this is the second one since I have owned the bike)

I tried not to concentrate on the negative so I thought about the positive.

1. I live in a gated community that has a condo association that I pay monthly dues to so I would not have an addition expense to get the sprinklers fixed
2. All my cell phone required was a new chip that was easily swapped out and I was able to keep my contacts
3. I had discovered the flat while my bike was in my garage so I did not have to fix the flat on the side of the road.

The only real problem is that my bike mechanical skills are not all that they should be. In fact I could really use a class like Josh of Crankworks teaches (unfortunately the travel is prohibitive). As simple as the Langster's drive train is getting the chain tension correct after removing the rear tire is hard than I would have expected. Spent quite a bit of time trying to get the wheel to center correctly and have the necessary tension. I found out on my ride that I had not done a good enough job. After I climbed to the top of Holmdel Road the tire started rubbing against the right side of the frame. I am not sure how that happened since the lugs where tight when I pulled over onto a side street to readjust everything.

I was planning on stopping at Bike Haven in Fairhaven, NJ to get a computer so I got everything to the point where I felt I could ride and I made a much more direct course to the bike shop. I figured that I would ask one of the mechanics to look things over as he was installing the computer. Luckily the shop was not very busy and the mechanic was standing in the front when I got there. After quickly deciding on a computer the mechanic and I walked to the work area. From what I could the mechanic confirmed that my bike maintenance skills are poor. I wish I knew the mechanic's name. I will have to get it the next time I am in the store. I do like the service at Bike Haven. Unfortunately they are not a Specialized dealer.

I was originally planning on taking a ride early in the morning but I had a lot of work to do to prepare for the start of the new project next week. I decided to get things out of the way so I could take a longer ride in the afternoon. Turns out that was the right decision since I would have had to deal with the flat earlier in the morning.

In the end I got a 30 mile ride in (I rode 21 miles on my new computer and I figure it is about 10 miles to Bike Haven). I am thinking of driving to Richmond, VA and bringing my bike with me but I will probably end up flying and settling for long rides on the weekend. I will have to see how things go next week.