Bike Vomit

Le Tour:

Week one: snooze-fest. The Pyrenees were pretty dull too.
Contador-Lance: the egomaniac with the best legs won. I admit I had counted Lance out after watching the Giro, so chapeau for proving me wrong.
Garmin-Hincapie: Jerks. Wasn’t Matt White Hincapie’s teammate at Postal? Vaughters annoys me too, so smug. They did a disservice to US cycling       because of their spitefulness. The flipside is unfortunately Hincapie always seems to be acting like a big baby whether he’s once again not winning       Paris-Roubaix or he’s missing Yellow by 5 seconds.
Hushovd: took Green by whining as opposed to riding though Cavendish’s utterly idiotic stage-win salutes should have been enough to relegate him on       every stage he won.
Jens Voigt: Hated seeing him go down on his face, he’s one of my favs in the peloton. He’s getting a touch long in the tooth, no? I’ll miss him when he       goes.
Radio Shack: This is obviously not a concern for me but I wouldn’t want to be part of a team with the word “shack” in the title sponsor though I think       they could have some cool kits. Also, Lance will podium in 2010.
Schlecks: It must be awesome for them.
AG2R’s kit: Didn’t make my eyeballs bleed like I thought it would. I thought the brown shorts were somehow pretty cool but then again I love brown.
France: Congrats on finally having more than one or two Frenchmen out there with some legs.
Phil and Paul: Oh, go on then. I love 'em.

In other, more personal cycling news, I bought some Easton EA50 bars off of ebay for about 10 clams and they’ve completely changed the way I feel about the bike. I could stay on that thing all day now and feel great. Ciao, numb hands! Thank god. Also got a very hip 3T stem with a removable faceplate (after ruining my existing stem trying to ram said EA50's through it) which is pretty much sex. Skipping mid-week park rides for indoor sessions and feeling stronger for it. Went out in the pouring rain last Sunday and had a great time. Made it down the state line descent before looping back around. Could’ve kept on but my glasses were fogging up and since they’re Rx I couldn’t take them off. . . Really, it’s true, I was having a lot of fun out there. If the weather looks good for Sunday I’ve got my eye on Bear Mountain. And yes, for no good reason whatsoever I’m shaving. My legs. Man it feels good though, much cooler.

In commuting news. . . I've been commuting to Ailey for probably about 5 years via bicycle. For some reason it was only about 2 weeks ago that it occured to me to try going crosstown on 61st St. instead of 60th. There is tons of Queensborough Bridge traffic emptying out onto 60th so I thought 61st might be a little more chill. Good god, there's almost no traffic on 61st so not only is it way more enjoyable, it's also faster because I catch more lights because I'm not stuck behind 2 buses and a dump truck. Why oh why did it take me so long to figure that out?

Speaking of light traffic, it is August, and that means Manhattan has cleared out to go spend a month having key parties out in the Hamptons. I wish they'd stay out there year-round.

Last bit: Gatorskins: never again. I wore out the one I had on the back and replaced it with a Conti Ultra Sport and it feels like I swapped out a square piece of granite for a lovely round pillow. Yes, they last a long time and are pretty flat-resistant but they're not that flat-proof and for the cost of one Gatorskin I could buy three Zaffiros.

The end.