Finally....

This is one of the coolest TdF pictures I've ever seen.

Charter finally fixed my internet. They hooked up a new modem and all is good.

PayPal...I checked my account and so far it looks like everything is okay. Here's a lesson I learned from this: Don't click on links from e-mails. People send out spoof e-mails with links to fake sites that may look like your bank or PayPal and, of course, they'll want you to verify your bank account number or ss# or something like that. They told me to always go to the website and log in that way so I know I'm on the correct site. They also asked me if my first and last name was in the e-mail. It was, and that's how they knew it was an e-mail from them and my account had been broken into. Be skeptical of e-mails that start out with things like "Dear customer."

Now that I can get online again, I've been wasting my time playing around with google streetview. If you haven't checked it out yet, you should. It's really cool (I just discovered it).

Here's a shot of one of my favorite sections of the IM route....

This is a very fast, long descent. Very fun.

Here's a shot of the climb no one talks about, but I think it's one of the worst on the route. The climb into Mt. Horeb. Looks like someone was riding the route...



Pacific Cycle...




It's a fun toy, especially if you're going somewhere you've never been....like Racine. So I've been checking out the route a bit. It's not that helpful because you can't really tell if it's hilly or not, but it's still really cool. At least I should be able to find the expo.

Le Tour: So far the tour has been really good, although I'm a little disappointed there's been more doping busts. It's getting to the point where you can't trust a good performance. As soon as you see someone like Ricco drop the field your first thought is EPO, and these days it seems you'll be right 9 times out of 10. But there is some good coming from this tour. The racing has been great and Team Garmin and Team Columbia, two teams that focus on clean racing, secured major sponsors and are proving that clean teams can do well (let's hope no one from those teams gets busted for doping). If you want to check out some awesome photos of the tour, go here: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/07/2008_tour_de_france.html

For the part of you that loves a good crash, here's Mike Alessi's crash from Red Bud (my favorite track when I raced)...




Aquathon... Cancelled. The beach is closed due to an algae problem so the aquathon has been rescheduled for the 31st. That means I'll have 3 aquathons in 4 weeks. I'm not sure if I like that or not. It's going to be tough to fit them into my IM schedule.