Day 3

Sorry for the delay. Internet connections at hotels is spotty at best, but throw in at least 20 staff members from each team and there's no hope of getting a connection. I'm a day behind now, but I'm going to try and write this as if I'm not a day behind.

Today's race was pretty nice. A short 158km that takes the riders about 3.5 hours to complete. Yeah, I'm at the Tour de France, and they're really fast. It was a pretty flat stage, so there weren't too many fireworks. The real fireworks, were the night before when Thor Hoshovd took control of the green points jersey. Why does that mean fireworks? Because he got a new bike. A specially painted black with green accents Cervelo S3. On TV, they always show the new bikes, but they don't show the effort that goes into getting the new bike ready for the yellow/green/whatever jersey. The mechanics keep the frames hidden so riders don't know about it (it's bad luck) and then if they get the jersey, one of the mechanics has the assignment to build it. Now these are ProTour level bikes and take longer than a couple hours to build. Thor's took probably 5-6 hours. The mechanics spent much of the evening and even the morning getting his rig ready, but once it was done... wow, was it nice. Anyway, the team had hoped Thor could win the stage, but he didn't have good position and didn't get much in the final sprint. Oh well, but at least he's still in Green. After the race, the mechanics wash the bikes and fix them to tip-top shape again for the next day. I also go in and make sure the computers and PowerTaps are working as they should be. Dinner is next, which I skipped the night before to make sure everything was working properly (ie: things didn't work as expected that day). I think we had steak again, and then off to bed. Everything is starting to run together, so forgive me if I seem to gloss over things.