That's all-Frenchy-like for housekeeping. Ah, those delicious few hours of peace and calm before the madness begins...

First, some graphics news. Thanks to Veloki (designs) and Gavia (inspiration), we will be rolling out several new post-banners for various live events and other matters specific to the Tour de France. Usually I just lift the official race logo, but the Tour logo keeps getting uglier every year, and anyway the creative powers of the Cafe can do better. Here's the most basic version:

Slick, huh? There are several more in the assets, watch for them on the front page soon.

Today I created a new section, Cafe Happy Hour. You may have noticed the tendency of people to get happy around here. You might even resemble that remark. If you had anything to do with the latest installment of "Ask Gavia" then you know what I mean. This is part of what makes this site fun. It's also only marginally connected to cycling, and doesn't seem to fit the definition of the "News" section. Anyway, the Happy Hour section label might help the jokesters know where and when to pull up a chair... and serves as fair warning for everyone else.

Very minor reminder point: you can recommend posts and comments when you feel so moved by clicking on "action", which then gives "rec" as an option. This isn't a direction from me; it just seems like people often feel moved to give props, and are doing so manually (+1, etc.). All I'm saying is, we have automated tools for recommendations and tip jars if you prefer.

Does anyone miss the polls we used to always have? As the guy who had long since run out of original material for them, I know I don't.

Not sure what the order of business around here will be, but I know it involves lots of previews of this and that. Next up will be some contest stuff; Cycling Fever is running their usual game, and they've set up a special Podium Cafe section! I need to check it out and will post instructions shortly. Stay tuned...

1-3am, maintenance. Don't be alarmed.

Housekeeping time...

The Giro is over. We laughed. We cried. We made fun of Pellizotti's hair. Some of us even fell in love... with Daniele Bennati, although supposedly he has the hots for a podium girl that some others probably fell in love with. I guess if it didn't end in a homicidal love triangle, this wouldn't be Italy, right?

Anyway, the next month is all about transitioning to the Tour. Apart from the national championships of various countries, we have the Dauphine Libere and Tour de Suisse, two rather unabashed Tour de France tuneups. I don't get too exercised about either race, and will be pacing myself for July... but then, there will be intrigue, and it's still bike racing. So we'll certainly be on the job. I also have several book reviews in the pipeline for this month, including a pair of Tour de France books and some less topical, but no less interesting, stuff.

May was a great month for the site. The biggest news was of course the redesign, which IMHO has been nothing but good news. May was also our second-biggest traffic total after last year's Tour... a standard we easily could have topped with a juicy scandal. On second thought, no thanks. But of course the biggest news was on the road, where the Giro put on an amazing show. I've beaten the storyline on the competition to death already, but I do want to give some last props to the organizers. This was a race for the fans, chock-a-bloc with beauty, majesty, and stages to drive the imagination. From the Valle dei Templii (Greek ruins in Agrigento) to the craggy dolomite peaks, with lots of seashore on the way, the Giro reminds us that a race can be a visual feast if you design it right.

Of course, the flipside of all those great stages is the number of transfers, and us fans can afford to let the organizers know that we would give up some of the scenery next time for a less hectic atmosphere behind-the-scenes. After all, what matters most is the action, something the riders have well in hand. Of all the climbing stages, I probably would have expected the least out of the Presolana-Monte Pora stage, and yet that's where we had the most fun. Well, except for the Plan de Corones, where the spectacular was always on the menu.

Special thanks to all of you who contributed so much to the atmosphere here. To single out a few, Monty and Gavia provided us with real-time translations of the post-race scene, something even the biggest sites don't provide. And of course Tifosa took the real hardship post, going to Italy and blogging on site. Seriously though... I write stuff to start the conversation here, and because I enjoy writing, but whether it adds value is in the eyes of the beholder. Blogging from a race we all would like to attend, with pictures of the scene? That adds value, hands down. Bravissimo a tutti!

Well that sucked. 

Apparently there was a major outage with some provider that took down all of SBNation this morning, along with god only knows what else. What had been a very interesting morning to watch the Giro turned into... well, an interesting morning to watch, without the benefit of our site. Fortunately, there wasn't a whole lot to discuss, as (unfortunately) Gabriele Bosisio crashed out of what might have been a terrific move, leaving a harmless breakaway up the road and a mass sprint behind.

We at the Podium Cafe apologize for the outage. It won't happen again. No, really... actually we're in our third season and this is the first such occurrence, so I'm unconcerned. Still, we guarantee 100% satisfaction with this site, so every registered user will receive in their bank account this morning a sum equivalent to your Podium Cafe registration fee.

OK, no more screwing around. Back to the action... Cheers!

[UPDATE] The situation has been diagnosed and the problem identified:

[h/t Crashdan] 

Another change. If you want to insert a link, move the cursor to where you want it, and click on the icon in the edit bar that looks like a few links of chain. This prompts a popup screen where you enter the link and hit OK. n.b.: the prompt already includes "http:" so if you paste in the whole thing and wind up with two prefixes, you've got a broken link. The chain icon will look broken if your link isn't right.

Once you have the link entered correctly and hit enter, it will then prompt you to enter some text. So like in Gavia's story about Richeze from Tuttobiciweb, in this second prompt she'd want to type "Tuttobiciweb," making that the hypertext that appears in print.

The same editorial tools are available in comments as well. Chances are, your editing mode is defaulting to what's known as "WYSIWYG," what you see is what you get. This is more like editing in word. But if you're used to editing in HTML mode, click on the "Switch to HTML editor" button.

Let's start with two simple but fundamental changes.

• Tags: Didn't used to have them; do now. Most of you are familiar with them already, but basically they're words which describe the contents of the post, and which make for better searching. I've hardly ever used them, so feel free to elaborate on how they make life better. Anyway, a few quick rules of thumb: for riders, last names only when adequate. [Spanish riders might need two surnames sometimes. Valverde? one. Gomez Marchante? both.] For races, use "tour de france" instead of just "tour". I'm anointing pieces on the site with "PC2.0". For the Virtual Directeur Sportif, just "VDS". After that, let common sense (and the site's tendency to make suggestions as you type) be your guide.
• Sections: There's a list of them in the right left sidebar. Click on the section and you'll get a list of just those posts. I'm open to suggestions here, but am trying to keep them simple and not too numerous. "News" will encompass pretty much everything having to do with racing besides live races and feedbags. I'll make a section for US Racing too, so we can have a domestic corner.