Ok, so I was noticing that Google maps has a redone interface, so I was clicking around on Highway 1 near Marshall, California.

Oooh, a leftover Tour of California GO COZZA on the road!!

Pretty groovy, if you ask me.

If anybody finds other leftover road graffiti from folks who um "forgot" to use chalk, post it up!

-Greg

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A friend sent this joke my way, something silly for a Friday...

Un jardinier d'un grand hôtel découvre que ses rosiers font plus de dix mètres de haut. Il découvre également des tomates de 10 centimètres de diamètre, des melons de dix kilos...

Il appelle le directeur et lui dit:  Moi, je veux bien que l'hôtel héberge le Tour de France, mais dites aux coureurs d'arrêter de pisser dans le jardin!

-Greg

CA's Khazakh rider Fofonov has received 3 months for a positive result for heptaminol on the ride into Paris.  Stories in the press.

"Au départ, je voulais être blanchi parce qu'on peut considérer qu'il n'y a pas de faute de mon côté, puisque le médecin a reconnu que c'était sa responsabilité."

"...he did not know the banned substance was in a drug given to him by his doctor to fight cramp."

-Greg

From l'Équipe:  AFLD offers to retest Armstrong's 1999 Tour urine samples:

«Les conditions de conservation de ces échantillons et leur volume permettent de réaliser une analyse de la présence éventuelle d'EPO recombinante sur au moins cinq étapes différentes du Tour de France 1999. L'AFLD propose à Lance Armstrong l'analyse de ses échantillons du Tour de France de 1999 pour prouver sa bonne foi»

VeloNews offers a short piece on the same topic en anglais.

-Greg

Cycling.TV's domain registration ran out August 29.  Somebody else now has it, updated it today (August 30) and it now directs to a junk ad site.

DNS changes may take a little while to propagate, and you may still have a more local cache of the good one, but soon enough you too won't be able to get to Cycling.TV.  Here, try it.

Somebody royally, big-time screwed up.  If we're lucky, it'll be back up within a couple of days into the next work-week, OR they'll have to move to an alternate name.

For those of you who know what I'm talking about, the good info (I found it cached at work) is:

;; ANSWER SECTION:
cycling.tv.             1318    IN      A       216.58.225.150

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
cycling.tv.             55300   IN      NS      dns2.xosn.com.
cycling.tv.             55300   IN      NS      dns1.xosn.com.

The new jacked-up record is like this:

;; ANSWER SECTION:
cycling.tv.             3600    IN      A       69.64.155.128

;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
cycling.tv.             3600    IN      NS      dns1.name-services.com.
cycling.tv.             3600    IN      NS      dns2.name-services.com.
cycling.tv.             3600    IN      NS      dns3.name-services.com.
cycling.tv.             3600    IN      NS      dns4.name-services.com.
cycling.tv.             3600    IN      NS      dns5.name-services.com.

So, anybody got a bittorrent of the Vuelta prologue?  So much for watching it on demand.  Actually, I'm gonna play with changing a computer's DNS servers to the IPs of dns1&dns2.xosn.com, and see if I can get to it that way.

Un-frickin'-believable.

-Greg

Update: If you are comfortable doing this, change your computer's DNS servers to 216.58.225.241 and 216.58.225.242 and restart the computer.  These are the real Cycling.TV DNS servers, but making this change makes your computer do all DNS lookups through them.  You may find initial lookups slow, so reload pages until it starts working.  We're now watching Stage 1 as live.  Muck with this at your own risk.  You have been warned. :)

Ok, so nbcolympics.com now has the men's road race being broadcast online from 11:30pm (Pacific) until 2:30am.  That's right, no longer starting at 8pm Pacific.

Everybody (in the US) go have a nice Friday night out, or take a late-evening nap, 'cuz nothing's even going to start until late (out west) or ridiculously late (back east).

-Greg

p.s.: We weren't going to have hot dogs tonight, but rather try out that vegan pizza place down the street that delivers.  So much for pizza & cycling tonight.

p.p.s.: Well, looks like we'll finally get to watch San Seb tonight, at least!!

L'Équipe drops the bomb that a 5th doper from the 2008 Tour is about to be announced:

L'Agence a détecté 14 fois un glucocorticoïde (corticoïde) concernant 7 coureurs. Six d'entre eux étaient couverts par une AUT, délivrée par l'AFLD (2) ou l'Union cycliste internationale (4). Le dernier ne disposait donc pas d'une AUT pour l'utilisation d'une telle substance.

So, 14 times they detected a corticosteroid in 7 riders.  Six had permission, but the seventh did not.

Any guesses?

-Greg

Yes, news reports of US Olympic cyclists wearing face masks upon their arrival in PRC:

"About half a dozen members of the team, male and female, were pictured wearing close-fitting face masks covering nose and mouth as they went through Beijing airport. One was identified as Mike Friedman, a track cyclist who competes indoors."

Yahoo! news article

guardian.co.uk article

Perhaps these athletes didn't adjust their training to get ready for Beijing's air?

-Greg

Au secours! Ça veut dire quoi "basculer" pour les coureurs dans les cols?  C'est changer de grimper à descendre au sommet? Ou c'est ce qu'ils font avec les épaules quand ils sont fatigués?

Qui peut m'aider, le pauvre ricain qui tente d'écouter l'étape en français?

Merci mille fois!!!!!!!!!

-Gregoire

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