I was sad to see the weekend come to an end. After a great weekend spent with family who I see often, occasionally, and some once every two years.. I wished it would continue forever. Family is what its all about. Just having everyone all in once place at the same time and just enjoying the holiday and time together was grand. A total of 58 people landed at my Aunt's cottage this past weekend in Boyne (the usual place for our 4th of July family reunion). Many events went on such as professional cup stacking tournaments, to potato gun launchings, to just plain chillin out and taking relaxing naps. Nothing more to say but a great weekend; check the moblog for good pics!
USPS Team Leads Tour with huge Stage 4 win
As many of you know, the Tour de France is underway and today, in the Team Time Trials, the United States Postal Service team had an impressive win over the other 20 teams with a time gap of 1 minutes 7 seconds putting them in the lead for the Tour. Check out the following from Velonews:
The smiles of Lance Armstrong and his U.S. Postal Service team said it all and then some on a day that was bleak, stormy and awfully miserable for most.
By blazing a trail through the shadows of a wet day in northern France to win today's 64.5km stage 4 team time trial from Cambrai to Arras, they told every rival that Armstrong was the right stuff, and so was the entire line-up.
Armstrong said as much after his team finished with eight of nine riders, at an average speed of 53.71kmh, following a winning ride that saw them fight back from fifth place at the first time check of 19km.
"We started a little slow, got behind," he said. "Maybe some of the guys were a little nervous. But it is a sign of a great team that when they are down, they fight back," he said.
Armstrong said he will not set out to defend the yellow jersey in tomorrow's fifth stage, nor during the next days leading up to the Pyrénées, because it would place too much pressure on his team.
"I would like to hang onto it, but it is probably not in the best interests of the team," said Armstrong. "This is a hard race to defend, and right now we have to consider the strength of the team and try to preserve them for the second half (of the Tour.)
Tomorrow begins Stage 5 of the Tour which takes the riders from Amiens to Chartres in a 121 mile ride. Although there is only one 200km large climb, the towns in Paris have short hills and a lot of turns. Tune in to OLN for full coverage.
-jw