I have a confession to make....  I had lost faith in the OCC Weather Control System (patent pending).  While we are able to steer the red cells away from TT course, it appeared that light rain would ruin the evening.   At 4:10 I sat down at my PC resigned to cancelling the Time Trial -  I had typed CANCELLED in the subject of the email and I had typed in the whole rationale.  I gave the proprietary weather system another look and decided there was still hope to salvage the night.

Well,  I'm glad I did !     I postponed the start to 6:50pm to let the sunshine, yes!   sunshine!   dry out the roads adequately.   As the TTers set off the roads were about 50% dry,   temperature was 76 degrees and the breeze was < 5mph out of the south.  With the evaporation of the rain from the roads, the humidity had to be in excess of 80%.    Very good conditions!

Five intrepid TTers defied Mother Nature and queued up to do battle.   Ken Toscano led the charge by crushing the course with the Fastest Men's Time (FMT) of 26:03 (23.03mph).  Ken is competing in the RoadAero division -  Road bike with wheels greater than 40mm depth. Eston Adams placed second overall and in the RoadAero division with a time of 26:56 (22.27mph).  Eston said he likes to sweat, so I'm thinking he thoroughly enjoyed himself in the soupy conditions.  Our fastest Junior was Kaleb Toscano who flew around the course in a time of 27:33(21.78mph).  14 yo Jon Taber found his rhythm and paced himself to a PR time of 29:49. He eclipsed his previous PR by 14 seconds.   Phil Dilmore came out for the first time this year to beat last year's PR, but was going so fast he missed the last right hand turn and almost ended up in Oneida county.  He definitely will be back soon for redemption.

Stage 11 -  Ventoux - twice!    Great stage for VanAert !    Jumbo-Vismo bouncing back nicely from the loss of team leader Roglic.   First the stage win and then Jonas Vingegaard puts a hurting on Pogacar at the end of the 2nd climb up Ventoux.

Stage 13 -  Cav ties Merckx !   I have to give Cav credit for masterfully snaking his way thru the traffic in  the long dash to the finish line.

Stage 15 -  Polka dot jersey battle!   so hotly contested.  Vander Poel and Van Aert worked over Michael Woods to gain points on him. Seemed a bit unfair. I'd like to see the runner turned cyclist take the KOM jersey.

Good to see the 26 yo kid from Durango, CO - Sepp Kuss win stage 15 to Andorra.  Freed up from helping Roglic,  he got in the large break an eventually pulled away from a potent group of 12 climbers on the final climb to take the win.  He gapped all of them with the exception of Valverde by over a minute on the final half of the last climb. And what about Valverde!?   41 years old and competing for the mtn stage win!  American Neilson Powless (part Oneidi Indian) also did very well in finishing 13th.  

Amazing to see how well Italian sprinter Sonny Corbrelli is doing in the mountains.  He is consistently out on the break-aways trying to scarf up any sprinter points he can while Cav sits in the back clinging for dear life.  

Sad to see Sagan drop out.  He immediately had knee surgery to take out an infected bursa sac in his knee.  He cut his knee on a chainring OUCH!! and as much as the team physician tried to clean it out and provide antibiotics, it didn't matter.  Unfortunately, Sagan is most likely out for the Olympics too.

Tomorrow's stage - Bastille Day stage -  may be the hardest of the Tour.  The finishing climb up Col du Portet  is 10 miles long at an average grade of 8.7% !!    For a little context: on tomorrow's club ride, we are riding up Gulf Rd.....  1.0 mile at 7.4%     So, the final climb is 10x longer and almost 20% steeper!   This stage could very well determine who gets on the podium with Pogacar.   

Til next week!

Brian

TT Directeur

Part time Meteorologist (Wayne starting to send my hate mail. I don't get it.  I was making fun at how I don't have any glutes. He's so sensitive!)