Remembering Col d'Aspin

In homage to tomorrow's stage when they will bike over the Col d'Aspin, I'm including one of my favorite home-shot images from our Tour de France travels. Angel took this photo out of the car window just as we were about to summit Col d'Aspin (en route to our hotel following the stage back in 2005 that George Hincapie won). This side of the mountain was all blue skies and sun, the other side wind and rain. We were hoping to drive up Col du Tore My Legs Off (also included in tomorrow's stage) but the the hair-raising drive up and over this mountain was enough for one day.

@tdfspectator

TDF Spectator is now on Twitter (@tdfspectator). Won't know until we are en France if it will be used for more than just following the riders, commentators, and @waffletruck.

A Few More Feeds...

And who can resist the Tweeting of Bob Roll and Dave Zabriskie? (I enjoy that DZ is following NPR News on Twitter.)

Tweet Away

I have a full-time job that I love (that doesn't include Tour de France spectating), and can't provide substantive updates to the blog until we land on the roadsides of France. SO, if you can't just can't wait, and the Versus TV, cyclingnews.com and VeloNews.com coverage isn't enough for you, try following some cycling legends on Twitter. On the sidebar I've included a selection of Twitter feeds... George Hincapie, Lance Armstrong and Director Sportif of Team Garmin Slipstream (Chipotle) Jonathan Vaughters.

TdF Travel Guide

Over lunch yesterday, my friend brian reminded me about Graham Watson's new book, the Tour de France Travel Guide. Graham Watson is a TdF main-stay, like Phil, Paul and Bob. Each year, he captures some of the most amazing images of the race -- we have one of his prints of the peloton biking through a field of sunflowers hanging (and by "hanging" I mean rolled up in the original mailing tube waiting for me to get it framed) in our house.

I'm running to Barnes & Noble today to pick up my copy.

Complete TdF Rider Roster

Velonews has posted the complete rider roster for the TdF, with bib numbers. Print it out and keep it by the television for all your home commentating needs.

Fantasy Cycling Team

Create your very own fantasy cycling team today with Versus and possibly win George Hincapie's TdF bike. I had a team last year, but as soon as we went to France it tanked. The way it works is you choose a set list of riders under a salary cap and then select the daily line up from your team. Unfortunately, since we didn't have an internet connection to update the team each day, the line up that I was stuck with when we left for France was stacked with sprinters, and they didn't fare to well in the mountains. If you happen to win George's bike, could I possibly take a spin on it? I think it's my size.

My 2009 Line-Up:

Starters...

Fabian Wegmann

George Hincapie

Kurt-Asle Arvesen

Kim Kirchen

Serguei Ivanov

Christian Vande Velde

David Millar

Tyler Farrar

Fabian Cancellara

Bench...

Egoi Martinez

Yury Trofimov

Mark Cavendish

Andy Schleck

Filippo Pozzato

Alexandre Botcharov