On the Giro

With no races nearby, it's a Giro Saturday today for me. The group was a little strange today. Well, at least stranger than usual. I never could quite put my finger on what it was though. First, someone had a flat when we were still on Lakeshore Drive. The group slowed down for maybe a minute, but never stopped, so basically whoever it was, and whoever stopped to help, were left for dead, because by the time we hit Hayne Blvd, we were flying. I was sitting behind VJ along Hayne and had little motivation to move up since were were spending most of our time up around 28-30 mph. The pace never really eased up all the way out to the turnaround, and although I didn't technically "sprint" for the turnaround sprint, I kept myself on the wheels that were moving forward and since so many people blew up I was pretty close to the front by the end. After the turnaround, the group was really sluggish and Steve and I rolled off the front just out of boredom. Finally Howard and a couple others blasted by just off the front of the main group. I jumped after Howard slowed down just for fun, and then Tim came flying by along with a few people who had been chasing him, so it stayed fast until the Goodyear sign sprint. Another flat on the service road that everyone waited for (except Courtney and Howard who volunteered to pace her back to her car because her kids were flying in from Tampa and had arrived early) took the wind out of everyone's sails and the group soft-pedaled the rest of the way in while a couple of us dangled off the front. Back at the parking lot there was cold watermelon (thanks Ed!), and after stuffing myself with it, I headed back uptown right into some really, really dark clouds. Somewhere around Mid-City I got a cold downdraft that felt like I had just ridden right into a refrigerator, but it never rained.

Good thing, too, since the roof work is still in progress. We're also in the process of stripping and repainting the kitchen cabinets. I'm doing my best to avoid it, but I'm about to go get my hands dirty.

So it was no surprise to see that Landis' "b" sample was the same as his "a" sample. It was also no surprise to read:

"Lab head Jacques De Ceaurriz said the isotope testing procedure was "foolproof." No error is possible in isotopic readings," he told the AP.

Let me just say that any time someone pretending to be any sort of a scientist says something like "no error is possible" you've got a problem. Certainly it's very unlikely that there could have been any error in the procedure itself and I doubt there was, but to say that no error is possible is just something a scientist would just never, ever say. Anyway, Floyd's on his own now. I wish him luck, because he didn't win because of his E/T ratio.