TdF: Pereiro holds Yellow on Stage 14

Bobke, Donna, and Masiguy have gotten me to say it now too: The Tour Day France.

Floyd Landis starts the week a minute and half behind Spaniard Oscar Pereiro, who currently wears the Yellow Jersey. After a rest day tomorrow, le Tour heads into the mountains, where the climbers where battle it out for the Yellow Jersey. Just about everybody in the top 10 right now are good to excellent climbers, so the Yellow Jersey can go to anybody and very well may change from day to day.

The 2006 Tour has been extremely interesting to follow. I didn't mention it the other day, but Masiguy has excellent Tour coverage, the Cub Reporter providing le Tour updates direct from France now.

Whipping handlebars

Steve wrote about whipping handlebars, complete with photos and everything, just for me. Thanks, Steve.

Bike Friday Walter: New Location

Virtually, that is. Bike Friday Walter is the Bike Friday guy with the fixed-gear Friday. He's moved his blog from here to here.

Recent posts include a report about a bent Friday and his thoughts on the Tour of Utah.

Cross Country for Cancer

Check this:

Cross Country for Cancer is a daily blog of the journey of six international college students cycling 4000 miles from San Francisco, CA to Baltimore, MD. We are attempting to raise awareness and donations for cancer research at John Hopkins University. The website sports entertaining blogging, GPS tracking of the riders using Mologogo, photos and journaling, as well as an online donation system and all that sort of thing. We are in our 12th day of 45 days of riding.

This link may belong on cyclelicio.us because: (A) there is delightfully entertaining cycling content, (B) GPS is used to track the riders across America, (C) the vicariously-accessible adventure is all for a good cause... beating Cancer.

The blog link: http://www.crosscountryforcancer.org

Includes photos of guys sticking their hands in their shorts for warmth and one of the World's Most Sophisticated Gaydar.

I suppose I should mention

Everybody else has already mentioned Floyd Landis and his yellow jersey. I wasn't going to say anything, but I'm pretty stoked. Floyd is the fifth American to get the Yellow Jersey in the Tour de France, so go Floyd Go! And how about Levi Leipheimer in his 2nd place finish today yesterday (later than I thought)?

Handlebar tape adhesive

It's 10 p.m. and it's time for me to re-wrap my handlebars. I tear the old stuff off, open up the Cinelli box, and dump the contents onto a table. Although I know better, I carelessly peel the backing from the adhesive. Naturally, the adhesive tape sticks to the backing as I remove it, not to the cork wrapper.

From past experience I know that this no-adhesive bar tape will last about a week at the most. Do I wrap the handlebar anyway then go back to the store this weekend for a replacement? Do I leave the handlebar bare so I have contents to return with the opened Cinelli box?

Such a dilemna. Help me out here.

700 Club Update: I should have know this, but Jonathan had previously mentioned the 700 Club visiting Portland and shooting some video for the bike story.

A new twist on high school shop class

Remember shop class in high school, where you learned those useful vocational skills? Harbor High School in bike-crazy Santa Cruz, California will offer a bicycle shop class. Part auto shop and part drivers’ education, teenagers will learn repair and maintenance skills, road safety and how to protect their bikes from thieves.

Berri Michel, owner of Bicycle Trip Shop and developer of the class, hopes the new class will provide a pool of mechanics for the bike industry in Santa Cruz County. The Santa Cruz County Bicycle Industry Coalition said there are more than 500 bike industry jobs in the county.

"There’s a shortage of bike mechanics," Michel said. "If kids could learn before they come in, there’s a lot of opportunity. The rest of the industry takes from bike shops for design, research and development, manufacturing."