BVC-CHAT Plan for Saturday

[Chris Menzel]

On Mon, Jul 12, 2004 at 08:14:12PM -0500, Chris Menzel wrote:
> Note I am planning to skip the Saturday Caldwell ride this week to watch
> the Tour.  (Hm, this is sorta like a fundamentalist announcing publicly
> that he is skipping church to watch a Billy Graham crusade!) The reason
> for this is that Saturday will be the most difficult climbing stage of
> the Tour,[*] featuring two Category 1 climbs ending with an uphill
> finish on the hors categorie Plateau de Beille, and OLN is featuring 4
> HOURS of live coverage, beginning at 6:30am.  This will almost surely be
> one of the defining stages of the Tour.  The first of the Cat 1 climbs
> begins at 85km, 120km from the finish, which means it is almost certain
> that we will see all three of the major climbs.

Given that the afternoon coverage of the Tour is a re-air of the live
coverage, it is likely that the 1:30-3:30 coverage on Saturday will be
pretty much the same as the last two hours of the morning coverage.
Hence, a good alternative to skipping church, er, I mean, the Caldwell
ride :-) is to watch the first two hours, which will cover at least the
first of the Cat 1 climbs, leave at 8:30 for the flagpole, and come back
to watch the re-air of the final two hours at 1:30.  (Y'all are welcome
to come to my place if you don't have access to OLN.)  Just have to
beware of spoilers at post-ride deconstruction at Sweet Eugene's: "Say!!
How about that Tyler Hamilton fellow blowing away Armstrong and Ullrich
on the final climb??!!"

-chris