Done with Sarthe and back in Girona for a few days of chill time.  The cold/throat grabbed me pretty well and a few days rest are in order.  Kind of frustrating, but staying healthy is a big part of the game. A few good meals, lots of sleep and some easy cruises and I’ll be good to go.

So…to the title of this post:  Have you EVER stayed at a hotel that stuck to their own towel/sheet policy?  You ALWAYS see the little card that reads roughly “Environment is important…to re-use hang/place this card on your bed, for fresh toss ‘em in the tub/on the floor.  Help us save water, detergent, etc.”  Despite the nice little card, regardless of what you do they invariably replace everything with new.  Lame.  Save the trees and don’t even bother printing up the cards.

Just finished up the third stage here in France. Had a pretty shit tt yesterday and afraid that I’m getting sick again, but Kiki came out with a fantastic ride for 5th place and is in 3rd on gc. Today was a long boring one with astana on the front until 40k to go when we hit 3 hills. A bit of a throwdown on the first ended up with a little group off the front and astana down to 2 guys. I got on the front with them keep things close and to give Kiki an easy ride into the next kicker. Mid-way up I got popped and rolled to the finish easy. He finished up a few seconds down on Kloden and we’re not sure but hopefully held his spot. We’ll see soon.

Tomorrow is another chill one early but ends with some viscious finish circuits. Then a few chill days at home in girona to nip this cold at the bud before it grows into something worse.

We’re in the camper on the way to the start of the 2nd stage of sarthe, a split day with 100k on the road this morning and a 9k tt this afternoon. Fortunately the skies are clear, it’s warm out and the promoters decided on a very civilized start time of 10 this morning, unlike the 8 of criterium international.

Yesterday was 200k of rolling crosswind action but never enough to split it up. We caught the breakaway of the day with 10k to go and it was a crazy field sprint at the line. Kiki managed to pick up a few seconds in time bonuses out on the road and is sitting in 2nd right now. Johnny’s stoked to be up front in the caravan:). Hopefully we can keep it rolling today and pull out some good time trials this afternoon. Some pretty serious competition here in the likes of Kloden, Wiggins, Fothen, etc.

Happy belated Easter! Those carrots must have been for the Easter Bunny…

And for those whose emails have been returned I finally got things straigtened out. Oops.

A well balanced salad for sure.

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.

When there’s a mechanical on a recovery ride in the middle of nowhere what do you do? Here’s the anwser:

Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.