Hakodate, Japan

Friends: There were two other cyclists on the ferry over to Hokkaido today, the first I had seen heading north. I have seen five or six others, all 20-year old Japanese males, going the other direction to warmer temperatures. Only one paused to talk as I was sitting outside a convenience store eating a bowl of noodles. He was in the midst of a four-month circuit of Japan's coastline. The country is 2,000 miles from top to bottom, which means he`ll be doing 5,000 miles or so. His English didn't extend much beyond the word cold. I couldn't even get him to understand the word McDonald's until I pointed to the one across the street from us. "Ah, Mac-o-do-nal-do," he pronounced, "Yes, I like."

He was happy to be heading south, as the temperature had dropped considerably from near 80 to not even 70. Still, it was bright and sunny and he was wearing a sleeveless shirt. It was the first night I had to partially zip my sleeping bag with the temperature down into the 50s. That is still most endurable. I will continue another 400 miles north to the tip of Hokkaido before turning back. As long as the rains hold off, I won't mind the cool at all.

I met the two ferry-bound cyclists this morning while I was sitting outside the ferry terminal not having bought my ticket yet. When I showed up at the terminal at eight a.m., not knowing when the next ferry was due, no one was there. There had been a departure at 6:30 and the next was at 11:30. There wasn't a word of English at the terminal and I could barely decipher the running times. I went exploring around the small fishing village of Oma, just happy that there would be a ferry. The main ferry route to Hokkaido leaves from the large city of Aomori, about 75 miles away. It is a much longer and more expensive ferry trip. From Oma it was one hour and forty minutes. I feared that maybe this late in the season the Oma ferry might no longer be in operation. The seventy miles out to Oma on its own thumb of a peninsula yesterday were the best of my travels so far. The first 500 miles were through congested development and a steady flow of traffic. At last, I had the road pretty much to myself and unsettled lands to gaze upon.

About the only words of English on the ferry were "shoes off" outside the various lounges, most of which did not have chairs. Everyone just sprawled on the rugs and availed themselves of the rectangular vinyl pillows. In my lounge area on the second deck four eight-year olds gathered up all the extra pillows and made an obstacle course to hop around. When they tired of that after about twenty minutes they neatly stacked the pillows against a wall.

It was a challenge once again to find this Internet cafe. The last one I found three days ago was next door to a giant CD/DVD store. Since then whenever I have seen such a store I have stopped in to see if there was Internet nearby. No such luck. The young, non-English speaking manager of a CD/DVD store I tried here in Hakodate went to the phone book to find the lone Internet outlet listed in this city of 300,000. He then dug out a detailed city map to show me how to find it and even used his copy machine to duplicate it for me. When I have sought help, people have gone out of their way to be of assistance. But no one in the ten days I have been in Japan, other than the cyclist across from the McDonald's, has approached me, even though I sit outside small grocery stores eating my meals and snacks four or five times a day and plenty of people come and go, barely giving a glance to the Western barbarian on the bike.

I have benefited from small kindnesses here and there. A lady offered me a baseball cap when I sought shelter under the overhang of her garage to repair a flat tire in the rain. I had been wearing a helmet, but looked drenched. The officers who gave me directions to a bicycle shop gave me a cup of coffee with ice cubes in it. I don't care for coffee, but I politely gulped it down.

I have been experimenting with all sorts of food, from octopus tentacles to dough balls and rice balls containing who knows what and only once have my taste buds cringed other than at that cup of coffee. The other time was coffee-related as well. I thought I had bought a carton of chocolate milk, but it turned out to be coffee milk.

The 7-Elevens oddly enough don't carry chocolate milk. I have to go to one of their competitors, the Family Market convenience store chain to find it. There are six main chains of convenience stores and they all carry pretty much the same products and charge the same. Circle K s have started turning up. There are also Spars, which I know from France and Lawson Stations and Yamazaki. They all have amazingly clean bathrooms with extra amenities of a neat pyramid of toilet paper and artificial flowers.

There are six national parks here on Hakaido all with lakes and volcanos, some  still active. I plan to spend a couple of weeks making a circuit of this island before heading back to Tokyo for my end of October flight home. Along the way I'll be able to gaze upon a couple of Russian-held islands that the Japanese want back. Japan is comprised of four main islands and another 3,900 smaller ones, which evidently isn't enough. Once again I'm told I can't send this because I have too many recipients. I'll try to take the time here to break my mailing list down to smaller units so you can all receive this.

Later, George

Miyako, Japan

Friends: I stopped at the police station here in this coastal city, 150 miles from the northern tip of Honshu, thinking it was a bike shop, as there was a neat row of half a dozen identical shiny new yellow bikes parked in front of it. With virtually all signs in Japanese other than the mega brands Toyota, Coca-Cola, Yamaha and so on, I must search for clues to find the type of store I'm looking for. I must peer in windows or look for other indicators. So far the only two types of shops I can readily identify are barber shops, with their spinning red and white poles just like in the U.S., and bowling alleys, often marked by a giant bowling pin atop their buildings. I thought I had found a bike store when I saw the word Shimano, the world's largest manufacturer of bike components, on a store. But Shimano is first and foremost a manufacturer of fishing gear in Japan, and it was a fishing store.

Neither of the two officers sitting in the small neighborhood police station spoke English. So far I have only encountered one person who spoke even a smidgen of English since I left the airport a week ago. That was in Sendai at the Mediatech that offered free Internet. I brought in a bike tube to the officers to indicate what I was looking for. They spent several minutes making phone calls before they found someone who spoke some English who could act as a translator. After he discovered what I wanted, he asked me to return the phone to one of the officers. After a minute or so the officer hung up the phone, and then showed me on a detailed map where a bike shop was. I had passed it about half a mile back. It was near a store I had noticed called Bookmart. I almost stopped at it, thinking I might find an English speaker there.

I was in need of a bike shop as I have been plagued by extreme bad luck with flat tires, ruining two of my three spare tubes with punctures at the valve. I can go thousands of miles without a flat, and with brand new, heavy-duty Continental touring tires, I wasn't expecting any flats at all. Unfortunately, the bike shop had neither Presta nor Shraeder valve tubes, only a version that was slighter wider than a Presta valve. I was desperate enough to take this version of Presta even though it required reaming out the valve hole on my rims so it would slip through. The gray-haired proprietor easily performed the operation by hand. It was ten dollars for the tube, expensive like everything else in Japan.

I went over to the nearby bookstore in search of an English-speaker who could direct me to an Internet outlet. The extent of the English of the two people who worked there was the word Internet. They drew me a map and various landmarks--a tunnel and a bridge and a shoe store--and indicated it was about five kilometers away. After asking three or four more people along the way, I discovered the Internet outlet was in a large electronics store back from the road just beyond the shoe store. Since I am in no rush at this point to be anywhere, I wasn't concerned about the time consumed in this hunt. It was just another chapter in my Japanese experience and something to be savored. I have long ago learned that asking directions is a cultural experience. I welcome it as an excuse to approach strangers.

Yesterday was a day of tunnels, at least two dozen, some as long as a mile. I was wishing the day before had been my tunnel day, as I had a day-long drenching from a warm monsoon-like rain blowing in off the ocean. It was an extreme test for my new Gore Tex jacket. It passed the test brilliantly, keeping my torso perfectly dry. I was lucky the temperature was warm, as my tent took on a fair amount of moisture before I could put on the rain fly as I set it up in a heavy rain on fairly saturated ground above a tiered garden. If the temperature had plunged much below 70 that night, I could have been in trouble. Luckily, yesterday was sunny so I could lay out all my wet gear to dry. It was so humid though it took a while before even the road surface dried. My Ortlieb panniers performed as brilliantly as my rain jacket.  They didn't let in a drop.  One can't put a price on top-notch equipment that lives up to its billing.

So far both places I have tried sending off email reports have denied me, as I had too many recipients. And this computer has frustrated me by not allowing me to leave spaces between my words. I am still figuring out many things here, including what to eat and how. Last night was my first night of not camping in an overgrown patch of weeds, as I have at last gotten to forested, unsettled, undeveloped countryside.

Later...maybe, George

Sendai, Japan

Friends: If I ever return to Japan, I will be sure to bring along my camping stove. The only semi-bargain food I have found so far in the grocery stores are the dehydrated noodle soups. They come in a dizzying array of cups and bowls and flavors, though they all pretty much taste the same. Even though they require boiling water, I am still able to take advantage of such fare, as most of the convenience stores have a boiling water dispenser at their counter, though operating them is sometimes a mystery. It wasn't until my third day in Japan that I discovered these dispensers, noticing another customer taking advantage of one.  I was befuddled at first by which buttons to push to get it to operate.  As with just about everything here, all signs and directions are strictly in Japanese.

I don't have to worry about running out of food or going hungry, as it seems as if there is always a small convenience store around the next corner. There are a few mom-and-pop versions, but the vast majority belong to one or another of several chains, including 7-Eleven and Circle K. They buy in such quantity that their prices are comparable to the supermarkets. The convenience stores are so plentiful, they seem to have strangled out the large supermarkets.

It is lucky that the convenience stores are so ubiquitous, as it has been an extreme challenge to find anything else I've been in search of. I'm still very early in the learning phase of orienting myself to figuring things out here. I just spent two hours meandering around this city of one million, the largest city north of Tokyo on Honshu Island, the largest of the four islands that comprise the bulk of Japan, criss-crossing its many arteries in search of a landmark or street that corresponded with my map.

There were no signs recognizable to my Western eyes indicating the way to the city's downtown or tourist office or any landmark. I thought I was in luck when I came upon a large city map at an intersection, but there was nothing but Japanese figures on it, hieroglyphics to me. Few Westerners come to these parts, so they make no concessions to them. So far I haven't seen a Westerner since I left the airport three days ago.

Fortunately, the highways are identified by recognizable numbers and the pricing in the stores as well, otherwise I would really be up a creek. I have come over 200 miles and have another 250 ahead of me before I cross to Hokkaido, the northernmost and least populated of Japan's four main islands. The route I have followed along the coast has been mostly two-lanes wide and lined nearly uninterrupted with homes and businesses as if it were all an extension of Tokyo. There was a steady flow of traffic, all dutifully maintaining a moderate thirty mile per hour speed.  I had a bit of a shoulder, so it was tolerable cycling, though not much more. I am looking forward to the far north where hopefully there will be less traffic and some wilderness.

All for now, George

Paris

Friends: There were no signs in the Paris suburb of Montgeron, about fifteen miles south of La Tour Eiffel, directing pilgrims to the restaurant/hotel that was the starting point of the first Tour de France in 1903, but the receptionist at Montgeron's town hall unhesistantly told me how to find it. It was just a mile away, straight up the town's main street I'd been riding on, to its northern extremity, where it merged with National Highway number 6 on in to Paris.

It would have been hard to have missed it if I had kept on riding, as the round-about in front of the hotel featured a colorful, modernistic, metal sculpture of a rider on a bike formed by the contortions of the town's name. It was more of a gimmicky, than stately, monument to the Tour's inaugural departure site, but it was an eye-catcher. The grassy plot it resided in was
ringed by badly chipped enamel tiles with each winner's name and nationality and year of victory through 2002, as it was erected prior to the 2003 centenary Tour, the fifth of Lance's conquests.

A plaque on the restaurant also acknowledged the significance of the location. It being July, when much of France is on vacation, the restaurant was closed, so I plopped down on the sidewalk in front of it and had a can of ravioli. It hardly needed heating, as it was plenty warmed having spent half the day in my pannier baking in the intense heat.

These past few days, if I had a support vehicle supplying me with bottles of cold water whenever I wanted, as the Tour riders do, I could have easily outdone Landis' record of 70 bottles that he poured over his head and down his throat on his historic day in the Alps. Instead, I just remain on alert for cemeteries and their water faucets, remembering Yvon every time I take advantage of them and silently giving thanks for the best advice I have received in years.

The heat gives me delusions of fantasy, imagining a day when 7-Elevens, or some such convenience store, gains a toehold in Europe with their self-service soft-drink and ice machines. I continually recall one of my fondest cycling memories--a 64-ounce cup, half-filled with ice and then topped off with Gatorade and coke in the Mojave Desert, four pounds of fluid that my body effortlessly and joyfully absorbed. I long too for the small grocery stores of Thailand with their one kilo bags of ice. Here, the coldest drinks I can look forward to are barely tepid, refrigerated juices or sodas.

France is slowly becoming Americanized. Some grocery stores open on Sunday mornings and not all close for lunch. Both are such noteworthy features that they are prominently advertised on billboards. "Non-stop" or "sans interruption" is the phrase for not taking a mid-day break. The city of Tours had a couple of small convenience stores which stay open 24 hours, an almost scandalous innovation, but popular.

I was thwarted by the limited hours of the bike museum in Moret-sur-Loing, a small town about 50 miles south of Paris, as it was closed yesterday and didn't open until two p.m. today. If it were open this morning, I would have lingered, as it had a special exhibition on Rene Pottier, winner of the 1906 Tour, and local boy. The monument I visited with Yvon back in May, at the summit of the Ballon d'Allsace, was in his honor, as he was the first to crest the first major climb in Tour history. He was also the first Tour winner to commit suicide. He hung himself in his garage the year after winning the Tour, distraught over his wife leaving him for another.

Last night I camped in a forest in a residential area near Orly Airport with planes landing overhead until dark and resuming at seven this morning. Tonight, I will camp in a clump of trees alongside Charles de Gaulle Airport with jets landing not more than a hundred meters from me. I verified that my private encampment was in tact when I arrived in May, marked by worn out tires from my previous tours.

I look forward to home, but just as much to next year's Tour, which begins in London.

Thanks for reading, George

Auxere, France

Friends: Of the seven of us huddled in the patch of shade provided by the canopy of a food stand 200 meters from the finish line of Saturday's time trial, two were American and five French. The other American was Rod, a 45-year old from the Bay area who was attending The Tour for the seventh straight year via car and bicycle.

His modus operendi was to drive to within 25 miles of each day's finish line and then bike the rest of the way, arriving in time to watch the final three hours of the stage on the giant screen. It was a miracle we hadn't encountered each other before all these years, but now we'll be on the alert for each other. He stays in hotels that he has made reservations at before leaving for France, but is still doing it pretty much on the cheap.

Rod is a passionate and knowledgeable fan, and didn't need to broadcast it to all around. He was able to fill me in on lots of background details I had missed. He promotes races back in the US and also teaches a spin class at a health club. One of his clients is Landis' brother-in-law. He fully expects that his club will soon have a Floyd-signed Phonak jersey hanging in its entry.

Only the last four or five riders of the day's 35-mile time trial were of consequence, but Rod and I were glued to the screen for all three hours of its coverage, intently following the times of the earlier riders of significance (Ekimov, Zabriskie, Millar, Hincapie, Honchak), riders who weren't competing for a place in the overall standings, but were a threat to place well in the time trial. The riders set out one minute apart until the final ten, who were separated by three minutes. Landis, starting out third from the last, was so assured of catching the two riders ahead of him, though one can never underestimate the motivating power of being clad in the yellow jersey, there was little suspense. Still, we cheered each second gained flashed on the screen until he had overcome his 30-second deficit and taken over the race lead.

We had a dog at our feet panting in the sweltering 90-degree heat. Rod spent a euro on an
eight-ounce bottle of water and periodically gave him a handful. "I have a dog back home," he explained. "I miss him more than my girl friend, but don't tell her that."

Rod's first Tour was the year after Lance's first victory. He was among the first wave of Americans that Lance drew to the race. Rod said this year was there were fewer Americans by far attending than race of the seven he had seen. He said one tour operator told him he had only six clients this year, compared to 60 last year.

Of all the dramatics he has witnessed, his most spine-tingling moments came this year watching Floyd's audacious 80-mile solo effort through the Alps. Not even "L'Equipe" could find a feat in the 103-year history of the Tour to compare. Rod was already at the giant screen when the Phonak team took charge of that stage, riding hard at the front, a favorite Lance tactic, before Floyd launched his premeditated attack at the foot of a category-one climb. I, unfortunately, missed the moment, not getting to a bar until there were two hours left in the stage and he had a four minute and increasing lead.

I watched yesterday's final ceremonial stage into Paris in a bar with a retired English couple who had been coming to France the past twenty years to watch the Tour. They were at a sharp corner of the time trial and witnessed four crashes, including Moreau, one of the two French riders to finish in the top ten. The couple pulled out their digital camera and showed me their photos of Moreau crashing into a barrier and catapulting head over heels.

A bike museum south of Paris awaits me and with luck I'll have the time to search out the commemorated starting point of the first Tour in 1903 on the outskirts of Paris. I'm heading north, but the heat is not letting up. Its been one scorcher after another. I'm taking full advantage of the cool of the late evening.

Two nights ago I suffered one of the moments I dread most, a flat just as it was getting dark before I had found a place to camp. It came in a city, so after replacing the tube I had to head out into the dark beyond the city limits to sniff out a camp site. There is so little traffic on these French roads, especially in the evening, that it wasn't as perilous as it might have been. It didn't take even five minutes to find a vacant field perfectly suitable for the night.

Later, George

Macon, France

Friends: Just when it was beginning to look like no one wanted to win this year's Tour, nor was worthy of winning it, Landis astounded everyone with a ride that ranks among the most amazing and heroic in Tour history, proving that he will be a most eminent champion.

He pulled himself up off the mat after a disastrous performance the day before, exploding on
the day's final climb, losing ten minutes (an eternity) and falling from first to eleventh, seemingly out of contention, and maybe so wasted that he might not even finish the race. All of France and European bikedom was rejoicing, or at least felt relieved, that not another American was about to win the Tour and establish a dynasty. Everyone had written him off and many were regretting having given him as much praise as they had.

Landis had to learn many things from Lance the three years they were teammates. Something he may have been reluctant to adopt, or that was contrary to his character, was to race with anger and rage, Lance's favorite motivational tools. But yesterday they fueled Landis to such an incredible ride that "L'Equipe" screamed "Incredible" and "The Ride of the Century." He set off on a seemingly suicidal solitary break, such as destroyed Pantani the year he and Lance had a tiff over Mont Ventoux. Landis made his bold attack forty-five miles into yesterday's stage, with eighty miles to go at the base of a category one climb. "L'Equipe" called it a "supreme act of defiance."

No one could latch on to him when he made his move, nor could be much concerned that it would amount to anything. Landis may be respected, but no one believed he had such an effort in him. He caught up to an earlier breakaway group and then left them all behind, eventually finishing over seven minutes ahead the yellow jersey group, holding his lead over a beyond category climb while all the contenders worked as furiously together to try to catch him as they had the day before when they dropped him. He gained an extra twenty second bonus for the win, moving him up to third, thirty seconds out of first, about the amount of time he lost when his bike broke in an earlier time trial and he had to get another. The two ahead of him are very mediocre time trialists. He ought to easily overtake them in Saturday's time trial and ride into Paris triumphant in yellow.

When Landis crossed the finish line, unlike most winners, he did not rise off his handlebars to show off his sponsor's name and revel and exult with arms heavenward. Only his right hand left his handlebars in a ferocious round-house swing that could have leveled the Sears Tower. There wasn't a flicker of a smile on his face. "Take that," he was telling all the world, a world that had given up on him, just as Lance would have done. Besides, this was a mere stage win. He had more important matters to tend to. At the awards ceremony afterwards, though, he was all smiles. The fans responded with thunderous applause.

It was such an inspiring ride it kept me on my bike last night until 10:30, well after dark, riding more than half of the next day's 123-mile stage to Macon. After four days in the Alps with at least two category one or beyond category climbs a day my legs felt pulverized and the ovenish heat had further sapped my energy. My chain spent more time on the 34-tooth ring on my freewheel than usual the past two days. Like the peloton, I was happy that today's stage is the last of the climbing, and has only three rated climbs, with the worst a category two. When at 9:30 last night I encountered a three-mile category three climb, I barely noticed it. As always, it was a joy to be riding past all The Tour followers encamped along the road, some solitary and many in clusters sitting in lawn chairs outside their campers as the day finally cooled off.

My easiest day in the Alps was the day I climbed L'Alpe d'Huez, a beyond category eight-miler that I was able to do without gear, making it a ride to savor. There were thousands of us riding up it, all fulfilling a dream. There wasn't all the music from revelers along the road as two years ago. This year's feature was kids with squirt guns offering to cool riders off and adults who would pour a bottle of water over rider's heads. I welcomed them all. It took almost as long to descend L'Alpe d'Huez after the race as it had to climb it, as two miles from the top the gendarmes were halting the thousands of cyclists and then letting us go in groups, a worthwhile safety measure. Still, it was wheel-to-wheel bikes, two lanes wide, everyone riding their brakes at fifteen miles per hour, considerably slower than if the road were clear.

I went straight to my tent and rushed to take it down as dark clouds moved in. A local hotelier, who happened to be in the park, thought I was afraid to camp in the rain and offered me a room. He couldn't believe I was planning on setting off on my bike up the Col de Glandon, a climb twice as long as L'Alpe d'Huez and just as steep. The rain did come, but it was only a sprinkle, and it felt good as I strained up the climb, camping at a rest area half way up the climb that I had camped at two years ago. Climbing in the spectacular beauty of the high Alps was a wonderful way to end a day and start another. There were thousands of others also encamped on the mountain that night, claiming their spots for the next day's stage.

It is 45 miles from Macon to the end of tomorrow's time trial. I'll ride most of the way there in the cool of evening after the peloton arrives here in Macon in a couple of hours. Landis ought to don the Yellow Jersey once again and wear it into Paris on Sunday. I will have four days to bike the 300 miles to Paris for my flight home Thursday after another fabulous July in France.

Later, George

Albertville, France

Friends: Two years ago when Lance was all the rage going for a record sixth Tour title, I was surrounded atop L'Alpe d'Huez by cocky, rich, know-it-all Americans and loud, obnoxious, drunken Germans all there for the event and making a spectacle of themselves. This year things were back to normal. 

When I reached the summit of the climb up the Alpe at 11:30, five hours before the racers were due, I was fortunate to find a spot in the shade under a ledge 250 meters from the finish line with a view not only of the final stretch but also with a view of the giant screen broadcasting the proceedings from 12:55 on, a bit after the racers set out from Gap. 

To one side of me were five Australians in their forties, four of whom were women. They had been biking about France the past month catching glimpses of The Tour here and there. They were all busy writing postcards. And when they weren't, we had hours of experiences to share. To the other side of me was a 23-year old German racing cyclist with shaved legs, who gave me the lowdown on each of the fourteen Germans in the race. And in front of us on a blanket were two Dutch couples in their sixties in orange Rabobank hats, sponsor of the Dutch team. 

There were a few Americans, but not many. There was a couple from Colorado, who had rented a camper to follow the final week of the Tour. They had nearly canceled their plans when Basso and Ullrich were non-starters, but they were extremely happy that they hadn't. They were avid cyclists, occasionally riding with Tyler Hamilton on their training rides in Boulder. This was their first stage. Also seeing their first stage was a young couple from Florida, who had biked down from Grenoble. They were exhausted, even though it had entailed little climbing. 

Both couples were thrilled and in awe to be here at L'Alpe d'Huez, recognizing it as the shrine that it is. They were a marked contrast to their American counterparts of two years ago, the big swinging-dick, master-of-the-universe types, who thought it was their divine right to be there, gloating in the supremacy of Lance, as if they had contributed to it. 

Two years ago anyone who had previously attended a stage at L'Alpe d'Huez raved that it was the largest gathering by far that they had seen there. They weren't exaggerating. Even though there were several hundred thousand people there this year, it seemed about a third as many as two years ago. I camped in a small park with a children's playground three blocks from the center of Bourg d'Osians. There were eight or nine other tents in the park with loads of room for more. Two years ago there had been fifty or sixty tents crammed into the park with little space between. 

Still, there were thousands of cyclists biking around and clogging the lone supermarket less than a mile from the start of the climb. One could hardly imagine that it could be more mobbed, though it certainly had been. Just as two years ago there was a huge migration of thousands cyclists up the Alpe the morning of the day's stage, dwarfing any group ride, even New York's Five Boroughs Ride or Chicago's Bike the Drive. It is the ultimate ride for many. There were several professional photographers taking photos of every cyclist who passed at one scenic bend near the summit, handing cyclists a coded card if they wished to purchase a photograph of their momentous ride. 

 Unlike two years ago, the route wasn't totally lined by vehicles and spectators. If I had known there was space, I could have made the climb the night before and camped along the road or in one of the fields overlooking the route. And if I had, I would have been treated to the sight of Lance anonymously riding up the course that evening with Jake Gyllanhall. I had a chat with a couple of Germans wearing Postal Service jerseys who had seen them. They were ecstatic at the memory of it. 

I could have had another noteworthy Lance experience if I had been willing to linger in Gap on Monday's rest day before biking the seventy-five miles to Bourg d'Osians. A local cycling club was hosting a "Le Passage Armstrong" ride of forty-five miles that included Lance's overland detour in the 2003 Tour. It was a fund raiser for the Lance Armstrong foundation, entry fee ten euros. 

The Aussies beside me were avidly rooting for their countryman Cadel Evans and the German for his countryman Kloden, who both had aspirations for the Yellow Jersey. At one point they and Landis were in a pack of their own for several miles of the eight-mile Alpe climb. Kloden, who had finished on the podium two years ago, was leading, with Landis on his wheel and Evans behind. Kloden had an expression of agony while Landis seemed to be riding effortlessly, looking as serene as if he hadn't a worry in the world. We had no close-up of Evans, but Landis must have sensed him weakening, as after a couple of miles he attacked. Evans couldn't respond. When Landis looked back Kloden was gaining on him. He allowed Kloden to rejoin him for a partnership the rest of the way. 

The two were riding so well together it looked as if they would overtake the breakaway leaders whose three plus minute lead at the base of the climb had faded to forty seconds with less than two miles to go. Lance certainly would have, but that would have just been frosting for Landis, as he had once again shown to be stronger than all who were a threat to him. He and Kloden ended up fourth and fifth one minute back. 

 Landis bore an expression of such ease, in contrast to Kloden's agony, I expected him to ride away from him at any moment. But for the second mountaintop finish in a row, Landis declined or was incapable. He also failed to win the sprint at the finish line for third place and its eight second bonus against a rider who had faded from the three-man breakaway. He did hold off Kloden and gained time on all his rivals, reclaiming the race lead and the Yellow Jersey. 

Once again, Landis rode a very tactical and conservative race, not expending more energy than he needed to. He is new to this leadership business, and may be resisting overly exerting himself and doing anything dramatic that might put himself in trouble the next day or day after. He doesn't have the brash Lance personality that needed to deliver a knockout blow, demoralizing all contenders as well as the French and the race organizers. 

 The headline in yesterday's "L'Equipe," the sports daily newspaper without peer, was "Judgement Day in the Alps." Landis passed that test. He has one more big test to pass with the Tour's final mountaintop finish at another ski resort, preceded by a fifteen-mile climb over another pass that I just finished off. It would be nice to be there at the finish, but I'm already thirty miles into tomorrow's stage, the last mountain stage of the race. 

After today four stages remain, the last the ceremonial ride into Paris that doesn't count, and also a time-trial the day before, where Landis has been dominant. I look forward to seeing Landis on Letterman. He's also due to race in Downer's Grove in August, though he could well bow out and get that hip surgery taken care of. 

 Later, George