musings of a neurotic mind

well, i guess dear Lance is in the seventh cycling heaven right now after having won the TdF for the seventh time in a row. this was his last race as a pro cyclist and it makes me kind of sad. but on the other hand… his riding was different this year. last year he was more aggressive, winning several stages including some mountain top finishes. however, i kept waiting for this to happen this year as well but it didn’t. i think he is clever enough to know when to draw the line and quit — quit at the top of the game!

tomorrow the TdF ends in Paris and Lance is almost in the “7th heaven”, ie. he is going to win the TdF for the 7th in a row. today was an individual time trial and Lance won it of course. “Ulle” Ullrich did better than in the prologue timetrial but still Lance was 23 seconds faster. not only his girlfriend Sheryl Crow and his three kids where there at the of the stage today, but also the former presidential candidate John Kerry! i am looking forward to the final stage tomorrow and the closing ceremony in Paris. this is surely going to be a history moment.

today was the 14th stage of the TdF and it was very special since the Austrian rider Georg Totschnig won this stage that again finished on a mountain top. this was the stage win of an Austrian rider since 1931! Lance finished in second place after being separated by his team on the first of the two climbs today. that sort of suprised me: one attack by the t-mobile team and his mates where gone! so he rode along with Ullrich and Basso and i was constantly waiting for that famous “Lance attack” (i.e. look into the eyes of your rival and then start off like a rocket) which finally came one or two kilometers from the finish line. Ullrich dropped and Basso tried to keep up but Lance was faster. when he rides it looks like he is flying up that mountain and is not struggling at all. i doubt that but still, he makes it look sort of easy — which of course it isn’t!
tomorrow will be another hard stage in the mountains with a mountain top finish again… and i guess the tour is going to be decided on that stage. it’s getting hot at the TdF because not only the temperatures are rising but also the heat of the competition.

i meant to post this yesterday but my internet connection refused to work in the evening. yesterday was the first mountaintop finish stage and lance and his team did awesome! his mates pulled him up the last climb but at the end the “boss” was alone and crushed his competitors by riding an unbelievable pace! ullrich and co were dropped and only 4 riders could keep up. at the end it was just lance and a young spanish rider named Alejandro Valverde who kind of outsprinted lance. they crossed the finish line together, shaking hands. lance is back in yellow after he lost his favorite jersery on sunday. eurosport was too busy analysing why jan ullrich and his t-mobile team did not very well on the climb so they didn’t broadcast the ceremony when lance got the jellow jersey. as a result i switched to France 2 where they did not only show the ceremony but also a live interview with lance in french! that was kind of funny hearing him speaking french although his french is very good!

the team time trial in the TdF ‘05 put Lance back into his beloved yellow jersey. lance’s new team – discovery channel –rode like hell, putting rivals like t-mobile or team CSC in the runner-up places. great ride! keep it up.

today the Tour de France 2005 was started with the traditional “prologue”, ie. an individual time trial over a course of 19 km. lance did great as always. although he had a slight problem with the right pedal when he rolled down the start ramp but he picked up his high cadence pace and even overtook his archrival jan “ulle” ullrich. he finished in second place and i guess that was a strategic decision to do so because now he does not have to defend the yellow jersey until the TdF hits the mountain stages, which are usually the place where the tour is won or lost. i strongly believe that lance will win the tour for the seventh time in a row. he looks strong and motivated as ever. sure, a lot can happen in almost 3 weeks and the tour is over in Paris. but when he caught “ulle” in the time trial today… i was cheering and yelling, yeah, that’s the way to do it! go lance!

these days i am busy riding my road bike and thus i am only online in the evenings. it wasn’t an easy decision to quit WoW since the virtual world the game presents is quite seducing. whereas we are experiencing a loss of faith in the social order in RL the game confronts the players with a strong yet easily understandable social order and creates a whole new culture envolving around it. part of that culture is the development of a sort of unique language with new terms like “pulling”, “tanking”, “zerging”, “ganking”, “respeccing”, “procs”, “…ftw (for the win)” and so on. i could possibly write a research paper about the language used in MMORPGs like WoW… playing the game was an experience which i am glad i could made. however, now it is time to move on… i found a great community there but at the end of the day i am still all alone here. this leaves me with an empty feeling because all that i accomplished in the game does not matter in RL. yet, if i feel some kind of anger because the game crashed when my raid group slayed the final boss in Upper Blackrock Spire… that means it still affects RL, although we claim it does not because it is “just a game”. i drew the same conclusion in my PhD thesis when discussing another MMORPG (Neocron).
so i feel way better at the end of the day when i made an hourlong bike ride. i achieved something, i conquered that climb, i rode faster than the last time. somehow the physical pain of riding adds to the pleasure you feel afterwards. you can’t have those experiences when slacking in front of your computer.

well, surely i can’t be like lance but now i do ride the same bike he rode at last year’s Tour de France. it is kind of a present for the graduation and today i took it out for a longer ride for the first time. and i love it! you can’t compare the feeling to a mountainbike, it’s completely different. this is surely going to be a hot and fast summer!

yesterday was a kind of busy day because i had to run some errands in town. so i really meant to blog about this newsitem that caught my attention yesterday but i did not get around doing so for various reasons…

it’s about the upcoming Tour de France (TdF), the one and only sports event pursue fanatically each year. well, tv5 had this newsitem yesterday titled “Cyclisme : l´enquête est ouverte concernant Lance Armstrong”. the french media seems to be sort of preoccupied with investigations about alleged doping accussations of Lance. it is - after all - “their” TdF and along comes an american who wins the competition six times in a row and sets a new record. what i want to say is that they have every right to be suspicious of him. what bothers me however is the way it is done. i feel it is almost a witchhunt; they are so sure that he has to be using some banned substances and as a result they are looking for some kind of proof. i am not qualified to make any statements about that assumption but i think the anti-doping controlls are pretty thourough in cycling and especially at the TdF. if he were using something illegal to enhance his performance they should have discovered it by now. instead they are basing their investigations on statements published in a book called “L.A. Confidentiel : Les secrets de Lance Armstrong” and on some remarks of a former masseur of him. after all i guess it’s just perfect timing since Lance has announced that he will compete in the TdF 2005 a week ago…

i am supposed to give an one hour presentation about my thesis next wednesday. so i really wanted to get down to business today and start working on the powerpoint slides and stuff. unfortunately, i woke up with a splitting headache this morning that had gone considerably worse by mid-afternoon. i am reluctant when it comes to painkillers but when you have the prospect of inspecting the porcelain for the rest of the evening, popping a pill seems the better choice.

change of topic: they announced the stages and route of the Tour de France 2005 (deux mille cinq — i love this number!) today. what a surprise! no Alpe d’Huez or Mont Ventoux and only three stages finishing on mountain tops. but lots of flat stages, which are in my opinion sort of boring. however, i am curious if Lance is going to be in the TdF 2005. it would be fun, especially since parts of two stages are in Germany, home of arch-competitor Jan “Ulle” Ullrich.