Really??? Very cool! I’ve been travelling all day to Atlanta, and will probably be hopeless about following the Tour while I’m here :-(, so I had no idea what had happened.

WeatherGirl hasn’t yet decided on a bike. She didn’t like the Trek bikes (all the Alex shop had) as much as the Specialized she tried out up in Fargo, so I think she’ll probably get one of the Specialized when we go up to Fargo to pick up the new car next week after I return. Bianchi is really hot stuff – very impressive. My sister has a Bianchi that she’s very fond of. Mine is a Specialized in serious need of a clean and a tune up, which it’s getting as we speak up in Alex!

Your team gave me the business on stage 7 too! I guess I am the one who got suckered. Who knew you two were fantasy cycling sharks! ;)

What kind of bike did WeatherGirl end up getting? I am the very proud owner of a new Bianchi (procured on my birthday) Via Nirone 7 with Shimano 105 all around.

OK, so maybe not suckered :-). In fact there was no coercion at all, although there’s no question that you’re an enabling forced in our sad little lives!

Cool that our teams are so similar – makes me feel less silly about our choices. I’m amazed we got so many points on Stage 6! We haven’t seen that stage yet, so we haven’t looked at the results. Now I’m all super excited!

We spent part of the day in a bike shop in Alex (my bike is in for a tune-up while I’m in Atlanta, and WeatherGirl was looking at a new bike), and they had the Tour on a TV there. We kept our back to it and hummed a lot…

Nice performance of your team on Stage 6 (247 pts to my 96)!

I found how the points work, finally.

Points will be awarded for the riders who finish in the top 15 each day as listed
below with bonus points each day to the rider who holds the Yellow Jersey Winner
(overall time leader), Polka Dot Jersey Winner (best climber) and Green Jersey
Winner (best sprinter).

Finish Points per day
1 – 100
2 – 91
3 – 82
4 – 74
5 – 66
6 – 59
7 – 52
8 – 46
9 – 40
10 -35
11- 30
12 -26
13 -22
14 -19
15 -16
Yellow Jersey Winner (Overall Leader) 25
Polka Dot Jersey Winner (Best Climber) 5
Green Jersey Winner (Best Sprinter) 5

Suckered? That seems a bit strong… lured you with false promises of candy maybe… ;)

I’m suprised by how many of the same riders we picked for our rosters. Off the top of my head, we share Cancellara, Casar, Flecha (I like his style!), Kirchen, Popovych (my man for the mountains), Vandevelde, and Zubeldia. I also nabbed David Millar (high hopes for his cleaned up act), George Hincapie (they don’t call him Big George for nothing), and Thomas Voeckler (been a fan since he had ten days in yellow a couple years back).