At Home in Hespeler

One of my favourite summer rites is watching the Tour de France.

A mammoth ride of somewhere in the neighbourhood of 2,200 miles over three weeks, these guys are in the saddle for 92 hours or more over that time.  The ride takes them up the Alps and the Pyrenees. The sheer effort required to get up some of the mountain passes is exhausting to watch. The next day, they get up and do it again.

Or, the next day may be flat, and they need to push for speed, hoping the legs have some strength in them, and haven’t turned to Jello overnight (it happens).

A single crash, as happened to Lance Armstrong this year, can wipe out your Tour. One bad stage (daily race) and the podium is out of the question.

This years Tour had a real edge, with winner Alberto Contador infamously taking advantage of Andy Schleck’s broken chain last week. It was bad cycling etiquette, but more importantly Contador went into the last day leading by the exact time that Schleck lost to Contador on that day. One and two would have been up for grabs on the final, possibly a photo finish after 3,600km.

The Tour de France is, it must be said, a truly incredible athletic endeavour. Every one of these guys an incredible athlete. To win is astounding, to finish the damn thing a true accomplishment.

To finish seventh? Ask Canadian Ryder Hesjedal. Each team has a goto guy, who is expected to compete. Everyone else’s job is support. For Garmin-Transitions, the go to guy was Christian Vande Velde (*pronounced Vanda-Velt). But Vande Velde broke his ribs in stage two, and the Garmin-Transitions ball fell to Hesjedal. Hesjedal, from Victoria, rode one hell of a race, gaining ground in the last days and finishing seventh, 10 minutes and 15 seconds behind Contador.

So Ryder, what’s it like to finish seventh:

Dreams do come true…

It will keep sinking in…

You could be in the form of your life and still not achieve a top 10 in the Tour de France. I was seventh in the Tour. Nobody will be able to take that away from me. I’ll see what I can do from here. I’m looking for many years yet to come of great racing. I’ll test the limits to see what I can do. Who knows what can happen now? I know now I am capable of riding in the front of any race.

Yea, seventh is a big deal.

Congratulations Ryder, job well done.

Sports alberto contador, Andy Schleck, Lance Armstrong, Ryder Hesjedal, tour de france

All the fluffy news about those nutty celebrities

Actor “extraordinaire” and hot head regulaire Sean Penn could be facing up to 18 months in jail for assaulting a photographer last October in the Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. This is Penn’s umpteenth altercation with photographers and he spend 60 days in jail in 1987 for assaulting a photographer. Of course, in 1987 he was 26. Now at 49 he should know better than to go around kicking people. The fact he doesn’t means he should spend more than 60 days in jail, and if I were the judge he’d see the full 18 months he’s entitled to.

It’s Palin week on the networks as former VP candidate Sarah will be guesting on NBC’s new relaunched Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Tuesday. Meanwhile her daughter Bristol will play Bristol Palin on an episode of  The Secret Life of an American Teenager about teenage pregnancy. The episode will air sometime in the summer.

Whitney Houston is working on her big comeback, trying to revive a career derailed by a bad drug habit and a worse marriage. She was in Australia for a series of concerts this week, but things have not gone as planned. The concerts have been panned, Houston described as “croaking through the show,” took a twenty minute break after six songs. All this would be excusable in the past, but we all know tickets were over $100 a piece, and for that kind of money people reasonably expect a professional performance.

Australians aren’t new to letting performers know when it isn’t good enough. Last year they complained bitterly and demanded refunds when Britney Spears was discovered to be lip syncing during her Australian tour.

Celebrity Tweet of the Week: @lance Armstrong Back from a nice/easy 4 hr. ride. Well it was nice til that cat decided to run right in front of me and I go ass over bandbox.

Andrew Koenig – 1968-2010

Actor Andrew Koenig, who played Boner on the 1980’s sitcom Growing Pains disappeared in Vancouver on Valentines day.  He was due back in Los Angeles on the 16th, but never appeared. His body was discovered this Thursday in Stanley Park, death by what appears to be suicide. he was 41.

One can only offer heartfelt condolences to his family, including his father, actor Walter Koenig, who played Pavel Chekov on Star Trek.

Fluffernutter Andrew Koenig, Bobby Brown, Brentwood, Bristol Palin, Britney Spears, Growing Pains, Jay Leno, Lance Armstrong, Sarah Palin, Sean Penn, The Secret Life of an American Teenager, Tonight Show, Walter Koenig, Whitney Houston