Tour de France/ Tour DAY France Special Report;

The Cub Reporter pointed out that I am a "STUPID WANKER" because she sent me a report for yesterday that I promptly lost in my PowerPoint drunken haze. She has also already supplied today's post as the racing goes on. Pretty cool...

So, since (or sense?) I am losing my mind with other tasks at the moment, I give you a "two-fer" of vintage Cub reporting; two installments in one shot, in order and unedited. Fot the legions of BK/CR fans, this is a buffet of bedlam, a cornocopia of chortles, a load of laughs and a group of giggles...

Without further delay... The Cub!

7/18

ALEX TRAUTWIG, YOU'RE MY HERO!

First and foremost - Alex Trautwig is the coolest. Because of him, I get to use a computer every day. He's writing for olntv.com, active.com and SI Kids while he's here. He's sixteen. He's even cool, ladies so STEP UP!

Anyways, the trip went well except for the sic year old kid who WHINED for six and a half hours. Seriously, insane.

I saw that Cub Reporter's Mom is up and commenting. How cute is that, seriously?
Lots of crazy thoughts . .. . I'll ramble.

They sell TdF lighters. I bought a few for he irony.

I watched the Tour in French. That was weird because I was tired and didn't understand a damn thing, good thing it was a boring stage. The French Phil is having a coronary with 95K to go and there's nothing going on to even SUGGEST a coronary. Awesome. Our Lonely Planet French guide is saving our lives - or it's going to get us shot. As Donna mentioned on her blog, we did planes, trains & automobiles without knowing a lick of French . . . .all we had was that book. It wasn't such a lonely planet for us!

Bob rode up the big hill with the OLN bigwig (who was responsible for that awesome Anna Nicole show on E! so natch, he is a genius.) Anyways, he's also a very good cyclist. They made it up in one hour forty minutes. They had a great ride and pics will follow once I get all the tech stuff worked out. On that note, Righteous Rod made it up here in one hour ten minutes, and as you will hear later today, Phil's denist made it up in 76 minutes. It's a huge deal. We drove, and that was AMAZING. A year ago I would have NEVER thought I would be hauling up L'Alpe d Huez for WORK. I seriously had tears in my eyes. It was honestly surreal. Great stuff.

Phil has read a bunch of the stuff I've written. It's probably a good thing that I had a few drinks in him first. He laughed a lot. He didn't realize how much fun I made of him. I didn't either.
I gotta go check the end of this stage out. . .. .too much. My next entry will be MUCH more organized.

Scavenger hunt check in. Al had the TourDAYFrance tee and loves it. Now it's just getting him to WEAR it or hold it up on tv, which he says he will. . . ..
VIva la tour. . .
cr

7/19

Schleck means Snail in French

All is well here. I wrote yesterday and it was so good that Tim didn't post it because he hates it when I write something better than he does. I'm going to write a bit about yesterday today and I hope to see yesterday's blog up because there is a very important shout out.. Here we watch the race on tv, just like at home, except a few things. We watch the feed and get to see everything, even the stuff that doesn't make tv. So we see the uneventful stuff and hear the off color commentary plus the swearing. It's not as cool as it sounds, but no commercials. Bob and Al are in one truck and PSquared are in another. When we watch it underneath the broadcast booth that they like to show everyday. We hear PSquared, not Bob and Al. That's my least favorite part about it. So. We decided to go to the finish and watch it live, so we get in at the 50m mark, which wasn't a smart move. Too much traffic, because that's where the cars turn off. It was crowded. The 'carnival' before the race comes through is LONG. I'm serious. LONG. It was cool even through I had no clue what the advertisers are. Some candy, some other crap. Anyways. Cub Reporter's mom is so cute that she Tivo'ed it like usual and rewinded AND slo-mo'd the whole finish and couldn't see me. I must not have been on. That is so cute that she looked for me repeatedly. Ok, here's the good part. We were looking down the final stretch and we could see the big tv that was broadcasting the race live. We could tell that CSC had the lead, but couldn't tell who it was. I was praying it was Zabriski. There was an announcer who spoke French (which they do a lot of over here) said Zabriski's name at one point, but it's hard to understand them even when they say words or names you know. I'll tell you what. The excitement and anticipation of seeing that first rider FLY around the bend was unreal. And I'm serious when I say FLY. Amazing. Absolutely freaking amazing. Robbie Ventura is here and Mrs. Landis has been hanging around OLNLand so people were happy here afer the race. It was one of the coolest things to watch. Up until this point, the Amgen Tour of California was the biggest race I saw live. This is much cooler. Especially at L'Alpe-D'Huez. Congrats to Schleck. He is a cutie patootie to say the least. Fun fact. Schleck means Snail in French. I think Phil mentions that on the commentary, but I like the way it sounds. Maybe it will get on the site before you hear it. Maybe not.

Crashing today. Lots of it. Heads up . .. . todays desents are INSANE. We drove down them at abou 90 miles an hour with Bob at the helm. Shit, I thought that BKCR was done. I texted my best friend and let her know where my will was. I also promised myself that I would update it if I lived through that ride. Looks like I have an appointment to make. I was also scared for the race today because of the course. The desent is going to be just as hard as the climbs because of the turns. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. It's bad ass.

Ok. As usual, this blog brought to you by Alex Trautwig. Thanks big guy!
Signing off.
cr

There you have it! Two days of the Cubbie in one day, one post, one location. I don't know about you, but I'm getting emotional.

Tim