It's Finally Friday - ITT and Kittens, Of Course

Mont Ventoux made Le Tour de France history yesterday on Bastille Day. The winds at the summit were blowing at 60-70 mph, so race organizers dropped the finish down approximately 6 kilometers to end the stage in the forested area, affording the riders some protection from the winds. But the riders sure weren't protected from the fans, and the overcrowding caused by moving the fans down those 6K resulted in very narrowed roads. The inevitable happened and what a mess!

In the immediate aftermath, you can see Richie Porte and Chris
Froome on the ground, the motorcycle they ran into on the right.
Here's a nice article and audio on the mess. 

As the group containing the Yellow Jersey and some strong contenders approached the final kilometer, one of the many motorcycles doing camera feed was cut off by a fan, having to stop suddenly. Richie Porte couldn't stop as quickly and ran headlong into the motorcycle, followed quickly by Bauke Mollema and Chris Froome. Other riders were stopped dead in the road, unable to progress past the accident. It was broken bicycles mayhem. Eventually the organizers awarded times based on where the riders were positioned at that point, except for the stage winner, Thomas De Gendt, who had already completed his ride a few minutes earlier, along with Serge Pauwels and Dani Navarro.

Today's Time Trial has topography, but nothing too major. The problems
will come in the beating the bikers took on their way up Mont Ventoux on
Bastille Day. 

Today's stage is an Individual Time Trial, so those bumps and bruises from yesterday's tough stage will certainly come into play.

After narfing all of the special food, Roxie settled down in
a patch of sunlight to make herself beautiful. 

On a lighter note, the kittens seemed to survive their long day quite well. Since they were scheduled to have an evening visit/play time with another friend last night, I didn't go overboard on treats. I did give them a sprinkle of a second dry food. It turns out Roxie loves the second food and promptly settled down to eat from both bowls before finding a patch of sun to collapse into.

Tilde actually stopped moving for a second - long enough to
get this close-up of her Puss-in-Boots eyes. Awwwww........

Tilde was very active - no settling down in the sun for that cat. I was able to get one good close-up, though, after a few unsuccessful attempts. Today will be another long day for them so I'll have to think about what to give them that will make the day better until I can return again tomorrow morning. Here's hoping you have a wonderful Friday, I'm off to the pool and then a (hopefully) busy day at the shop.