Day Two of the Alps Should Be Stellar

Today is the second day of the Alps and those amazing mountains are certainly testing the riders. A crash near the back of the Peleton injured Marcel Kittel - causing him to abandon the Tour. That put Michael Matthews into the Green. The Australian is a canny rider and if he can make it through to the final day, the race around the Champ-Elysees will now be a bit easier without some of the major spriinters in the mix. Still, Matthews has ridden hard to this point. If he can get to Paris and win the final sprint, he will deserve the Green Jersey.

Today's stage in the Alps is no cakewalk. Although there is only a single
HC climb, it comes at the very end. Froome has to keep his time gap in
 this stage to stand as the winner on the podium in Paris, and there's still a lot
of racing plus a difficult time trial yet to come. 

Chris Froome is still in the Yellow, and although Fabio Aru has fallen back to almost a full minute behind, two riders are only 27 seconds behind Froome - Rigoberto Urban from Cannondale Drapac and Romain Bardet from AG2R. Congratulations to Primoz Roglic for his win on Wednesday. Great ride!

The Alps are stunning, tall, grand, and so very high. Every peak seems to
end above timberline and those bald tops keep the riders focused, pulled
upwards as if by a huge magnet. Today's stage ends on the summit of
the Col d'Izoard and it's anything BUT an easy ride up there. 

I did my usual housekeeping, etc, yesterday. Next week I'll be working for Chickie all week, so my schedule will be totally messed up. It was important to complete what I could yesterday before my "free" time runs out. My computers are now talking to the printer once again, the networking between the computers themselves is functional again, the monitors seem to be working properly, and all's right with my electronic world. At least, until the next catastrophe. Have an excellent Thursday. I'm already looking forward to cooling off in the pool.