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2022 Tour de Francis


Knoxtnhorn

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54 minutes ago, Buzzrock said:

San Sebastián is a great town. Went there back in 2005. More bars per square foot than any other city in Spain (at least back then).

Me and a buddy have been threatening to go for years, we really need to make it happen

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20 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

San Sebastián is a great town. Went there back in 2005. More bars per square foot than any other city in Spain (at least back then).

 

19 hours ago, TexPx said:

That whole Basque region looks pretty fuckin dope.

Bitch! You know it!

Bienvenido al Pais Vascos!

Oñati- quaint town on the edge of a forest. People gathering around the town center Friday night. The finish line of the last stage of a 4 stage women’s cycling race on Saturday.

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View out of an open ground floor door of our hotel.

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€1.75 / glass red wine

(We learned that that wasn’t even the happy hour price.)

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Happy Hour Pintxos

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Finish Line and stage winner

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Lovely view of the valley from hotel’s terrace 

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Basque profile on Tinder

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And another one

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Have at the IG accounts boys.

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Rocks at a beach a bit west(?) of San Sebastián. The sedimentary strata have been flipped at a 90° angle and the timeline runs from most recent (left) to the oldest (right).

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For the more mature Surly travelers. This was 4 years ago, so she would be 56 years old. 
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San Sebastián- Beautiful walkable city on the water. 

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Bridge (puente)

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Building on an overcast day.

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American girl looking to fund her travels.

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Surfer who didn’t care about impressing storm. 
 

Spoiler

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Ex girlfriend/travel companion who waited until the first night of the trip to mention that she has a boyfriend back home and that nothing was going to happen on the trip.

🤬

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Surf Shop

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Random building with cool architecture 

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“GERALD’S BAR”

An English amiga’s restaurant. Fucking delicious!

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Great music courtesy of classic vinyl.

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Spoiler

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Tres Leches

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Tapas in the old town area.

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That’s all for now. 

 

Edited by Napoleon
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50 minutes ago, Whitewater Horn said:

Disappointing and concerning that Pogacar barely twitched when Jonas took off. Nice bunny hop, Sepp. 

 

Fairly in line with my expectations. I found Vinegaard pushing the issue a bit more surprising, I thought he would be cagier.

 

11 minutes ago, Whitewater Horn said:

That was a real head scratcher. I know it’s his first TdF, but he’s a grand tour winner.  Maybe he’ll make it interesting. 

Uh, yeah... Dude is Giro winner and Giro runner up on a last day TT. There's only 22k of TT in this Tour, and it's partially uphill. It's insanity they let him go.

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2 hours ago, Whitewater Horn said:

That was a real head scratcher. I know it’s his first TdF, but he’s a grand tour winner.  Maybe he’ll make it interesting. 

Yea it was surprising to see Hindley up in that big group.  Since it started with 30 riders maybe they didn't realize it but Wout was in the group and one clip he is clearly going to the back of the initial break to scan jerseys and rider bib numbers.  Plus race radio would tell UAE who is in the group.  Jonas is overall still fine with plenty of big mountain stages left in play.  

Tomorrow looks great.  I did Aspin and Tourmalet in the same day a few years ago.  Pau and surrounding mountains are heaven on earth for cycling.  A few cars pulled over on the side of the road on the descent to let me pass on Aspin.  

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14 minutes ago, EastHorn said:

I did Aspin and Tourmalet in the same day a few years ago.

One of these days I will find a way to do the Circle of Death, Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and Aubisque. We were going over in 2020, but covid killed it. Alas.

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9 minutes ago, EastHorn said:

Yea it was surprising to see Hindley up in that big group.  Since it started with 30 riders maybe they didn't realize it but Wout was in the group and one clip he is clearly going to the back of the initial break to scan jerseys and rider bib numbers.  Plus race radio would tell UAE who is in the group.  Jonas is overall still fine with plenty of big mountain stages left in play.  

Tomorrow looks great.  I did Aspin and Tourmalet in the same day a few years ago.  Pau and surrounding mountains are heaven on earth for cycling.  A few cars pulled over on the side of the road on the descent to let me pass on Aspin.  

“Cool story bro” incoming:

Big backpacking trip around Europe in 1997. After landing and one night in London, I flew to Madrid, rented a car, and drove to Pamplona. 

Plan was to watch the bulls run in the morning and then maybe drive over the mountains to Pau, where the race was finishing that afternoon and then starting the next morning. 

This was pre-Lance (Jan Ullrich won that year.) and the public awareness of camping out for a day or two before the race arrived was not common knowledge. I didn’t realize that I would have been fucked trying to arrive into Pau at about 12pm-2pm with the finish happening later that afternoon. 

PLANS CHANGE:

Basque separatists (ETA) had a political prisoner that they assassinated at midnight while I slept in my car and therefore the bulls didn’t run that day. 😕

I drove to Biarritz to look at tits on the beach for the afternoon and then returned to Pamplona to wait for the bulls the next day.

So no visit to Pau.

The “What could have been.” will always be there when I think of Pau.

Post Mortem:

I ended up in Paris for the last day of The Tour. I got to (the north side of) the Place de la Concorde about 3+ hours before the riders did (maybe 5 hours early?) and a guy who said that he rode in the 1950 Tour for Great Britain 🇬🇧 narrated what we were seeing from the various breakaways and taught me all of the ins-and-outs of stage races, so missing Pau worked out fine. 

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2 hours ago, G650 said:

One of these days I will find a way to do the Circle of Death, Peyresourde, Aspin, Tourmalet and Aubisque. We were going over in 2020, but covid killed it. Alas.

Jesus I had no idea that was a thing.  I did it as two days of two climbs.  The hardest part is the mental part with the road signs that give you % gradient over the next kilometer.  So if you see 10% and the first part of the kilometer is easy, then you know you will get rocked later.  

If you are a fan of SAFA Brian he is previewing the tour stages the day before.  Good stuff.  

https://youtu.be/VqnC-OZfPWA

 

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1 minute ago, EastHorn said:

Jesus I had no idea that was a thing.  I did it as two days of two climbs.  The hardest part is the mental part with the road signs that give you % gradient over the next kilometer.  So if you see 10% and the first part of the kilometer is easy, then you know you will get rocked later.  

Ha, yes indeed. I was actually thinking then of doing the OG Luchon to Bayonne stage, which is 326km, but thought better of it. Then got shut out by Covid, which sucks. I'm not in near enough shape to do it at the moment so would take some planning. Maybe in '24

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On 7/3/2023 at 5:22 PM, TexPx said:


That whole Basque region looks pretty fuckin dope.

best food in the country. 

i got to pretend to make work function a few times in san sebastian and biarritz.  bilbao has some stunning architecture too

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6 minutes ago, G650 said:

Pretty much what you are seeing now.

Well,

If he picked a team were he was the GC guy and the super domestic, he picked the wrong team.

I'm just intrigued, he climbs well and sprints well, have no idea how his TT is.

Edited by locodos
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2 minutes ago, locodos said:

I'm just intrigued, he climbs well and sprints well, have no idea how his TT is.

He is world class TT, Belgian champ. His problem is he is too heavy for consistency in the high mountains though. A day here or there no problem, but not over a tour. It's a different kind of climbing.

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