I Heart Hipsters

From AP…

Jul 29, 5:34 AM EDT

Denver bets on a county fair, aiming at hipsters

By KRISTEN WYATT

Associated Press

 

DENVER (AP) -- Denver has an ambitious plan to revive the county fair: blend throwback chic with urban grit to draw crowds celebrating everything weird and crafty. Mix funnel cakes with drag queens, add a dash of old-time quilting and newly hip knitting, and the recipe could produce what organizers hope is a new flavor of county fair.

Fair staples like funnel cakes and cotton candy, animal exhibits and 4-H competitions are on proud display at the Denver County Fair; there's even a Ferris wheel in the parking lot.

But there's no mistaking this event for a traditional country fair. All the contestants in Saturday's Miss Denver County Fair pageant are drag queens. There's a speed text-messaging contest, and the highlight staple of a Western fair, a rodeo, has been replaced with a bicycle rodeo and a troupe of performing pigs.

"This is so cool," said 13-year-old Brian Torres of Denver, a first-time fairgoer who saw his first alpaca and planned to check out the carnival rides, just past a "freak show" highlighted by a bearded lady and a man lying on a bed of nails.

Read more here.

Books

For the second day in a row books were left on the curb

10 great places for city cycling

From USA Today online…

10 great places for city cycling

Expensive gas isn't the only reason to switch from four wheels to two. Bicycles offer a great way to get to know an urban area, says Elizabeth Cutler , co-founder of SoulCycle, a New York-based chain of cycling workout studios. "It's fun. It's an easy way to see a city in a different way, to slow down a bit and look at the architecture and the landscape," she says. More urban areas are adding bike lanes, and most have rentals for visitors to hit the trails. She shares some favorite cities for biking, with Larry Bleiberg  for USA TODAY.

Read on here.

Levi's Window Display

Evanston

Bike racks full of bikes, bike lane, and bike specific signs

The Team Classification

The tour starts this weekend.  I will be busy following online and then watching the highlights on TV.  It wasn’t until last year that I had paid attention to the Team Classification.  This is probably no surprise because last year was Lance’s final Tour.  Since a GC podium was out of the question, Radio Shack raced for the team classification to get on stage in Paris.  So of course, Versus followed this race within a race more closely.  I’m glad they did because it added a little drama to the race as a whole and was something else to watch for.  I read the following from the Tour site which goes into the Team Classification.

28/06/2011 - Five good reasons to follow the team classification

Of all the individual sports, cycling is certainly the one in which the collective dimension plays the biggest role. As a result, the team classification, a discrete affair at first glance, is at the heart of many strategies. Here’s why…

The honour of the podium on the Champs-Elysées

It is rare that a team starts the Tour de France with the ambition of winning this secondary classification, when all eyes are understandably more focused on the Yellow Jersey for the general individual time classification. However, it is a competition in which appetite is whetted by success, once a team finds itself in a good position after overcoming some of the difficulties along the route. Last year, RadioShack triumphed, to follow on from the winners of the last ten editions: Kelme (2000-2001), ONCE (2002), CSC (2003), T-Mobile (2004, 2005, and 2006), Discovery Channel (2007), CSC-Saxo Bank (2008) and Astana (2009).

After falling twice during the eighth stage leading to the Rousses ski resort in Morzine-Avoriaz, Lance Armstrong immediately drew his source for motivation from the team classification, to replace his initial objective. Since he was taking part in his last Tour de France, he was determined to finish, in spite of everything, with the honour of being acclaimed by the crowd on the final podium on the Champs-Elysées.

Read on here.

Lanterne Rouge Doper

So Wim got caught with doping products.  I read the news on Velo News online, article here.  Read on and it says that Wim Vansevenant won the lanterne rouge (last on the GC list) 3 straight years.  He’s retired so the doping products were for him only.  The article is about doping but the comments are great to read.  Seriously, the lanterne rouge dopes for his benefit after he’s retired.

Omega Pharma distances itself from former rider caught in doping scandal

By VeloNews.com Published Jun 29th 2011 7:42 AM UTC

Former Silence-Lotto rider Wim Vansevenant has acknowledged that a package seized by Belgian customs officials two weeks ago contained doping products destined for him.

http://velonews.competitor.com/files/2011/06/000_DV363831-325x487.jpg

Wim Vansevenant holding his record-breaking lanterne rouge in 2008.

Pic from Velo News Online.

A public prosecutor in Ghent acknowledged that his office was conducting an investigation, but declined further comment.

Now retired, Vansevenant has played a small support role on the Omega Pharma-Lotto team in recent years. While acknowledging that the package was indeed his, Vansevenant denied that the drugs were going to be used for active riders on the team.

“It was only a small amount, to improve my own condition,” said Vansevenant. “It was the second time I ordered. The order was not for the Omega Pharma-Lotto team. ”