TdF Stage 10: Radio Free Europe

2009 Tour de France Stage 10: Bastille Day Edition

Frenchmen Thierry Hupond (Skil-Shimano), Benoït Vaugrenard (Française des Jeux) and Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis, Le Credit en Ligne) felt the Bastille Day spirit today as they attacked early in Stage 10 of the 2009 Tour de France today, with Russian Mikhail Ignatiev (Team Katusha) joining in the early breakaway. In spite of the radio ban (or maybe because of it?), the peloton reeled them in just a mile from the finish today.

Rabobank's Gricscha Niermann mounts a CB radio antenna to his helmet before Stage 10 of the Tour de France to protest today's race radio ban.

Spoilers below...

Well, alleged spoilers, anyway. Not much has changed in rankings since last week.

Cavendish beat Thor Hushovd and Tyler Farrar as they all sprinted for the finish line in Issoudun. Italian Rinaldo Nocentini (AG2R La Mondiale) retains the Yellow Jersey, while Astana still owns the next four places.

Links out...

KWC: Well, that didn't work....

Bike World News: Stage 10 Report.

Bike Rumor: Cavendish wins.

Steephill.TV's "Highlights from today's action" features a photo of snails on the side of the road :-)

CN: Cavendish goes long.

VN: Cav charges.

Bicycle.net: Media focus on Andy difficult for older Schleck.

TdF Blog: Armstrong may return for 2010?

Video: Rabobank's Grischa Niermann mounts a CB antenna on his helmet.

Mild Stallion's TdF Haiku.

Biking in a skirt: Garter and clip

Check this out ladies: Do you want to ride your bike in a skirt but you're concerned about flashing everybody as your skirt flies in the wind? Reese aka The Left Eyed Girl clips her skirt with a garter. Clever!




Now check out this bit of repurposing: Sarah uses a bicycle innertube as a garter to keep her stockings up.



Photos by Richard Masoner.

Scofflaw motorists

Everybody's doin' it.

You know those motorists who complain that cyclists never obey traffic laws? You should read their whiny comments about "speed traps" and "quotas," along with the requisite links to sites to help you break the law. Por ejample:

"They are indiscriminate in who they stop and stop people for the most trivial of reasons just for practice."

"CHP cruiser that sits on 19Th Ave and East Cliff at the four-way stop waiting for someone to fail to come to a complete stop, at an intersection where there has never been a serious accident. Or the CHP Officer that sits in the driveway of private property on the corner of Sims Rd and La Madrona at another non-dangerous three way stop. Or the one that sits at Paul Minnie and Rodriguez St yet another low priority three way stop." [ -- Personal note: I saw a really nasty injury collision at Sims & La Madrona just last weekend when somebody failed to stop at this "non-dangerous three way stop" which is actually a two way stop. ]

I don't understand why the American Automobile Association doesn't control these maniacs. They make all motorists look bad, especially since they stop at stop signs only 22% of the time. If they can't respect the rules of the road, I can't respect their right to be on the road.

See also: Warren's blockbuster movie Stop and the sequel Stop 2.

DMCA and plagiarism

I broke the law and the law won.

A lot of you noticed that Cyclelicious was down for about three hours earlier today. The reason? A DCMA takedown request for the "Bicycle Taxonomy" page.

I had some licensed copy and artwork on my site that belongs to a website design company. I didn't know it belonged to them, but it is still plagiarism. American hosting providers are required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to take down sites with infringing content.

My feelings were hurt because I know some of the guys involved with this company, including, it turns out, the author of the article. I sent my DMCA response to my host provider with a note that I would remove the offending content, and also contacted my friends at the software company.

The product from this software company is website design software for bike shops to help bike shops create somewhat unique content. This software includes a large library of articles that the bike shop can use.

My friends recently discovered there are a huge number of websites that use their content without permission. A large number of stores are building entire websites based on content they steal from their legitimate retailers. They used to try to work things out with offending sites by sending letters, but nobody ever responded and it proved ineffective. Playing nice, apparently, means you lose out. They now use an automated service that searches for their content online and sends out takedown requests when it finds the plagiarized content.

Since the people at this service want to get paid for their efforts and so their paying customers get value out of their product, they work to keep their copyrighted information limited to whoever pays for it. It was one of their articles that made its way onto my website, hence the takedown. Mea culpa!

Rachel McAdams rides a bicycle

It's good to see "Mean Girls" star Rachel McAdams is back to riding her bicycle.



Canadian Rachel McAdams was known for her car free lifestyle in Toronto. When she had a close call with a bus while cycling in Toronto earlier this year, she said "enough" and decided to drive a car instead. It's good to know she's back to cycling.

San Francisco bike thief photos

Some members of the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition noticed a guy chopping at a bike cable lock with bolt cutters. One of them chased after the guy while the other one shot photos of the alleged perpetrator. Wonder of wonders, police even responded to their 911 call.



H/T to Murph.