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We’re live streaming with a show on justin.tv/austintexas now.

We’re working with Redbud Sports in Austin, Texas and the plans are to bring you many athletes and sports events around Austin. Also, you can see our feed at austincast.com

Video by Paul Walhus

 Lance does a question and answer session with Austin Texas fans before heading off to the final bike race of his career, a bid to win his 7th Tour de France in a row. The setting was Lance’s new health club.

Team Hotel San Jose is a new kind of racing team and sports club, led by athletes who are dedicated to serving the community by working with disadvantaged and at-risk youth, developing the skills of beginning and intermediate cyclists, and cultivating the most incredible regional racing team you’ve ever seen. The core team members are a motivated group of professional and ex-professional cyclists, cycling enthusiasts, and triathletes, who ride with respect for all, regardless of experience. We welcome road cyclists and mountain bikers, runners and multi-sport athletes, men and women, and girls and boys.

Here’s an excerpt, and I highly recommend you click on the link at the end to read the rest of the story, the comments especially.

Why Don’t Americans Suck at the Tour de France?

There’s something to be said for a sports event that lasts for 23 days, like the European month long vacations. 

from the very fine http://tdfblog.com

Michael Rasmussen’s tremendous breakaway win to La Toussuire, overshadowed by Landis’s attack the following day, shot him to the lead, and the overall win, in the climber’s polka-dot jersey competition.

Damiano Cunego, already a winner of the Giro d’Italia, takes the best young rider’s white jersey, just 38 seconds ahead of Marcus Fothen of Gerolsteiner. The pair were about 90 minutes ahead of the next competitor in the under-25 competition.

Saunier Duval’s David de la Fuente, the climbing jersey leader until Rasmussen’s big day out front, takes the overall “most combative rider” prize.

Landis took his final yellow jersey of the Tour with his daughter Ryan on the podium.

Post-race interview with Frankie Andreu: Landis says, “Right now, I have no intention of switching teams.” Leaves a little wiggle room, but sounds like the iShares team (as Phonak will be called next year) has its Tour captain for 2007.

Top 10:
1) Thor Hushovd, Credit Agricole, Norway, in 3:56:52
2) Robbie McEwen, Davitamon-Lotto, Australia, same time
3) Stuart O’Grady, CSC, Australia, s.t.
4) Erik Zabel, Milram, Germany, s.t.
5) Luca Paolini, Liquigas, Italy, s.t.
6) Samuel Dumoulin, AG2R, France, s.t.
7) Bernhard Eisel, Française des Jeux, Austria, s.t.
Anthony Geslin, Bouyges Telecom, France, s.t.
9) Alessandro Ballan, Lampre, Italy, s.t.
10) Peter Wrolich, Gerolsteiner, Austria, s.t.
Stage results

Overall:
1) Floyd Landis, Phonak, USA, in 89:39:30
2) Oscar Pereiro, Caisse d’Epargne, Spain, at :57
3) Andreas Klöden, T-Mobile, Germany, at 1:29
4) Carlos Sastre, CSC, Spain, at 3:13
5) Cadel Evans, Davitamon-Lotto, Australia, at 5:08
6) Denis Menchov, Rabobank, Russia, at 7:06
7) Cyril Dessel, AG2R, France, at 8:41
Christophe Moreau, AG2R, France, at 9:37
9) Haimar Zubeldia, Euskaltel-Euskadi, Spain, at 12:05
10) Michael Rogers, T-Mobile, Australia, at 15:07
Final overall standings

Yesterday, Floyd had what may be called the best peformance in Tour de France history.

The 30-year-old Landis, who said two weeks ago that he would soon need a full hip replacement, rebounded to ride alone to victory by almost six minutes in yesterday’s mountain stage.

The effort jumped Landis, who rides for the Swiss Phonak team, from 8 minutes, 8 seconds behind race leader Oscar Pereiro of Spain’s Caisse d’Epargne to third place, 30 seconds behind Pereiro and 18 seconds behind Carlos Sastre of CSC.

Landis performance was legendary, but he’s not satisfied. 

If you want to read a great cycling bloggers rundown, check out Martin Dugard’s blog, here’s a tidbit from that blog entry:

“That he did. Per his style, Landis didn’t explode away from the peloton in the manner of most breakaways. Rather, he gradually left a yellow jersey group containing Oscar Pereiro, Cadel Evans, Andreas Kloden, and Denis Menchov. He tiptoes away like a cat burglar, as if afraid of drawing attention to himself. Landis then began an 80-mile individual time trial, constantly dousing himself with water on this humid mountain afternoon, at one point pulling so far ahead that he was the virtual leader of the race.” . . .

Ah… but when Floyd crossed the line today, fist thrust into the air and a scowl on his face, Amber Landis jumped up and down. “Oh, baby!” she screamed, fighting back tears. Only this time they were tears of joy. And, if I am to be honest here, I was a little misty, too…

So tomorrow the stage is a little on the downhill side, a 120-mile run from Morzine down into Macon. Teams might try to take a little bite out of Landis, hoping to gain a few seconds on him before Saturday’s time trial. With Pereiro (with whom Landis ate breakfast this morning, just the two of them) 30 seconds in front and Sastre 18 seconds up, Landis is close enough that a powerful time-trial Saturday will likely win him the Tour.”

Like I said, it’s a great blog entry from a guy who was sitting watching the race with Amber Landis.  http://blogs.active.com/dugard/ 

This race, can you believe it, could go right down to the Champs Elysees on Sunday.

At yesterdays mountain stage, Landis lost 10 minutes to Perreiro for an overall deficit of 8 minutes.

Coming into the final mountain stage today, no one expected Landis to be in the top 5 fnish let alone the maillot jaune (yellow jersey), but after todays incredible breakaway from the peloton, Landis managed to build up a 7 minute lead which he held on till the finish of the 200.5 km mountain stage with steep ascents amounting to upto 10 degrees in the final 20 kms.

Today’s stage was an awesome comeback by Landis, who had been written off by the Frech Press sometime back, when he held the yellow jersey, as some one who wasnt really worthy of it.

Like the OLN announcers said, Landis seemed like a man possessed. He didn’t know what went wrong yesterday having cracked in the final 20 kms losing a huge 10 minutes. He made no excuses and today he was the man to reckon. 

As of today Perreiro leads in the general classification, with Sastre 12 seconds behind and Landis 30 seconds back. So who’s it going to be? Saturday’s time trial should tell the tale of this year’s Tour de France.

Here’s the link to the YouTube video of Lance at the Espy’s

Alp d’Huez – the first major climbs of the Tour de France

So today is Alp D’Huez and I’m watching on OLN.  This is Floyd Landis chance to put his stamp on the Tour de France.  But there are many challengers.  Usually, the Tour the winner of today’s stage goes on to win the Tour de France.

Alp d’Huez – the first major climbs of the Tour de France

So today is Alp D’Huez and I’m watching on OLN.  This is Floyd Landis chance to put his stamp on the Tour de France.  But there are many challengers.  Usually, the Tour the winner of today’s stage goes on to win the Tour de France.

Yesterday the flying Australian Robbie Mcewen won the sprint and Thor Hushovd got “relegated” to 148th place, I guess for pushing the guy next to him near the finish. Pooh!

Floyd Landis is playing it cool riding in the “safety zone” outside of the dense peloton. Phonak is riding out in front most of the time. Today’s stage 5, which covers 225 kilometres or 139.81 miles to the city of Caen in Normandy, presents the 172 riders left in the race with only four modest climbs and is likely therefore to end in another mass sprint to the finish.

1 kilometer = 0.621371192 miles

World road race champion Tom Boonen of Belgium had been expected to rule the stages, but his best showing so far has been a second place on Monday. The 25-year-old sprint specialist for the Quick Step team has been upstaged by last year’s Tour de France sprint champion Robbie McEwen, who won his second stage of this year’s Tour on Wednesday and took over the green jersey of the sprint points leader.

However, when Thursday’s stage got under way, Boonen was still dressed in the Tour de France’s most important color, the yellow jersey signifying the leader in the overall standings. He leads another sprinter, Australian Michael Rogers, by 1 second, with American George Hincapie 5 seconds behind in third place. The standings are not likely to change much until Saturday’s 52- kilometre individual time trial, which may go some way towards revealing the contenders for this year’s Tour de France title.

If at first you don’t succeed, keep on trying. This was the motto of Matthias Kessler who stuck to his guns and won the classic stage from Esch-dur-Alzette in Luxembourg to Valkenberg in Holland.

 The previous day he had been wiped out just 50 years from the line, but not this time. It seems a lot of riders were tired after over 10 hours beneath a very hot sun in the past two days.  But behind the joy of a German winner, the was a lot of sadness as Alejandro Valverde, Fred Rodriguez and Eric Dekker all left the race with broken bones. Fred is the main lead-out man from the US for Aussie Robbie McEwen.   Fast Freddy, as he is known fell badly with Dekker and first reports say that he broke his wrist while Dekker has done the same to some teeth. All three were personalities that the race badly needs, but the loss of Valverde means the loss of a real overall favourite.  This, ironically, will favour the fortunes of American favourites George Hincapie, Floyd Landis and Levi Leipheimer, who today saw a danger man leave the Tour.

end quote

This year’s Tour de France, man.  A lot of broken men, broken bones, doping allegations, Lance sitting at home in Austin.  What’s going on?  I’m watching this year, and pulling for Hincapie, Landis, Leipheimer and the Norwegian Thor Hushov (it’s in my blood).

Lance Amstrong News on our Blog – The “docureality” show produced by the Discovery Networks Travel Channel will air on Thursday night, Dec 22 on channel 58 (Grande Communications) and channel 33 (Time Warner).

Many local Austin media outlets carried coverage of this event. On the last day of the Tour de France several thousand people showed up to cheer Lance on and sign several giant yellow cards that the Outdoor Life Network brought to the event.

Here’s the email from producer Bill Delano about the event

Hey Ya´ll~ Tune in tomorrow night for my first film, “Chasing Lance: a Fans Story”!!! Its a great show, was a thrilling adventure and will forever stand as testament to what two friends can do with a camcorder, computer, and a dream.

Here’s the TV Guide sum up: Join five Americans on an emotion packed thrill ride as they chase the Tour all around France supporting their hero in his seventh and final ride. These are true fanatics who do far more than vacation, they redefine what it means to be a true Fan.

Let everyone know and check it out on the Travel Channel on Thursday, December 22 at 8 and 11pm EST (7 and 10 pm CST).