I got into Tour de France later than some. Greg Lemond is a couple of years ahead of me, so I vaguely noticed his 1990 win…but I generally ignore all things California.
I also ignore things Texas because they are generally of the fake-Texas sort: John Wayne (who I think was from Iowa, went to USC, and whose real name is Marion), Jerry Jones, Paul Newman, Dan Patrick, James Dean (who is from Marion, IN), Ken Paxton, George H W Bush, George W Bush…you get the picture.
Greg Abbott is, regrettably, a very real Texan…and from a dreadful place: Wichita Falls. In the mid-eighties, I heard about folks there cycling a hundred miles on the hottest day of the year, and, I gotta say that I thought: boy howdy, that’s pretty cool. And then I forgot about the Hotter-N-Hell 100 for a decade and bought a house in my adopted Tennessee and had a kid and built some neat stuff that folks paid me for.
greatest American?
FirstWife was (is? I suppose she’s still alive) a very real Texan, a perfect size six driving a 4×4 Blazer reeking of crude oil when I met her, and I guess I recklessly ignored the part about her always wanting to move back to the Lone Star. Like Congressman Crockett, Senator Houston, and many other good but gullible Tennesseans, I eventually would find myself hitched to a west-bound caravan. After making camp with her and Escaped Jr by the Rio Trinidad, I heard about the HH100 again….oh yeah: that thing.
were you really using Ulster for anything?
Since I am not of the quick-twitch sort but am an ugly and ungodly hard-headed Scots-Irish sort who can stand in shit and fight for two or three hundred years at a stretch, I thought pedaling that hundred miles wouldn’t be as hard as it sounds. And it ain’t if you have your health, any notion of mechanisms, and can operate a water bottle. Over that next decade or so (starting in my forties) I attempted the thing eight times, finishing five (and was absolutely robbed of a sixth).
we are so cool
During that same decade of pedaling, I noticed le Tour in pop culture and started to follow it since that gave me a great way to strike up conversations about your longer rides: “oh, speaking of the Tour, did you know I’ve finished the Hotter-N……” sort of thing. and Austin, which normally hates all things Dallas (because it is full of folk from Dallas?), was falling in love with the biggest asshole ever born in Richardson because, like me, Armstrong had taken up the habit of haunting hill country more than a little and there was this nice winner’s bandwagon and these yellow wristbands that would keep you from ever dying, which is mighty handy. I would mount up for the HH100 a few more times, but there came a time when I would no longer mount FirstWife….my Fort Worth and Austin days would be over soon.
Along about then, NewWife was sitting on a beach watching le Tour while swiping left and right and fell up the profile of a guy who had posted to his dating profile possibly the worst picture of himself ever taken. Turns out, she had an office in Plano **shudder** and our first date was prosecuted with all due haste. Other activities were also prosecuted, and, this morning, twelve years later, we watched the latest stage together and thought about Freedom and how nice it is not to work on the Fourth and drank iced tea all day.
Baseball guys card games; that’s what we do. Since I was once a baseball guy, I card everything…and basically live in Excel space and think a lot in 2D space. le Tour started in Italy this year, and I started on a spreadsheet tallying finishing places for everyone, one year at a time, year after year. And I wondered on an objective way to compare all those finishes. And after grinding back to 2010, this is what I got for a top 20:
| rank | cyclist A | flag | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010 |
| 1 | FROOME Chris | GBR | 133 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |||||||
| 2 | BARDET Romain | FRA | 6 | 15 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 15 | ||||||
| 3 | VALVERDE Alejandro | ESP | 24 | 12 | 9 | 14 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 8 | 20 | |||||
| 4 | QUINTANA Nairo | COL | 28 | 17 | 8 | 10 | 12 | 3 | 2 | 2 | ||||||
| 5 | THOMAS Geraint | GBR | 3 | 41 | 2 | 1 | 15 | 15 | 22 | 31 | 63 | |||||
| 6 | ROLLAND Pierre | FRA | 68 | 51 | 18 | 27 | 54 | 16 | 10 | 11 | 24 | 8 | 10 | 54 | ||
| 7 | MOLLEMA Bauke | NLD | 24 | 20 | 28 | 26 | 17 | 11 | 7 | 10 | 6 | 70 | ||||
| 8 | PORTE Richie | AUS | 38 | 3 | 11 | 5 | 48 | 23 | 19 | 34 | 72 | |||||
| 9 | URÁN Rigoberto | COL | 71 | 25 | 10 | 8 | 7 | 2 | 42 | 24 | ||||||
| 10 | POGAČAR Tadej | SLO | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||||
| 11 | MARTIN Dan | IRL | 40 | 41 | 18 | 8 | 6 | 9 | 39 | 33 | 35 | |||||
| 12 | YATES Adam | GBR | 3 | 9 | 9 | 29 | 29 | 4 | 50 | |||||||
| 13 | LANDA Mikel | ESP | 19 | 4 | 6 | 7 | 4 | 35 | ||||||||
| 14 | KREUZIGER Roman | CZE | 109 | 16 | 24 | 10 | 17 | 5 | 112 | 7 | ||||||
| 15 | BARGUIL Warren | FRA | 22 | 14 | 10 | 17 | 10 | 23 | 14 | |||||||
| 16 | NIBALI Vincenzo | ITA | 39 | 30 | 4 | 1 | 3 | |||||||||
| 17 | PINOT Thibaut | FRA | 11 | 14 | 29 | 16 | 3 | 10 | ||||||||
| 18 | ROCHE Nicolas | IRL | 64 | 45 | 33 | 35 | 39 | 40 | 12 | 26 | 13 | |||||
| 19 | MARTIN Guillaume | FRA | 10 | 8 | 11 | 12 | 21 | 23 | ||||||||
| 20 | VINGEGAARD Jonas | DEN | 1 | 1 | 2 |
Normally I save such a matrix as a picture to paste to text environments, but all I can tell you is that it was easy to create the PNG but impossible to get it to look like anything using this WP editing interface.
I won’t tell you my algorithm for ranking and totaling finishes, but I will ask you: can you see any obvious mistakes in my rankings for the years in question? Who is out of order?
More simply:
- Who should Tadej rank ahead of? Is he ahead of Geraint?
- Who should Jonas rank ahead of? Is he ahead of Landa?
I’ll keep adding years and will re-score and resort and see if some Glib’s answer delivers an objectively irrefutable ranking.
Editor’s Note: Clock story back next week.
Which team is going to kamikaze the pack to let their frontrunner gain an advantage?
“Greg Abbott is, regrettably, a very real Texan…and from a dreadful place: Wichita Falls.”
Hey now. I grew up down the road in Vernon, and I can imagine no better place to grow up than small town West Texas. I know Don loathes Texas and all, and Allah knows it has its . . . quirks, but there are far worse places, even in this country.
Oh, and props to Don for finishing the Hotter-N-Hell. From what I hear, that ain’t easy.
Yeah, of all the shit the Scots-Irish can withstand, heat usually is the one that beats them down the worst.
I’ll second that.
Thirded.
Yeah, I’ve done some time in Wichita Falls since it’s not all that far from my hometown of Duncan OK.
And of course everyone knows Burkburnette is worse!
RC, did you ever eat at Bill’s? Best catfish EVAH!
Good article. I don’t follow the tour, but I like your writing style. 👍
writing style
I suspect we frontier folk share a certain rural whimsy
I steal from the best: Wilde, Twain, and your own great Will Rogers; that’s where the rhythm and irony come from
I love west Texas, and my favorite stereotype is that west Texans rank amongst the best folk in the world.
no better place to grow up than small town West Texas
ostensibly true
but the DQ in WF sucks, there are no falls in Falls, and so I don’t know what to say other than the interstate is really close for leaving’s sake
also, zero SEC cheerleaders from thereabouts
I know nothing about the Tour de France other than Lance Armstrong cheated his way to several wins.
During an era when literally everybody who was a contender was cheating. He just cheated harder and got caughter. Still, by all accounts, he was (and I’m sure still is) an asshole of the first water.
I still like catching a stage or two as background TV, just for the scenery.
The most dominant doper of all time – seven consecutive (now vacant) titles.
Anyway, Don’s ranking is wrong, simply because TP is not #1, and he is the best since Merckx and none of the rest on that entire list are even close.
Don’s ranking is wrong
true
but I told you I only had the last 20 years in
I’ve added all the greats with the results you expect
Most of what I know about the Tour is due to the thought that if I enjoy riding, I must enjoy watching other people ride.
I do not, but Google keeps thinking they’re related.
Lance Armstrong didn’t have the balls to win.
Coming soon- Governor McConnaughey (or however the fuck you spell it.
Awright awright AWRIGHT!
Here is my only encounter with Matthew McConaughey. I was at the 2016 ACL festival when he introduced Willie Nelson.
I have to admit it was Texas Overload that afternoon. UT had just lost a nail biter to OU a day earlier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7QNxJvb8qA
my mom watches this stuff. I got nothin
You could always watch this documentary on it…
https://youtu.be/7usPS3Q–UM?feature=shared&t=90
can you see any obvious mistakes in my rankings – the name NIBALI Vincenzo sounds kinda gay so he should be last.
the question for the man glibs is: do you think you could kick Tadej Pogačar’s ass? he is athletic with great endurance and strong legs, but weighs under 150 pounds and probably not that upper body muscle.
Why would I?
look every man should classify other men in two categories : I can kick his ass or not.
I have better things to do.
oh no you don’t you paint minis and shit.
Agreed. Thinking in terms of violence and subjugation is a leftist thing. Or a vampire thing?
I take that as a no.
At my age probably not. And when I was his age I too was about 150 pounds, so even then, probably not. I certainly wouldn’t want to tangle with Miguel Angel Lopez who got stabbed while fighting someone trying to steal his bike in Colombia. He’s tiny but he’s mean.
VINGEGAARD seems low though as a back to back winner and second this year which was impressive since he had a few broken ribs and a punctured lung in April.
Prediction: Swift will endorse Kamala and the Swifties will get her elected.
swifties should be put in camps when the revolution comes.
ur not wrong
Naw. I don’t believe in camps. What needs to happen is they all get stranded at a concert after a computer glitch shuts everything down, have to walk home. The next morning, they find out the world fell down and now they have to grow zucchini to survive.
These euphemisms…
Mojeaux:
You could just have them go to a Swift concert at Blossom. It’s well known locally as a nightmare to get out of after a show, to the point I think I’ve been to three shows there in my life (the most recent being in the 90’s… you know just a couple years back).
Might be all they ever get.
Another four to eight years of socialism should be punishment enough.
The problem with that is they never connect cause and effect.
they never connect cause and effect
So Swifties aren’t too swift?
I do not understand this aspect of human behavior.
I can see why an artist’s work would resonate with someone so deeply that they become a devotee of the work. In the case of music, maybe not even the lyrics, but how the parts are put together (e.g., “Concierto de Aranjuez” made me homesick for a place I’ve never been). It’s fucking POWERFUL, man.
BUT I’m not going to defend a Swifty’s devotion to HER, personally. I’m delighted when I find out an artist shares my views, but I don’t pattern my real-life decisionmaking based on their views.
I see it as a mostly benign cult. For most of these fans, this may be the first time in their life they feel like they fit in and are accepted. Unfortunately, since they don’t know what about is why they have friends now, they latch onto it tighter and tighter, and make it more central to their person. Now, if Swift starts asking for donations, starts offering salvation, or begins setting up a camp in a remote country…
I am not even thinking about the impact of Art.
I don’t understand ever attaining that level of devotion to a person you have never met, who would not recognize you on the street, and probably wouldn’t notice if anything happened to you.
Benign… until it isn’t.
Mojeaux:
Exactly why I said mostly benign. It doesn’t take much to go from cult of personality to flat out cult.
/looks over at L. Ron
It just happens. I remember in the Beatles book, they talk about fans who just sat outside the band’s houses. Just hoping to see them leave the house. Some girls quit their jobs to do that full time. In one instance, Paul sat in his window and played a few songs for them.
I see it as a mostly benign cult. For most of these fans, this may be the first time in their life they feel like they fit in and are accepted.
See also Juggalos.
Were the Beatles a psy op?
My kind of conspiracy.
That is a pretty solid prediction.
Will Swifties vote if they can’t do so on TikTok?
They will be given orders and instructions.
I dunno, Moje. I think Taytay is too savvy to shit on her brand by getting partisan politics all over it.
Even if she does, I’m not terribly worried about Swifties navigating the complexities of actually voting.
Don’t underestimate them. Think of the logistics planning to get tickets, a hotel room, and travel to a show.
They can navigate Ticketmaster bullshit…
I’m fairly sure that of the Swifties that are inclined to vote, something close to 100% are already on the Dem bandwagon. As Dean and others have said, there is lots of downside personally and professionally for Swift and not much upside for whoever she might endorse.
Pogacar should probably be #2 and Vingegaard #3, but with time they will probably be above Froome.
Any results out of the top 10 should probably be thrown out or weighted close to zero. Once you are that far down in the competition your don’t really care if you are 30th or 40th. Your role on the team is different, and maybe you are going for stage wins instead, which means you might intentionally lose time in the early stages.
great thinking
my algorithm is so steep that it effectively does that
the open question is how steep
I might update this since I now have twice as much data
“Kamala’s going to win!”
That is so fascinating to me. Want it just last week that everyone was saying that Trump had it in the bag, due to defying an assassin’s bullet?
Yeah, Kamala’s going to win, until Trump pries open the jaws of a pit bull, pulls free the orphan it had bitten, and punches it in the face.
Outside of Fraud, I don’t see her path to victory.
So she’s gonna win?
By every measure of success or failure in elections in my adult life, Biden (now Harris) should be beaten worse that Carter.
But that all changed in 2020 when the dems stole the election in broad daylight. I have no faith that it won’t happen again in 2024.
Why would they need a path outside of fraud?
Abortion.
Currently Trump is leading in just about every swing state, and has more “win” and “leaning” electoral votes, per polling (for what that’s worth).
Most people are experiencing some level of economic malaise, crime is a concern, and immigration is a top two or three issue. Crime and the economy are traditionally the issues that elections turn on
The only issues the Dems have going for them are (1) abortion and (2) a DEI candidate (which basically just appeals to the pro-abortion crowd anyway).
As far as the main thing (personality) Trump’s negatives are lower than Harris’s. And she’s a terrible campaigner. The DemOp media’s reach and influence has been damaged/limited in recent years, which was one of the Dem’s main tools. They do still control Big Tech, which will count for something, maybe a lot.
So, yeah, outside of fraud, I don’t like the Dem’s chances.
It’s the economy, stupid
Harris can’t fix this.
Fraud is the only way she finishes first.
The media: “That pit bull wouldn’t have been biting orphans, were it not for Trump’s poisonous policies!”
I’m not convinced she’s even gonna be the one running. If they 25th Sundown this week and she becomes 47 I could see shenanigans come convention time.
Regardless of what happens to Gropey Joe, I expect Shenanigans at the convention.
There’s been a Biden sighting.
Does that mean six more weeks of campaign season?
LOL six weeks too many
How’s your rage level today? Feel at all like backing the blue?
To protect and serve (and shoot granny in the face)
Don’t worry Kamala is on it!
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/23/kamala-harris-sonya-massey-killing-police-reform
(Restricted video at work, but I’m assuming this is the topic.)
That’s it.
Archive link
In that case though, Chauvin and the rest got railroaded. This isn’t the same at all.
Chauvin got what he deserved.
I thought so until I watched The Fall of Minneapolis.
As I recall, the Breonna Taylor cops were charged and tried.
What a shock. Facial hair and arm tatts.
Right off the bat, just bad. Maybe there is some backstory on why the deputies have such a dickish attitude from the get go; but does not excuse what played out.
Other activities were also prosecuted, and, this morning, twelve years later, we watched the latest stage together and thought about Freedom and how nice it is not to work on the Fourth and drank iced tea all day.
🙂
Congress reasserts authority
Democratic senators plan to introduce legislation Tuesday that would effectively overturn a Supreme Court ruling last month that imposed new limits on federal agencies when they issue regulations about a wide variety of issues, including the environment and consumer protection.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., will introduce a bill that would restore the previous standard under which federal agencies had some leeway to interpret the law when they issued regulations under statutes that are ambiguously written. It has the backing of nine other Democratic senators, as well as Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.
“Giant corporations are using far-right, unelected judges to hijack our government and undermine the will of Congress,” Warren said in a statement Tuesday.
The legislation, she said, would “bring transparency and efficiency to the federal rule-making process” and “make sure corporate interest groups can’t substitute their preferences for the judgment of Congress and the expert agencies.”
For some reason I suspect none of that is true.
Why are they so determined to give away the authority granted Congress by the Constitution?
Because they don’t want a voting record to run on/against.
Would require them to actually do their jobs and my guess is K-Street is hammering them with calls.
And can be thwarted by the opposition in Congress instead of just being effected by the cultural allies in the bureaucracy.
a voting record
Yes they do – they want a vote that shows their good intentions. Results don’t matter.
Narrator: None of that is true, given that Senator Warren is a raging commie.
I’m not sure they can overturn it via legislation, seeing as it’s a Constitutional issue (mainly, the courts, not agencies, have the last word on what statutes mean).
Well they pass it anyway, first ‘standing’ case is another 2-4 years out, winds through courts, finally back at SCOTUS in 6 or so years; rinse, repeat, start all over again.
Chief Justice Obama with the majority opinion…
Giant corporations are using far left un-elected bureaucrats to undermine up-and-coming potential competitors, i.e. regulatory capture.
I think that is more accurate.
Liberals defended Chevron because of the flexibility it gave regulators in tackling issues like climate change. They say the Supreme Court, often skeptical of federal regulations, has effectively given itself more power by taking it away from federal agencies.
——-
It would also bolster agency rule-making power in other ways, with provisions aimed at streamlining the often-lengthy process, which allows industry and other interested groups to submit public comments.
Rule by incontestable administrative decree. If that’s not democracy, what is?
It’s Our Democracy. That’s not the same as democracy.
Bob Menendez to resign Aug 20.
Does that give NJ time to appoint someone to fill his office and keep the 50-50 split?
Yes. Question is if they will give it to the presumptive Team Blue winner Andy Kim. He bucked the part to run and the party elders are not happy with him not letting Murphy’s wife take position.
Team Red has about as much chance of winning in November in NJ as Biden does now.
Old but still hilarious.
So, the question that come to mind . . . . Did Harris hire staff of immature twits who can’t write a proper speech? Or are the speech writers competent, but know that Harris is an immature twit that needs to be written down to?
or both, of course
Or is she one of those people who thinks they are smarter than the underlings? 5 out of 47 is a pretty bad survival rate. It wouldn’t shock me to find out she disregards her people and serves up her word salads.
Unburdened by what has been.
No one writes their own speeches. That’s what the hire help is for.
Yeah, somebody said she’s a perfect example of a midwit.
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Midwit
Hard to argue.
Playing the “Devil’s Advocate” some of what she has been quoted saying was very out of context. The “I’m wearing a blue suit” statement was because she was speaking at a meeting with disability rights leaders in the 2022 clip, and conveyed to the blind people present her gender and what she was wearing. It’s a strange way to converse, but it makes more sense with the context.
At the same time the woman speaks like a 10 year old on occasion. As Tundra indicated: It wouldn’t shock me to find out she disregards her people and serves up her word salads.
I suspect she has decent speechwriters, but whenever anything crosses her mind that she thinks is profound or insightful or otherwise makes her look smart (in her mind), she just barfs it out regardless, on account of she’s just so smert and in touch with little people, or something.
“conveyed to the blind people present her gender and what she was wearing”
Were there even blind people present? I recall that being a fad for awhile, at any meeting.
And even if there were, what difference does it make what she’s wearing. And are blind people too stupid to know if it’s a man or a woman talking? The whole thing, including her delivery, just drips with smug condescension.
I knew that about the “blue suit” comment being for the visual impaired.
I believe her oft-cited “Ukraine is a small country…” speech was a response to being asked to explain it in very simple terms. So she did.
But nothing explains why she trots out the “unburdened by what has been” line dozens and dozens of times.
But nothing explains why…
Oh that is just about the revolution – the liberation from all that is past. It is the unlimited vision of the anointed.
Trump barfs up lots of incomprehensible word salads too. Is there no way a principled person with good oratorical skills can rise to the top?
“…unburdened by what has been…” is a reference to year zero. They always follow the same playbook.
I’m not sure they can overturn it via legislation, seeing as it’s a Constitutional issue (mainly, the courts, not agencies, have the last word on what statutes mean).
What if they add “Not subject to judicial review” to the law. That should work.
The “No Backsies” clause.
The courts are too much of a crap shoot for total concentration of power to exist so the courts must be neutered.
https://www.wesh.com/article/boeings-starliner-mission-exceeds-battery-window/61665237
Boeing and NASA’s Starliner mission has exceeded the 45-day battery window being docked at the International Space Station.
The capsule was initially approved to stay at the ISS for up to 45 days but since no date has been set for the astronauts’ return, the stay has been extended indefinitely, and NASA and Boeing say the batteries are performing well aboard the capsule.
The spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station on June 6. Monday marked 46 days since they’ve been there.
While Sunday was the end of the 45-day window the mission was approved for, NASA and Boeing have said the batteries are performing and the capsule is safe to stay past that window at the ISS.
Don’t you worry bout a thing . . . . .
They are getting valuable data. If they return now all of the problematic parts in the module will be lost during reentry.
– Boeing PR
This way they can keep turning valves off and get precise measurements of exactly how over temperature and how much He they are losing. It will help with the inevitable lawsuit with Rocketdyne.
“I’m calling about your capsule’s extended warranty…”
BRILLIANT!
Is Elon going to have to rescue them?
I wonder if the DEI crowd would rather let the crew die, replace them with look-alikes to fake success than let Musk rescue them.
Eggs, omelets and all that.
Google nooz Kamala Harris links are all accompanied by photos of her smiling. They’re scary. Like the wicked witch preparing to slide Hansel and Gretel into the oven.
Or a, you know, laughing hyena.
Boeing and NASA’s Starliner mission has exceeded the 45-day battery window being docked at the International Space Station.
Don’t they have a solar battery charger? Harbor Freight sells them.
They actually do. It is the ISS itself and its panels. It’s on “shore power”. The design calls for running on shore power for up to 6 months, but this flight was only certified for 45 days.
Wouldn’t it be interesting if Jimmy Carter outlived Joe Biden?
Jimmy Carter…further evidence that only the good die young.