tombeej

Here we go!

Porte riding like a legend! He's riding them across to Quintana. Froome to launch in the last 2km?

Ritchie has too many kay's to try protect Froome. That couldn't have been in Skys plans.

Does Quintana write the first lines of the story of a future climbing legend today? Let's see...

The curse of the second-placed cyclist By Richie Porte 13 July 2013 I'm starting to think second place on the Tour de France general classification this year might be cursed. Three riders who have held that position since the Tour began in Corsica last Saturday week have since been put out of the race. One of them, my Norwegian teammate Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky), who was placed second overall through stages 6 and 7 before I took over the position on stage 8 to Ax 3 Domaines, has been literally put out of the race due to injuries from his crash late in Thursday's 13th stage. I fell from second at 51 seconds to my teammate and race leader Chris Froome to 33rd place on stage 9 to Bagneres de Bigorre when Movistar and Saxo-Tinkoff drove the pace after I was dropped following an attack on the first major climb by Spaniard Alejandro Valverde (Movistar). Then on Friday, Valverde dropped from second place at 3mins 25secs to 16th at 12mins 10secs, after he had a mechanical problem and was never able to rejoin the key group of overall contenders that had been split courtesy of some quick thinking and hard riding by several teams. It may be worth keeping an eye on Dutchman Bauke Mollema (Belkin) who is now sitting second. This Tour is really producing some surprises though and, with the third and hardest week still to come, I reckon we're in store for more. Obviously, Friday was not a great day for us with 'Froomey' losing some time, but hats off to Saxo-Tinkoff for their move with about 32km to go in the cross winds. They were really well organised, had strength in numbers and made best use of the conditions and opportunity that arose. And yes, we didn't have the numbers. I lost contact with about 40km to go and obviously, in hindsight, I was needed by my team; but in the back of my mind I was thinking my job is next week in the mountains. To be honest, I also didn't expect what happened in the end to happen. It was a little disappointing because I made that first split and that is the hardest one to make. But from there it just never really stopped racing. And yes ... we are lucky once more that Chris is Chris and he didn't lose too much time to his rivals when it could have been disastrous. Typically, he was still in good spirits when he got back to the hotel – long after us from all his post stage podium protocols and media commitments. He is as fit as a fiddle, feels fresh and is looking forward to getting into the big mountains, the first of which is Mont Ventoux on Sunday. Sunday, stage 15, will be a big day. We are up for it. We will have to be. And with it being Bastille Day, I'm sure every Frenchman will be up for it too. Maybe Saxo-Tinkoff will be pretty tired after their efforts on Friday? I know you can't bank on that, but you can hope. We will find out soon enough. Either way, by Sunday night, the challenge for every rider and team in the last week that includes the Alps and another time trial will be much clearer.

Ja, unlike the bad old days where the top guys never had a bad day, these riders are more 'human' again. A rider might have a stormer today, but if they burnt too many matches, tomorrow the wheels could fall off. So whose legs are going to fail them today? Nowhere to hide on that mountain. If you're slightly off you'll lose lots of time.

David Millar: "Ventoux is always scary. It's going to be horrible for everyone." Chris Froome: "A lot of people have reason to attack now. A lot of people spent energy in the last couple of days so it will be an interesting one." Alberto Contador: "The first time I climbed it, my heart almost came out of my mouth. The first part is a steep slope. The second part is exposed to a lot of wind, mainly blowing toward you. If you have a bad day on this climb you can lose a lot of minutes." Michal Kwiatkowski: "It's such a legendary mountain. I'm a little bit scared about it."

Huge crowds expected on the Giant... Andrew Hood ‏@EuroHoody17h Media reports that 1 million fans are converging on Mont Ventoux ... Bastille Day on Ventoux should be bonkers @nealrogers

Going to be hot today... PHILIPPE GILBERT ‏@PhilippeGilbert15h Tomorrow 242 km . With mont ventoux, and 32 to 34 degrés! Just that after 2 weeks.

Iban Mayo set the Ventoux record of 55'51" during a climbing time trial stage in the 2004 Dauphiné Libéré. The Ventoux Master Series is held in May every year. The rules are simple: you climb the mountain as many times as you can in 24 hours. You are allowed to do the descents in a vehicle and you can choose which routes you take up the mountain. To become a Ventoux Master you need to make a minimum of 5 ascents in 24 hours. A local called Jean Pascal Roux climbed Ventoux an astonishing 11 times in 24 hours starting from Bédoin in May 2006.

Here's a picture from the top looking down to the valley floor below (that's where the road to le Mont Ventoux comes from). It really captures how big that climb is. From the start of the climb at Bédoin to the top @ 1911m is a vertical altitude gain of 1598m in 20.8km at an average gradient of 7.5%. Yes, they climb a vertical mile into the sky with no letup. Today is going to bust this tour wide open. I have no doubt that every GC contender is waking up this morning genuinely nervous (I wonder how many didn't get any sleep). Probably not the same level of fear for the autobus - they've already accepted it will just be a day of pain and survival, nothing more.

Well today is the big day. I woke up this morning at 04h00 like I used to do as a lighty on Christmas morning. It's going to be epic (Grumpy, every climb up the Giant is dramatic ), I cannot wait for it to start. The minutes are going to drag by all day. I'm going to have to keep myself busy otherwise it's going to be a long one until proceedings start.

Foods high in Omega 6 PUFAs here. And more on the subject, including Soy here.

Remember there are two main types of polyunsaturated fatty acids: 6's and 3's (let's leave 9's out of the discussion for now). Sources of omega 3 PUFA's are fatty fish, eggs, plants such as flaxseed, etc. Sources of omega 6 PUFA's are basically your vegetable oils. Keep consumption of these as low as possible. Only consider plant oils such as coconut oil, olive oil, etc. The worst are our main cooking oils like sunflower oil, canola oil, and then our regular favourite foods like peanut oil (peanut butter), etc. So if you follow a LCHF diet and do all your cooking in sunflower oil, you're not doing yourself any favours at all. You're probably enduring a significant inflammatory response to this overload without realising it. And looking at the modern diet of fast foods: well, besides all the white bread and starches (slap chips), the other big poison people are eating is all the Omega 6 PUFAs in the cheap and nasty sunflower oil used in the deep fryers. A killer combination. As we've said before, just as there are good carbs & bad carbs, the same is very true of fats. Top of the list of the Bad fats are trans fats/hydrogenated vegetable oils. Not too far behind those nasties are the vegie oils very high in omega 6 PUFAs. Here's a nice article on PUFAs. Edit: toned it down a bit

In other words, the findings are saying "Remove omega 6 polyunsaturated fats from your diet (or at least significantly reduce it) and don't think you can just count on taking omega 3 supplements to fix the problem, because it won't."

Here's the research on omega 3 supplements 'doing more harm than good': But take note of how the study was conducted: used on mice who are already on a high polyunsaturated omega 6 (vegetable oil) diet. And the findings: “Our hypothesis is that levels of omega 6 are so high in our bodies that any more unsaturated fatty acid — even omega 3, despite its health benefits — will actually contribute to the negative effects omega 6 PUFA have on the heart and gut,” said Ghosh. “When there is too much [polyunsaturated fatty acid], the body doesn’t know what to do with it.” So the finding is more about the (already known) fact that high levels of polyunsaturated fats are bad for you. The only interesting thing for me here is that trying to supplement with omega 3's doesn't cancel out the obvious health hazards of omega 6 polyunsaturated vegetable oil.

Omega 3's are the good ones (come from fish, often supplements, etc). Omega 6's are the bad ones (actually not bad in themselves, just that we get far too much of them in the western diet). Omega 6:3 ratio should be almost 1:1. Our regular diets have it skewed way out... up to 20:1.

Maybe RodTi should book a visit with htone's cardiologist for a 2nd opinion, you folks are in the same general area...?

ja, ditto to all of that

Huge value, htone. I've been one of those people talking a good game about LCHF and n=1, but until I get a BG test kit that's all it is - just talk. We all keep banging the drum that our bodies are all different, respond differently to types of carbs, etc. We all know this concept, but that's often as far as our limited knowledge goes. Unless we are measuring our own body's insulin response to foods, we're just staggering around in the dark. It's time to really start living n =1 on a daily basis to really know how my body works and how it responds to foods. I'm going to start this weekend.

12 days is still early, Marge, so don't be discouraged. Your body is still trying to hold on to it's old carb-fuelled ways right now, and hasn't started to adapt to the process of selecting fat as its preferred fuel source. This takes a little time. In my own case, weight loss was very slow initially (some people have experienced big numbers early, but that's mostly just water loss and not true weight loss). This is what my progress kinda looked like over a year when dropping from 97 - 80kg (graph below). Started out slow, but after a couple of months the weight loss was steady month after month. I've stabilised at around 80 - 81 kg now and loving life. Some other things to keep in mind re. this change are the other benefits, such as sustained energy all day, etc, etc.

If you end up at Winston Park you'll have direct access to Giba Gorge without having to ever drive your car there. There's a trail that runs from St Helier rd down into the forest, following the Giba river right into the mountain bike trails. Some nice walking trails in that forest too where bikes can't go. A lekker suburb.

HMT, don't let the protein intake lag too much. You do heavy mileage so need more than the rest of us. I'm taking to more fatty biltong these days. Also, I'm eating lots of bacon in butter at the moment, and want to start cooking more with lard/ghee. Helps to up the saturated fat content without the risk of increased polyunsaturates (and omega 6's) from plant fats if you're too generous with the helpings of macnut butter, etc.

I can see myself doing all sorts of lekker weird science on myself with a toy like that

I think I've got to get myself one of those BG testing thingamajigs.