Stage 19 - Bomb's Away!

After yesterday's grueling ride my legs were trashed. Sixteen hours of resting, stretching and re-hydrating was not enough time for recovery. Makes you wonder how a slightly above average pro rider at the end of his career, say a guy like Levi Leipheimer, could win the toughest mountain stage of this year's Tour de France (he effectively won Stage 16 after Rasmoosen was kicked out), and then come back three hard days later and ride the fourth fastest time trial in Tour history. Really, doesn't that make you wonder?

For me, today's ride was not the fourth fastest in the history of Elvis' 50% of the Miles 100% of the Effort Tour de France challenge. Not by any measure. After three weeks of heavy riding my entire body is stiff and tight, my legs are swollen and weak and there can be no doubt that my hemocrit level is depressed. Sustained and repeated hard physical efforts can deplete red blood cells. This is one reason why in the pro cycling community clean guys are harmed in ways beyond the obvious. Clean riders have to expend enormous amounts of work just trying to keep up with the dopers. Every day is an over-extension of their abilities. This daily grind depletes their red blood cells and then their ability to output power is diminished. At the same time, the dopers are getting re-charged with new blood and/or EPO. This is why you will see the clean teams finish grand tours with few remaining riders, and those remaining riders have little energy in which to win stages - and dirty teams, of which I believe Discovery to be one of, finish three week races by having riders scorch the time trial course with four of the fastest seven times. Four of the top seven from one team? Makes you wonder.

Near the end of today's ride I hear a low flying jet. Really low. Sounds like a big jet going slow. Odd for Door County which is not on any major flight path. The sound is getting really loud and as I begin to think that something is amiss the sun is blotted out. I'm in a big shadow for a second or two. I look up and see something that I've never seen before, an Air Force B2 bomber cruising along at about 3,000 feet. It's a startling sight to be sure. Don't let those Al Qaeda videos fool you; when they talk tough about not being intimidated by American firepower they're lying. The B2 that I saw was a friendly and I didn't have to worry about daisy cutters dropping on my head - and it still made me shudder. Had it been a foe I would have dumped the bike and cowered in a ditch somewhere.

Here is roughly what I saw when I looked up;

And here is a glamour shot;

Turns out the Air Force was doing a couple of demonstration fly-by's at the Experimental Aircraft Association's fly-in that's held in Oshkosh, WI every year. I'm glad that there was a simple explanation for this unusual event. The mind can reel with unexplained alternatives.