heywoodu

To be fair, they do need to look into making sure the stage doesn't finish in the dark if that actually were to be a potential issue, that's just a simple matter of basic safety. And no, "but 100 years ago they rode in the dark sometimes!" is no argument.

Delegation location 3 - Ermelo We travel westwards from Epe, north-west from Apeldoorn and find ourselves in Ermelo. Home of international equestrian events, road cycling sprinter Robbie McEwen's leadout man Aart Vierhouten and all kinds of other people. It's a place known for having several places for people with mental health problems, since 100-150 years ago people thought the peace and calm would help them and this has sort of remained. Much like in all of the Veluwe, there's rich history to be found here. On the open fields outside of the village, one can for example find the remnants of a two thousand year old Roman camp. Not even the first people to be there, since people from the east - up to the Balkan - already came to this area two thousand years prior. There's almost too much history to mention, but we will mention a field that has been uncovered in 1933: more than 300 Franconian graves were discovered, dated at around the year 600. Ermelo was the center of the Veluwe's church life long before the year 1000, much to my surprise their Old Church was already mentioned - albeit in a bit smaller form than it is now - back in 1006! One might guess the name Old Church didn't come out of nowhere...Last, but not least, we'll go a bit south into the forests, for the legend of the 'Solse Gat' ('the Hole of Sols'): legend has it a monastery was there in the woods, but the monks didn't behave and it sunk into the earth. Sometimes during the night, nowadays one can still hear the monastery's bells and the Satanic singing of the monks around what is now but a hole in the ground. A Roman dude, not a real one, guarding the location where a Roman camp was found The Old Church and an old car A child getting dangerously close to the Solse Gat, she might have never been heard of again apart from the legendary monk's devilish songs... Delegations in Ermelo Croatia Greece Portugal

A total of 10 nations are now listed as having completed their votes, three of the six multi-member juries have at least one member who has voted as well and so are officially in. Five more today and we're halfway

Olives and corn really are at the top of my list. Although bell peppers, which we call paprika, are not good neither. At least when mixed up in some dish with pasta and sauce and other vegetables and meat and such, it's alright since - unlike the dreaded olives and corn - it doesn't entirely take over the taste of every bite.

Would have had the Tourmalet, but the Vuelta has the same problem the Giro had: France. This has the potential to get interesting in the coming days though

If you move up your second reserve by two spots, it does get a point.

I thought it was a pretty awesome solo from Lampaert Mostly good to see Van der Poel was relatively alright, that crash into the ditch looked scary. And yeah, a ton of riders not finishing one-day races like this is common, but especially with these insane wind conditions (they shortened the race while they were halfway I believe, because it was getting too unsafe) it's understandable riders weren't feeling the need to finish when already 5+ minutes behind Races with weather like this are awesome. I remember a Gent - Wevelgem (or Dwars door Vlaanderen, or Omloop Het Nieuwsblad) where riders were blown into the fields next to the road, that was a bit much

The Tour was great? I mean, the final time trial was, but other than that it was Skybots all over again, just with more yellow instead of black..

To decide who gets to wear pink (with the same time), yes. They'll look at the .xx seconds in the time trials.

Three weeks of racing and the two leaders are going into the very last stage with the exact same time

That's easier said than done, especially with an absolutely unreal Dennis chasing him.

Hindley gave away valuable seconds because of not paying attention earlier, this time he wasn't sleeping

Thing is that's what he lost in the second half of the climb...a climb he'll have to do all over again. It seems rather unlikely to keep it within a minute (and that being enough is only if he's good tomorrow, which is...doubtful).

He's got another climb to go though.

Kelderman is breaking and Dennis is going too fast even for Hart.

Here's an example of what you can get in the local pancake restaurant here (yes, I very much like to drown it in syrup, the part that has most of it isn't shown)

60k to go, the deciding stage is about to start.

Closing in on Sestriere, let's go.

Sabalenka - Sorribes; 0-6, 0-4 and double break point for Sorribes to go 0-5 up.

Placing you in the palace was planned from the beginning Not all delegations can have a thought behind where they're being placed, but some do

Part of the Epe municipality, it was on the list for potential delegation locations until tonight Between Epe and Vaassen is actually where you'll find a lot of the mentioned burial mounds, I happened to come across them entirely by accident when cycling around there a few years ago.

Do let me know if you find yourself close to Epe, because then you'll also find yourself close to my town (and we have a pancake restaurant too, two even!)

Hindley lost only a bit more than a minute to Geoghegan Hart in the previous ITT though, and that one was double the length of Sunday's. I still think Kelderman is the favourite, mostly because tomorrow is not nearly as hard as it would have been without the changes and nothing compared to yesterday, and he's definitely the better time trial rider of the three. If he doesn't give up more than half a minute tomorrow, I think he'll take it. If not, Geoghegan Hart is my favourite since he's a better ITT rider than Hindley (though not by that much), and Hindley doesn't look strong enough to really put some time into him tomorrow in the not all too hard climbs. Then again, don't forget it wasn't Geoghegan Hart who broke Kelderman yesterday. It was an utterly alien Rohan Dennis, who went from being mediocre to leading them up the Stelvio faster than anyone ever before.

There's De Posthoorn, which is slowly closing in on it's 300 year anniversary (it's from 1736), most of which time it served as a cafe, restaurant, hotel and similar roles - mostly together. Fun fact: it was founded as what would be translated to 'The Orange Tree', a reference to the royal family. These references were however strictly forbidden by the French occupying authorities in the late 1700's, and so the name was changed to it's current name, translated loosely to 'The Postal Horn'. It's heydays were in the 1920's, when it was so popular and famous that guests who couldn't be placed in Het Loo Palace were often brought here.

Ah, right, I hadn't thought about children of course still being obligated to 'go to school', even when 'going to school' is online now