Mid-Thursday Update

Today the stage comes down the coast on the PCH past Big Sur, potentially one of the most picturesque stages in cycling. However, it's been pissing down rain all day, it's nasty cold, and the riders have been grinding away into the teeth of a 30 mph cross-headwind. Just an ugly, ugly day. Right now it's looking like the peloton will probably wind up being well over an hour overdue into San Luis Obispo.

Danielson just abandoned. Half the Gerolsteiner team never showed up for sign-in, as there's a virus going around amongst the riders. The same virus knocked Farrar out of the race yesterday while he was in the yellow jersey. I felt bad for him, he seems like a nice young guy, and he was absolutely over the moon on Tuesday at the podium presentation. I like to see young athletes getting some props to encourage them, especially bike racers, because this sport is just so unbelievably hard. People who haven't raced just can't begin to conceive how truly harsh this sport is. I'm a lowly Cat 4; part of the reason I keep racing is because it always amazes me how hard I have to train and how hard I have to race just to finish 25th out of 40 guys. Every race is a rediscovery of how unbelievably hard this sport is.

We have very limited footage today because the aircraft relaying the video signals have had problems staying in the air due to the atrocious weather. The reason I've got time to post an update in the middle of the day is because we have no pictures at all at the moment, so everyone in TV world took a break.

At least lunch was good here in the TV compound. Chef's salad today, my favorite lunch.

For those readers who get VERSUS network, don't expect much of a show tonight. Even if the pictures were perfect (and they are far from it), there's no racing to show. The riders are just out there hudded together, trying to survive.

Rain is forecast for the rest of the week.