New bike setup, Le Tour time and Aussies at the Giro Donne

It's been a big week. The highlight for me was waking up on Sunday to discover that Aussie Shara Gillow was leading the Giro Donne (women's Giro d'Italia) with Sharon Laws in 2nd. Both of these chicks are awesome riders, physiological freaks and hard workers, and it's great to see their hard work paying off. Very well deserved. Today they are in 4th and 5th GC with Marianne Vos back to her winning ways (ok, if an Aussie could lose to anyone, it'd be Vos. I'm ok with that.) There is a lot of the Giro to go though so anything can happen... and to see Shara and Sharon in such good form is a great sign for their GC prospects.

Second big event was the Tour de France kicking off on Saturday. What a cracking start. I think everyone (myself included) thought it'd be a big yawn with Contador dominating everything, but the 2 crashes in stage 1 put paid to that. Contador is now almost 2 minutes down after stage 2's TTT and he will have to pull something incredible out of the bag to claw that back. Anything's possible now in the Tour and that's what makes it so exciting. Unfortunately I picked Contador on my TdF tipping team and it looks like I'm doomed!

Third big event (well, for me, anyway) was flying to Adelaide to get a bike fit done with Brian Hayes at AIS track. It was awesome to go home, even if only for 20 hours! and Brian has made some changes to my bike setup which I am HOPING will eliminate my hip pain. Things went well on a bunch ride on Saturday with TE which was encouraging. It is early days yet and I should know over the next couple of weeks how my body is responding to the new position.

Phew! Lots of words. Sorry guys. More pictures and fun things on http://www.ridehappy.com.au/ - including Lisa's Mum's long-awaited commentary on the Tour de France!

Ride Happy