Tour of Hermann and The Bitter Cost of Vanity

The GEEC and I couldn't help but head to Hermann yesterday to take in the Tour of Hermann Stage 3 road race, as by my estimation, there were quite a few COMO cyclists competing and we were eager to see the throw down.  I will have a more complete report of some observations later in the week and apologize for the delay in reporting - but the GEEC had the arduous task of being on camera duty and temporarily misplaced the camera in between the consumption of maibocks and hefeweizens on the loading dock of the Tin Mill Brewery.  I'm pretty sure the bartender recovered it for us, however, and is sending it our way presently.  Hope she didn't look at photos #24 though 45, however.......ANYWAY.  You've likely already heard, but COMO should be proud of our kids.  Check it:

The best finish of the day was in the Women's Open competition where Pam Hinton took 1st place with a time of 3 hours and 12 minutes.  Then the Men's PRO 1/2,  saw two COMO cyclists finish in the top 10.  Daniel Miller finished highest (barely missing a podium finish) with 4th place, and Dave Henderson took 6th after he competed the previous day taking 3rd in the time trial, and 4th in the crit.  The PRO 1/2 event also saw Ethan Froese finish a strong 12th (after finishing 9th in the crit the day before) and Lawrence Simonson take 15th despite a hard crash in one of the final corners.   In the 40+ category, Tracy Smith took 7th place, and in the 50+, Ron Sapp snagged 6th.  In the Cat 4/5, CBC rider Colin Mayhan took 6th.  Congrats guys!  Honestly, I got tired just watching them.

In other, far less interesting news, Mark Cavendish is opening up a bit in cyclingnews about his recent struggles.

"It might not be this year but I know I can get back, and then no-one will remember this...."

Of course, many of Cavs problems this season involved some dental work he had completed which resulted in subsequent infections.  He spoke about this as well.

When did non-Paraguayan people start travelling to Paraguay to have dental work done?  Has dentistry in the UK finally declined that much?  Maybe so...

After the most recent backlash I suffered at the hands of amputee porn-stars and some readers of last Friday's post, the last thing I want to do is offend a bunch of Paraguayan (or British) Orthodontists, so am not blaming them per se.....but it's still a little weird.  He continued on about his dental issues.

"If I could turn back time, I would stick with my teeth [laughs], I am not normally vain but that was the one thing that got me," he said.

Yes - the typically quiet, and non-vain Cavendish seems to have learned a powerful lesson regarding the cost of vanity.  At any rate - Cavs is getting reorganized regarding his game plan for the rest of this season and beyond:

"Long term, I want to expand my thing."

First the teeth, now the "thing"....I wonder how long the setback from that will be?