A wave from the TourWritten by Craig McGinty
IT takes hours of map reading and meticulous attention to detail to ensure a successful Tour de France, and that’s just spectators. I had prepared and planned out a route that would land me close to end of stage 11 of Tour, a 164km trip for cyclists from Saint Flour to Figeac. But thousands of other people had same idea so it was a slow crawl through streets of Figeac, in Lot, before I found myself about 7km from end of race. The village of Saint Jean Mirabel had come out in force with good luck messages and flags set up beside route, and even a giant poster suspended between three tractors. Then as leader approached, with helicopters buzzing in air, cheers from spectators began to grow. A small figure, hunched over his bicycle suddenly came into view at top of road, dwarfed by police motorcycles, television cameras and official cars beside him. And before my camera could focus he was gliding by in a bubble of complete concentration, his machine silently cutting through wind. Then crowd caught its breath, preparing for arrival of pursuing pack, or peloton. But before they arrived there was a battle for second and third place taking place as two men shot past in a blur of orange, blue and white. Five minutes later peloton appeared at top of road with police sirens blaring and another helicopter hovering close by in clear, blue sky. This was a much nosier affair with fans screaming for their favourites and rush of air like a passing truck, full of sounds of gear changes and rubber on road. If leading cyclists are like small fish, darting off through rocks, peloton is an all-consuming wave that crashes down on leaders who falter.
| | Finally Got My Fishing Boat On The River!Written by NLCATFISH
First fishing trip with boat in 2004!!Finally got my boat in river for 2004. Launched from The FREE ramp at Cincinnati Public landing. Checked out spots that I was shown last October by a fishing guide. With my depth finder saw how deep holes were. I also checked out another hole a guy told me about last week. I caught 4 cats total 2 channels and 2 blues. Channels were 3.6 and 2.7 pound. The one blue was 2.6 pounds. baby blue was about 7 inches long. It is good to see blues having offspring so there will be more blues in this section of Ohio River in future. I did have one of hardest runs ever; that fish just had my clicker running without stop. When I put my finger down to stop line it almost cut me. I was in 50 feet of water and I tighten down my drag but it had little effect. he just stayed down and headed down river. I set hook and held on till I got him turned. I got a couple turns of reel and felt him and knew he was BIG! Tightened drag some more to get leverage to try to get him up off bottom. Had him for a few more turn before he wrapped me on some type of sang! Never saw him for my line broke on snag.
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