glorious + gloriouser

This is the dog that Jozsi reminds me of. Now I've never met Tio in person, but if the little boy looks half as good as Tio does when he's working birds, we'll be all set. As you can tell, Tio doesn't live in the northeast. He and his relatively new brother, Chili, live in eastern NM -- and, coincidentally, Chili has a lot of Rebel Rouser blood in him like Jozsi.

The other two pieces of glory worthy of mentioning would be Vino's incredible win yesterday in the Queen Stage of the Tour. Sure, he's riding to save face and get Astana on TV, but it was an incredibly agressive ride -- and yes, he still has lots of bandages on his knee. (This pic is courtesy of Fotoreporter Sirotti.) I wonder if his performance would have yo-yo'ed quite so much if he hadn't crashed. Alberto Contador also rode a phenomenal stage -- and perhaps the credit should really go to Michael Rasmussen for withstanding the continuous attacks on his yellow jersey. I also wonder what would have happened if today's rest-day had been scheduled after tomorrow's finally hilly stage.

I remember from Lance's days that people grumbled about Tour winners who didn't win any stages in a given year. While both Contador and Rasmussen have, but there's a good chance that at least one of the other podium slots will be taken by someone who hasn't -- whether it's Levi Leipheimer, Cadel Evans, or Andreas Klöden (all of whom are good TT riders, incidentally). Whatever happens, the off-season trades will be very interesting... Evans could clearly win this race if he had a little more team behind him... if this is Vino's last TdF ride, at least two members of Astana could clearly be contenders... Discovery has perhaps found its next leader, assuming they're willing to entrust the Tour to a relatively young guy.