Lance Armstrong finished just short of 2 minutes behind the winner of the Leadville 100 mountain bike race today.  Six-time defending champion Dave Wiens finished in 6 hours, 45 minutes, 45 seconds; 1 minute and 56 seconds in front of Armstrong.

[Via SI.com]

CPA staff Cathi Cannon also raced Leadville today.  She finished in 12:46.  Way to go Cathi!

Last month South Carolina passed new bicycling safety legislation aimed at those who travel with their feet instead of by gas. The new law provides some of the same protection to cyclists as those who travel in vehicles.

This new law hits pretty close to home as a friend of Checkpoint Adventures, Jim Kelleher, was recently hit by a car while cycling in South Carolina. Fortunately for Jim, he seemed to come out of the accident relatively unhurt. The same can’t be said for his bike though.

While I’m very excited to see some of our neighbors increase bicycling laws, when will we see similar improvements in the roads we travel? My recent experience in Europe really highlighted how pour the Atlanta biking infrastructure really is. I just hope it will improve sometime in my lifetime. I’m not holding my breath though.

If you’re like me and stuck at work while the Tour de France is live, at least you can listen online. Just head on over to Eurosport’s Tour de France page. Go down the page about half way and click the button on the right side of the page labeled “Live audio”.

I find the flat stages a little boring to listen to, but the mountains provide lots of action. My top three TDF GC contenders (in no particular order): Evans, Sastre, Valverde.