Sweet.. Max takes the stage today at Benelux, with Roger doing a great lead-out. According to Eurosport, Roger did a huge pull and led Max into the sprint, where he won by a bike length. The Sunday Stage 4 fiasco has brought some pretty bad publicity to the Eneco tour. One course marshal, it sounds like, walked away from his post and created the mess. Sure sounds like an area where there needed to be three or four marshals to direct the racers...

For the races where I’m in charge of the course marshals, I always try to have at least two marshals in key intersections. However, I sure do understand what it’s like to be so short of volunteers that there are just not enough to cover all the spots. For example, this year at the SF Grand Prix, I doubt that we will have course marshals every five feet all the way up Fillmore and Taylor - we just need them elsewhere on the course, where there are key intersections and no barricades. The purpose of course marshals is rider safety and public safety, and not providing prime viewing spots....

The Timpani Crit had a huge turnout yesterday - 500-600 racers, I think. I haven’t heard the actual count yet. There were a lot of crashes on the first turn - lots of skin on the pavement and lots of pavement under the skin: elbows, fingers, legs and butts... The turn is a clear, wide-open area, not some tricky chicane... Our on-site medical doctor was kept busy. The last lap of the last race had a big crash, and I ended up assisting the doctor while she cleaned up some really painful road rash on a guy. His kit was destroyed and he was bandaged from the neck down. He’s in a world of hurt today, for sure...

It was cool to see Vincent Gee (a wrench for our DC team and a good pal) show up at Timpani. He did two races as training and looked real good. He was wearing his Championship World Master’s Two-Man Time Trial kit that he won in Manchester almost a year ago. He told me that he gets to wear it for one more month, and then the year is up. After that, he can wear the rainbow stripes on his sleeve and neckband. I took the photo while he was speeding easily around the infamous Turn One, or Carnage Curve...

Oh, I almost forgot the Monday Morning Lance Armstrong Sirius Faction Radio Show Report: Re-run of the show the day after Paris-Nice, where Lance was in Europe and Higgs was in Atlanta... Third time around, I think...