3,000 Water Bottles for Team Milram...and they'll probably run out

Michael Zellmann of SRAM somehow is penning a column for Chicago Now. It's not like he'll be giving press to SRAM-sponsored teams or anything.

OK, this story has to do with team Milram, a SRAM-sponsored team. And what goes into having a team at the tour. He lists the gear needs of the team in this article. Milram is the milk product name of Nordmilch, which specialized in "curds" among other things.

The Tour can be on your iPhone or Pod Touch

This is what our weary, over-busy world needs. The Tour Live on their iPhone!

I received this headline, but so far, the link isn't working. The tech is via NOS, the Dutch public broadcaster.

Power Junkies, your site is ready

If you live and die by your data download and your powermeter, then you'll get a kick out of seeing power files from Tour riders. Training Peaks, a power data intrepretive program, sponsors a number of teams and will be giving the world some peeks at Training Peaks files of sponsored riders. TP sponsors the Saxo Bank team as well as Team Columbia. Every day, they'll be putting up a few power files, so you can see what the big boys are actually doing during each stage. After reading the files, you'll know exactly watt's up when the racers throw down.

http://home.trainingpeaks.com/races/2009-tour-de-france-files.aspx

Trainspotting at the Tour

To me, the Tour is, among other things, the biggest product launch for the bike world. And with countless company flacks and thousands of journalists, they should be uncovering every last bit of gear. If a team is riding re-labeled stuff, we should be hearing of it. If Lance has special handlebar tape, it is big news to bike sites.

So, it is a surprise to me that no one has thusfar commented on Astana's wheels. Bontrager, a Trek label, supplies the wheels. However, the team has been rolling on conventionally-spoked deep-dish wheels this Tour. It appears that Bontrager/Trek has abandoned the paired spoke technology that Trek has utilized since it was selling Rolf wheels in the 90s. So far, there's no explanation anywhere.

The second oddity is Fabian Cancellara's Specialized S-Works Shoes. Specialized has been making hay about how their pro riders don't get custom shoes, they get what the public can get. But a close look at Fabian's slippers reveals that he's running two Boa knobs and no Velcro strap at the bottom, unlike the rest of the team or public. Does Spartacus pull out unless he's got a second line of fishing wire holding his feet in place?

TdF Live and on the web and no copyright violation

Versus is doing it here: http://www.versus.com/tourdefrancelive. There are both free and paid versions. The paid is "enhanced."

Tour Fever: sort of in stores

I've gotten some questions lately as to where to score a copy of Tour Fever. It could be at your local bookstore, but the way most bookstores deal with books, it's hard to say for sure. I regained the rights to the book and have been planning an updated edition, just haven't found the time to finish the updating. Poor timing, I know.

I have tried to track down the remaindered copies, which were sold to a company that specializes in remaindered books. Figured I could offer them online. For some reason, they have them randomly sorted on pallets of books. Those pallets haven't been opened and thus the company doesn't know where they are and thus can't sell them.

In the meantime, I recommend going through AbeBooks. Independent booksellers and used booksellers use the site to sell their wares. You can definitely find copies there. I think Amazon owns Abe these days.