After winning the time trial on day 13, Tadej consolidated his first place in general classification and brought his tally of TdF stage wins to 21. Don’t think it will take many more years for him to break Cavendish’s record of 35 stage wins.
This view gives an idea of the size of these mountains. The tallest peak here is Jungfrau at about 13000 ft. (Still less than half of Mt. Everest.) We visited the glacier at the left edge of the picture that sits at 11,333 ft.
This view of the Lauterbrunnen valley was the inspiration for JRR Tolkien when he conjured up Rivendell in “The Lord of the Rings”.
The super hard stage 10 on Bastille day was won by Simon Yates and Ben Healy grabbed the yellow jersey away from Pogacar. Not sure how long it will stay away as Tadej and other GC contenders will be racing hard in the mountainous second week of TdF after today’s rest day.
What a fantastic effort by Mathieu van der Poel and Rickart on stage 9 of TdF!!! The duo was ahead for 150+ kms. MdvP was finally caught in the last km and Tim Merlier pulled off a second stage win ahead of Milan. I guess the sprinters can take a back seat till the last day on Champs-Elysees.
Stage 8 of TdF had a flat finish in Laval; made for a bunch sprint. With Philipsen out of the tour, Jonathan Milan doesn’t have much competition but Wout van Aert almost pulled ahead of Milan at the finish line. Girmay got caught in the bunch and finished 10th. Another sprint day on stage 9.
Stained glass windows and the pipe organ at Fraumunster in Zurich. The green, blue and yellow windows (+2 more not seen here) were made by the artist Marc Chagall in 1970. This church was founded and has been around since the year 853.
On day 7 of TdF the riders faced Mur de Bretagne at the end of the stage. Tadej Pogacar claimed his 19th TdF stage win and 101st professional win to get back in the yellow jersey. Several riders were injured in a crash which spared the top contenders in the general classification.
In the stage 6 of Tour de France, the breakaway succeeded over that hilly terrain. Ben Healy won the stage but, van der Poel finished ahead of Pogacar to get a 1 second lead and claim the yellow jersey back. This is turning out to be an exciting race even before getting to the mountains.
After stage 5 time trial in the Tour de France, Tadej Pogacar is at the top of 3 out of 4 classifications of the competition. He is missing out on young rider jersey as he is now 26 years old. We are watching a cycling GOAT in action!!! 🚴♂️🐐
Cygnus wall in NGC7000. Really like how all the details of dark nebulosity showing here.
🔭WO UC108
📷ZWO ASI2600MC-Duo
Optolong LeNhance dualband filter
35x3 min
Processed using SIRIL
Single 3 minute frame of the Ring nebula (M57) in Lyra. This is a shell of gas expelled by a dying star. In the cropped version the remains of that star, a white dwarf, can be seen at the center of the ring.
Great night for astrophotography. Guiding is working great with total RMS error of 0.3-0.4 arcsec. Capturing another hour of lights on M13.
The weather for this Fourth of July ride on Airline trail was fantastic. Temps in 60s and 70s with all the nice shade along the trail felt really good.
