Vuelta - thank heaven for Rest days...

...as it gives me time to catch up with posting about what's been happening.

I have to start with the truly horrible camera-work that we are suffering - Eurosport keep on telling us that it's not their fault, they are just relaying the images that they are receiving. Does that  mean that everyone else in the world has to watch the last grand tour of the year rotating between these equally un-lovely colour schemes:

1) Camera Bike 1 at the head of the race: all orange kits have gone brown.
2) Helicopter: pulsing colour so the trees go bright green... then dull green ... then BRIGHT green.... then dull green....
3) Camera Bike 2 on the peloton - dull colours and somewhat out of focus.
4) Camera Bike 3 - floating around - BRILLIANT TECHNICOLOUR so bright that the blue of the Andalucia team actually hurts the eyes.

The only point of note in stage 2 was spotting JVS with his sleeves rolled up, yay!

Then for some reason - ie there not being enough hours in the weekend - we jump straight to Vuelta Stage 6. Look, there's a Garmin rider with his sleeves tucked up. "JVS!" I squee. Hang on, he's nowhere near tall enough. Errrr, it's a different Garmin rider! What's going on, are they doing this to tease me? Or has JVS - also known as Garmin 2 - started a trend within the team? We will probably never know..

Stage 7 - well, nothing of interest happened, and LLB and I were getting a bit distracted by the scenery. If you can call it that. Barren..... bare earth.... olive trees! More bare earth.... dead grasses..... olive trees!

Stage 8 starts with the news that Tyler Farrar is out, he had a bad crash the previous day and probably shouldn't have even tried to start this day, but you know what these cyclists are like ("supermen") and they will insist on riding if not actually dead. So Barbie Barbie is off the leash! And there he is, out there in the break. Go, Barbie Barbie! (In case you've forgotten, Heinrich Hausler is sometimes known as Barbie, and a superbly talented and amusing fan made a Barbie Barbie doll... and a sort of live-action-with-dolls-cartoon-strip.  Actually, the "making of" page is even more fascinating.... )

Today, we have an addition to the Terrible Camerawork: the main BikeCam has a big smudge on the lens, just to the right of the centre. It's a bit like that CCTV footage of vandals and burglars, where their faces are fuzzed out to protect their privacy. I have no idea why random, and ever-changing, cyclists need to have their privacy protected.

No wonder la Vuelta is considered rather a lesser race than the Giro and the Tour - if they can't even get decent pictures out, well!  Our Eurosport commentators are suggesting that the Eneco Tour is going to be "bigged up" and the Vuelta reduced to two weeks of racing. I am beginning to think this might be a good idea - thinking back to the excellent Eneco footage.

Awww, Anton, my favourite Carrot (Euskaltel), after struggling like a dog for the last few days, has suddenly popped up in 6th position! Go, Anton!

General observation: LLB and I are staggered at the parched, empty landscape of southern Spain.The land appears to be dry and barren, apart from the very neat rows of (presumably) olive trees: then there are some empty buildings in the middle of nowhere, which are presumably olive processing plants. At last - a village! Hmm, no-one in sight. Well, ok, it's siesta time, but I mean - no-one? Not a soul?  With a big cycle race occurring? 

And there don't seem to be any shops. How do they live? I am prepared to accept that maybe they have a simpler lifestyle than we do -  perhaps they buy a bag of flour once a month, and maybe veg from the local market (where is it grown?) each day or so, but still, you'd think there would still be a need for some sort of local shop, and I can't imagine it being anywhere other than on the main street.

LLB thinks that they are zombie towns.

Oh, here's another one: this one has a single line of rail track running into it. The track is as near to overgrown as you can get, in a situation where the weeds can't grow.... there are no cars, just more empty buildings and empty houses. How do they get to the olive processing factories, then? Walk? Cycle? Donkey? (didn't see any signs of donkeys, either.)

Aha, we're entering a biggish town. Hmm, population 25, and apparently all of them have turned out to see the race. They are cunningly all standing on the shady side of the street.

Out of the town and back through the dead landscape. There are small fields, with scrappy hedges around them, but nothing growing or grazing (no grass!) within them. Just the olive trees. How do they live? ("As zombies", says LLB)
("What do zombies eat?" I ask.)
("Each other" he replies.)
(I pull a face.)
("Passing cyclists?" I ask, facetiously)
("Oh yes," he replies cheerfully, "some of the lesser riders will never be seen again.")

Stage 9 is the TT, and it's a nice casual start for the riders, not much in the way of crowds. We can hear the man with the microphone desperately trying to whip the small audience up into a frenzy, somewhat like a children's TV presenter.

Jakob appears, and for once the wobbly, jittery, blacking-out-every-five-minutes camerawork stays steady long enough for us to see him lick his lips, then put his tongue out.

"Leelu will have that on her blog - ooh, any second now!" I say, looking at my watch.  [Pause while I go and check Just Fuglen: shock! horror! Leelu has failed to catch that moment! And here was me thinking that Lee and Nim were the acknowledged world experts on Jakob with his tongue out. Shame, ladies, shame...]

Well, as we all know, Jakob dropped a chain, but picked it up very quickly, almost before the mechanic could leap out of the car - we saw the door of the car opening - and he was away, "going like a train" as our commentators said.

Despite the heat, and the rising wind, Jakob did a fantastic TT and very nearly beat Fabu! Gosh, can you imagine what Fabu would say if he did? Actually, Fabian is such a great guy, I can imagine him actually being pleased for Jakob.

And then we have the rest day, and I get a chance to catch up with blogging.....