Here’s some photos from the Tour behind the scenes.

Trudi taking off on Monday to fly to Belgium.

Collecting stuff has already started.

The local car wash on Thursday afternoon before the race.

The new super stealthy BMC TT bikes for the race.

And the super fast new Bell TT helmets, in my kitchen, before being lugged over to France.

I just got back from a very short, hardly an hour, 20 mile ride and I lost 6 pounds. I wasn’t even going that hard. And, I drank one large water bottle. That is nuts. If this is the case on Saturday, I’m going to have to drink close to a gallon of water an hour just to keep my current weight. I don’t have any idea how many bottles that is, but it sure seems like I’m going to be water logged. The weather is extremely hot. And muggy. This weekend, in Lawrence, is going to be very hard. It is supposed to rain at night and be super hot during the day. Great.

Ben, where are those Ice Vests?

Virtually every roof in my neighborhood is being replaced. These guys have been at it since early this morning. I took this photo leaving to ride at about 4pm. I have no idea how they can function up there.