I wrote a post about how screwy it seems that these Tour contenders, such as Bradley Wiggins, take over a month off a couple times a season to just train. I personally can’t see being about to hold any form for that period of time by just riding.

I’ve always done the same thing. I train until I’m fit enough to race. Then I race and race to get into shape. It is easy. It is proven. It has been done for decades by thousands of pros.

Now, ever since Lance rode a total of maybe 12 (?) race days before winning the Tour one year, lots of guys seem to be disappearing for long periods. There are so many riders now, that you hardly miss the guys. It says here that Chris Anker Sørensen, Saxo Bank, is training at altitude for Tour de Suisse and the Tour. Man, with all these guys going MIA, the climbs in Tenerife must be much like trying to get to the top of Everest right now.

I think it is strange that in this day and age of exact science in training that the best riders could be so all over the map about whether it is better to race or not race to get into superior form. Tom Boonen said at the Tour of California that he was going to be flat because he hadn’t raced since the classics. And then Peter Sagan went and won just about every stage, even though he hadn’t raced since the classics.

There is an article at Velonation about Alexander Kolobnev. He had an issue with a diuretic and couldn’t race while they sorted that out. Then he had an accident and had to have surgery.

Anyway, he obviously hadn’t raced in a while. Kolobnev knows that he’s several months behind the other riders in terms of racing mileage. He wants to try to catch up and thus raise his form, and is receiving help from his team in that regard.

“I have asked to do as many races as possible in order to get back my rhythm,” he said. “My calendar is Trofeo Melinda, Gp D’Argovie, Tour de Swiss, National Championship, either the Tour de France or the Tour of Poland – we have to decide – then the Olympic Games.”

So, he is stressed that he doesn’t have the proper racing to allow his body to perform well in August, just all the guys that are trying to win the Tour and such, won’t have nearly as many race miles as he will.

My question is with all the testing that we have nowadays and the advancement of sports medicine, you’d think it would be proven which method is best. Because the methods are completely opposite. It seems like you could do power and blood testing and be able to figure out exactly where you are at every exact point during the season. “Resting” over a month seems extreme to me. Especially starting in April and when you’re winning races, resting, then planning to win the Tour.

I just don’t get it.

This is going to be the best race prep pretty soon. Getting dressed to ride, then casually cruising over to a nice viewing area and sleeping.

I walked into a local grocery store here in Dallas yesterday and couldn’t believe the number of gift cards they had hanging there. They nearly needed a complete aisle in the store to display them all. It seems like gift cards are becoming more prevalent everywhere you look. You could probably buy one for The Home Depot at Victoria’s Secret. It is stupid.

I do buy gift cards sometimes at the grocery store locally. Our grocery gives 4 X the gas points when you purchase gift cards. So if I buy $250 worth of cards at The Home Depot or Lowes, that is $1 off a gallon of diesel. So, I save $35 when I’m going to buy something anywhere.

I don’t know this new fascination with gift cards. And I don’t have any idea why they sell gift cards in the grocery stores. Maybe the retailer pays the grocery a percentage to sell them, I don’t know. And I can’t think of any reason that all these stores want the gift cards out there other than a certain percentage of them will never get redeemed. I came up with this because I know at some bike shops, they are sitting on thousands of dollars worth of gift certificates that no one ever uses.

I looked it up and this place says that only 7% of the gift cards go unredeemed. I don’t think that number is high enough. Not even close. I’ve had a ton of gift card go unused. I don’t know how many, but some of the ones I used had a expiration date or they started losing value every month after a year or so.

Even if you use the low 7% number, that means that each American household has $300 of the things laying around. That number seemed big. It’s about 30 billion dollars total. That is a lot of free money being “gifted” to the big retailers from us. I think that is just what they want.

This is just a small portion of the offerings. If you double click, you can see they offer a Facebook gift card. I have no idea what you could use that for.

This was my favorite gift card I saw yesterday. A gift card for gift cards. When you thing about it, it is probably the best gift card someone could give you.

I don't know if it is local thing from Dallas, but they offer Southwest Airlines gift cards here. That wouldn't be such a bad one to receive.