Catching Up...

Yep, I'm still in France. And yes, the weather hasn't been so good.   I'm going to use this morning (Thursday) to catch up a bit.

First, to the important stuff: I weighed in at 95.9 kilograms this morning. That's about 211 pounds, which is down 20 from the start of the year. It's a bit easy to lose weight here in France since the food is downright awful. The BMC Racing Team riders have a chef, but he doesn't cook for the staff. (See photos below.)

Let's talk about the internet. Tuesday night's hotel was awesome. Screaming-fast wifi and I took full advantage of it – staying up until past 1 a.m. But the other three hotels where we have stayed have had no working internet. The night I was in the overflow hotel (Kyriad), there was internet, but it was a code or charge type and I just used tether. Thank you, Tether.

Here's the profile for Thursday's Stage 4 at Paris-Nice.

I got a bit of bad news last night when I found a message on Facebook from longtime colleague Buck Mahoney, sports editor of the Kearney Hub. He called to ask me my memories of Don Briggs. Not long into the call, Buck relayed that "Mr. B" had died. Not a big shock, but still sad. Mr. Briggs was pretty much my first boss. I worked in the Kearney State College sports information department my senior year, writing news releases and helping with the media guides, etc. Back then, the fax machine was in its infancy. There was no internet. Just a typewriter, really. And mailing out news releases well in advance of an event. Crazy.

It rained all day Wednesday, which made it miserable for the riders. Thankfully, it wasn't too cold (low 50s). Today, the sun is coming out but the roads are still wet as we drive to the start. Today's stage has seven climbs and is one that Cadel Evans won in the Criterium du Dauphine last year. So we'll see how it goes.

A little insight into my daily "cheat sheet."

BMC Racing Team bus driver Danny Debuck took this photo before we left the hotel.

And here's the hotel. The internet here was superb.

I catch up daily in the press room with Céline Mazard, press officer for AG2R.

Today's press room was not in a gymnasium, but at a hotel.

I'm not sure what the story was here. But at least I felt safe having Spiderman around.

This is easily the largest bed I have ever enjoyed in France.

Check out all the kids – and a marching band – that showed up for the finish Wednesday.

This was the view looking out my room.

Obviously a handicapped-accessible room today.

Lots of room in here.