A few weeks ago, I driving home from the barn, dying of thirst and completely out of water. I took quick detour to Giant and grabbed a Vitamin water drink, since I hate buying bottled water - might as well spend the money on something with flavor, right? (Side note: Vitamin Water 10 is gross. I know they glorify it because it's naturally flavored with Acai, but to me it tastes like Sweet N Low. Blech.)

Anyway, I pay for my drink, and the register spits out a receipt about as long as my forearm. Seriously? A 14 inch receipt for a $1.50 bottle of yuckiness?

The offending receipt.

The worst part is, if I had paid with a credit card, the receipt would have been 3 inches longer because they print out a separate CC portion. Ridiculous.

What's the big deal, you say. Here's my problem with it: Giant tries to pass off this image of being an environmentally friendly grocery store chain. They have the bins in front for recycling plastic bags, they sell reusable shopping bags, their stores are energy efficient, blah blah blah. However, they apparently don't seem to follow the whole idea of conserving paper. Every other grocery store I've been to uses at least half the amount of paper in their receipts. From what I've seen, they use smaller font, shorter line heights, no stupid logo, and generally don't put erroneous crap that no one reads (e.g., sub sandwich points).

Ideally, grocery stores would be like gas stations and give you the option not to print a receipt… or, better yet, electronic receipts. The only downside to that would be missing out on those coupons on the back that everyone uses. (insert sarcasm here.)

Awhile back (before the Vitamin Water incident), I even wrote Giant an e-mail asking about whether they were planning on modifying their receipt machines so they'd be somewhat shorter and less wasteful. The dude that wrote me back said they were planning on fixing this, but that was about 6-7 months ago, and obviously nothing has happened.

Hincapie misses yellow jersey at Tour

BESANCON, France (AP) — Lance Armstrong was unfazed about slipping to fourth place at the Tour de France. Instead, he was riled that his former lieutenant, George Hincapie, was deprived of the yellow jersey — allegedly by a rival U.S. team.

Hincapie, the only man to be a teammate of Armstrong on all seven of his Tour victories, came within 5 seconds of the race lead in the 14th stage won Saturday by Russia's Serguei Ivanov.

Starting the stage as the highest-placed rider in the breakaway group, 5:25 behind leader Rinaldo Nocentini of Italy, Hincapie had a shot to swipe the leader's yellow shirt.

Instead, as Armstrong and his Astana team claimed, the U.S. squad Garmin-Slipstream pressed the pace in a way that helped the Italian hold a slim lead over Hincapie.

Armstrong, on his Twitter feed, took aim at Garmin-Slipstream, which competes with Columbia for dibs as the top American squad at the Tour this year.

"No one wanted George in yellow more than me," he tweeted.

"Until 10km (6.2 miles) to go he was solidly in yellow until GARMIN put on the gas and made sure it didn't happen," Armstrong wrote.

Oh fer cryin' out loud. It's not Garmin's fault Hincapie couldn't catch the leader, Ag2r-La Mondiale (Nocentini's team) was pressing the pace to protect their lead. If Hincapie was truly DESERVING of the yellow, he would have sucked it up and actually fought for the lead, not go stomping off to the team trailer after the stage finish.

According to this Wash Post article,"Hincapie's breakaway group was more than six minutes ahead of the Italian, fanning suspense about the yellow shirt. Nocentini's AG2R-La Mondiale team, then American team Garmin both accelerated the pace, trimming the gap by the finish. Hincapie missed the yellow jersey by seconds."

"TV cameras showed a frustrated Hincapie as he watched Nocentini's pack cross the finish line. He did not speak to reporters before entering the team bus."

Two words: Sore. Loser.

"I mean that's a victory for everybody. That's something that would have gotten attention all over the U.S., that would have been good for the whole sport in America," [Columbia manager Bob Stapleton] said.

Okay, quick poll to non-cyclists: hands in the air if you know who George Hincapie is.

Anyone?

Yeah, I thought so. George Hincapie is about as well known as every other American rider on this tour. As sad as it sounds, Lance is the only one people care about, and Hincapie being in yellow for one frickin day would have made absolutely no difference on the sport.

"Garmin just wanted to prevent another American team from taking the yellow jersey. It's not right," Astana manager Johan Bruyneel said. "It's not very sporting.

No, it's called Garmin was doing what any other cycling team would have done: try to catch up on the lead so their top rider could advance. Also, if I'm reading correctly, having Hincapie in yellow would take the pressure off Astana and force Columbia (Hincapie's team) to work hard to try and defend the jersey… so I'm taking his statement with a grain of salt.

I don't blame Garmin for chasing down Ag2r, because chances are if they hadn't, another team would have. But then again, what do I know? I'm just an impartial observer, following the tour and crossing my fingers that maybe this year riders will stay clean and not dope. (So far, so good…)

A Safety Issue to Officers, Poor Form to Cyclists

More than 700 cyclists were on the roads of Loudoun County over the weekend, some pedaling up to 150 miles, trying to raise money for a debilitating disease, multiple sclerosis.

According to cyclists and Loudoun authorities, several cyclists failed to come to complete stops at some intersections, and a county sheriff's deputy was waiting to pounce. Eight cyclists were ticketed for running stop signs that day in the Lovettsville and Purcellville areas, authorities said.

To several who took part in the annual event… the tickets were poor form, even if cyclists had rolled through the signs. To authorities, who said they received numerous complaints from motorists about cyclists crowding the roads and running stop signs, the citations were necessary to ensure safety on the roads.

Where do I begin… how about this: I participated in this ride but only rode on Saturday. Every single group/charity ride I've done (whether it be the Reston Century or Bike MS), there are the same ignorant people who don't respect the rules of the road. I'm not talking about stop signs — I'm guilty of doing a slow California Stop when I feel it's safe to do so. (Plus, half the time I end up putting myself in MORE danger by unclipping, stopping, starting, then attempting to clip in without falling over before that car gets to the intersection.)

However, and I've covered this topic before: I honestly don't blame the community for being upset with the bikers. As per usual, I saw too many people riding side-by-side (coincidentally, the majority of them were men on racing or tri bikes) when it wasn't appropriate. Riding abreast is OK if you're out in the middle of Montana on a 10 foot wide shoulder, the next town (pop: 24) is 30 miles away and the last time you saw a car was 2 hours ago. Riding in a pack on Halfway Road in Middleburg is NOT OK. Especially when there's a five ton UPS truck trying to get by you.

Jennings said he and another cyclist, a charity participant, slowed to about 1 mph before proceeding through a stop sign in Lovettsville, only to find a sheriff's deputy nearby, who flagged them down.

Um, yeah, it's physically impossible to ride 1 mph - trust me, I've tried (and promptly fell on my side). Maybe if you're track-standing, but normally the slowest speed someone can do while coasting through a stop sign is around 3-4 mph. Put it this way: if you were a driver and saw cops standing around at a seemingly innocent intersection, wouldn't you stop completely? Of course! Same goes for bikers. Duh.

"What was amazing to me was it seemed to me they were there because of the MS ride," Jennings said. "They've donated their time and all their money, and they've donated to a charity, and you've got the Loudoun County Sheriff's Office just sitting there waiting to hand them a ticket. It didn't seem right."

Bull. Sh**. Just because you've donated your time and money to a charity via a bike ride doesn't give you the excuse to ride like a jerk and not obey stop signs. If the police did this during the Reston Century (and I think they should, because most of it is on the W&OD and has even more intersections/stop signs than the MS Ride), you'd still complain.

So, really guys… I have no sympathy for those who blatantly disobeyed a stop sign and blasted through, because chances are you're the same person who thinks riding two abreast on a busy road is acceptable.

I was listening to NPR yesterday, and heard this story about bird strikes at airports in the U.S: Pinpointing Airports With High Rate Of Bird Strikes.

Bad News: Number of bird strikes is up. Good news: Damage done by birds is down.

Bad news of good news: they don't know why. The population of large birds, who do the most damage to planes, has increased, as has the amount of air traffic. Large birds, as in Canadian Geese.

Most aircraft, particularly large planes, are able to (for lack of a better term) "ingest" the bird and no harm is done… if the bird is small enough. A larger poop-spewing Canadian goose, on the other hand, will leave a bit more damage.

Needless to say, I've never liked Canadian geese. They honk loudly and make you depressed in the fall, because when you see them you know they're peace-ing out to a warmer climate while you're stuck in the frozen tundra. Also, if you've ever played on a grass field near a lake, then you probably understand my reasoning: GOOSE TURDS. Canadian geese leave these nasty slick green poops all over the place and consequently you come home and find your shoes covered in goose doo.

Additionally, they're MEAN mofos. Female geese have been known to attack humans, and I'm always afraid the ones at our barn might decide to challenge Cass to a game of chicken (or would it be goose?) when we walk by.

Now, according to this website, anti-goose techniques include scarecrows (yeah, sure, like those ever work), guard dogs (Stella the barn dog is not allowed to chase wild animals), propane exploders and pyrotechnics (which, as an added benefit, scare horses too!), toy water craft and helicopters (hmm…), and lasers.

I think a trip to Toys-R-Us might be in order!

Yesterday's ride — relatively uneventful. Nice scenery, short hills, good weather.

I ended up messing up my directions and going down Glen Mill instead of the subdivision to the east of it, so needless to say I probably won't make that mistake again… a bit too much traffic for my tastes, not to mention the road is pretty cut up in spots. Still, I ended up doing a bit over 17 miles (MMR mileage is wrong). Pretty good, although at this point in time I'd like to be hitting at least 20 regularly, but I'd rather keep them short and frequent rather than long and once a week.