Tour Tidbit du Jour - 6/30/2013

I've mentioned before what cyclists call the marks chain rings leave after a crash when all the riders pile on top of each other: a tattoo. Team Sky's Ian Stannard shows off his new ink after all the carnage from yesterday's harrowing first stage.

Photo: © Robin Wilmott

Tour Tidbit du Jour - 6/29/2013

The 100th Tour de France started on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. Corsica is the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte and Christopher Columbus. Up until 1764, it was ruled by the Republic of Genoa, when it was purchased by France, who took another 5 years to put down a 26 year rebellion by the natives against the Genovese. The main language of Corsica is now French, but the native Corsican language, which is related more closely to Italian, is still spoken fluently by 10% of the 300,000 people living there, and at least 50% have some proficiency.

That wasp sting on Friday? Not even on the same scale as this.

One wasp versus "Billions of yellow jackets."

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Smokey Bear isn't sure what's going on.

Cisco's happy we made it to the Mt. Baldy Village, but the bear seems to be wondering if we're taking fire danger seriously enough.

Update: Smokey Bear thinks I'm pretty sketchy too.

Photo by Francisco Rivera

Oh, I guess that's the earliest I've ever arrived at Starberry Farms.

Two weeks ago, I tried to stop at my favorite fruit stand in San Dimas, Starberry Farms, but they were closed. Their front entrance was covered by a big piece of plywood. Even the little prairie schooner they have outside was missing its canvas covering. I got there a little after 9 AM.

I was worried they had gone out of business, but a little bit of country music started coming out of the external speakers they have placed under the eaves. Someone was inside, but I couldn't wait around until they opened, whenever that was.

According to their website, they open at 10 AM. In fact, the last picture I uploaded to flickr was taken right outside Starberry Farms. That was taken at 10:10 on 10/10/10. I must have been their first customer of the day. That's comforting to know. But why I was I showing up an hour later back then compared to 2 weeks ago? Did I really start out so late? Seems weird that I would, since I'm such a creature of habit when it comes to my weekend rides. Well, maybe I did things differently back then.

That's a new kind of pain on the bike. Stung!

And not just a little sting. Stung twice by an angry wasp who didn't want to let go of my knee.

I was working up to cruising speed before some laps, and I felt a big smack on my knee. What I'm about to describe took place in about 2 seconds, but putting it into words will obviously take longer than that. I was doing about 90 rpm on my pedal stroke at this point, so bear in mind that every time I brought my knee back up, only 2/3 of a second had passed.

I looked down and saw a bright yellow thing with black stripes on top of my thigh right above my knee. I thought, that's weird, it's still there. Then it stung me. A fraction of a second after it hit me, it stung me. I then tried to brush it away. It didn't like that, and stung me again. I brought my knee back up, and smacked it and then swept it away. It didn't go smoothly, like it was clinging on to my leg hair, or maybe it was already entangled and that's why it was panicking with all the stinging.

After pedaling for about 10 seconds, I felt the creeping pain from the poison, and thought, yup, not bit me, stung me. I've been stung by a big black wasp before, so I recognized this kind of pain. I poured a little water on it, for some evaporative cooling effect, and finished my workout. Every time I took a sip of water, I also poured more water on my knee for more cooling.

Besides the stinging pain in my knee, the workout went really well. I set a new personal best time for the year, and checking my records, it's the 3rd fastest of all time for me. Did the wasp sting give me an adrenaline boost for speed? Could I have shaved even more seconds off the time if I didn't have to swat a big bug stuck on my leg and take some extra time pouring water on the sting? Have I found another reason to start shaving my legs so angry bugs don't get stuck in my leg hair? All good questions.

Eyebrows.

I has them.

Since Facebook came out with 15 second videos from Instagram, I felt it was a good excuse to make another BLINK cliplet. Funny to see the eyebrows waggling without my nostrils flaring.

I made this animated gif with BLINK, Microsoft's answer to Vine. Not quite a smooth sharing process.

So, there it is. I masked out the rest of the picture, so that only the rooster is looping.

The app and the interface is actually great, easy to use, and kind of fun.

The problem, at least on the Surface RT, came from trying to upload this gif to Twitter, both through the browser, and through the native app. Just wouldn't do it. Photobucket didn't care and handled it like a boss, both through uploading from its own Win8 app, and through the browser. Which is odd, since Photobucket is the photo sharing engine for Twitter, so something is up on the Twitter processing side of things.

Incidentally, BLINK is an app coming out of Microsoft's research arm in so.cl. Not only can you export your little 10 second or less creations as a gif, but you can upload them to BLINK in their native video formats.

UPDATE: Twitter no longer accepts animated gifs. From the troubleshooting support page:

Check your file type. Twitter supports JPEG, GIF, and PNG file formats. We do not support animated GIFs. All existing animated GIF images will be left as they are, but no new ones can be uploaded. [emphasis added]

So, this is user error, or more like, user ignorance. I would like to know when that changed.

And now we know what things looked like right after the Chicxulub impact.

A fire burns in Hathaway Canyon, a few miles from the "World's Biggest Dinosaurs" park. Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times

That fire near Banning is still burning.

Recovery while training really matters: you should learn when to take a break.

Velonews has a great feature on why you should get off the bike, and why you feel terrible even after a couple of days doing nothing - To peak or not to peak — and why our bodies can fool us.

Everything in there I've incorporated into my training schedule, and why I even tell my fellow hobbyists that they should not even do recovery rides. Veg out, heal up, and expect the pain and disappointment when you start up again. That means you're doing it right.

Say it ain't so! Electrocuted alien story was a hoax, Chinese man confesses.

Yeah, I'm as shocked as you are:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

What I find a tad bit concerning is that the man seems to have preferred making a female alien.

Getting into new fitness territory.

All my climbing records from 2010 are gone. The last one went down emphatically this morning when I went up and down Glenoaks over a minute faster than my personal best. On only 13.6 miles with over 1000 feet of climbing, that's pretty good. And yesterday, I tied my 4th best record on my flat course (and the 3rd best is only 3 seconds faster; sooo close!). So now, there are only 3 times faster than what I've done this year, and they were set during the 8th or 9th month of training, not the 6th. My plans are still working, and the grind is paying off.

There's a nice quote from Humphrey Bogart on those new cycling socks I got.

Had to get some new gear. And they fit! pic.twitter.com/QhrgOQ4f29
— Joseph Morris (@joeschmo1of3) June 7, 2013

"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."

- Humphrey Bogart

Ron Gilbert still has pirates stuck in his mind.

He's still at it: making funny little puzzle games about pirates. Ron Gilbert's Scurvy Scallywags plots course to iOS today

Of course, pirates look more like this these days:

Instead of Gilbert's beloved Guybrush Threepwood:

The modern ones most likely can't even drink grog, depending on how devout they are as Muslims. I bet they don't even train at insult sword fighting anymore.

Donut. Bacon. Egg. Oh yes!

Now, just add some cheese *drool*.

AP Photo/Dunkin' Brands, Inc., James Scherer

My favored calorie bomb is a Jimmy Dean croissant scrambled egg cheddar cheese sausage sandwich. I may have to make an adjustment.

I guess it's not a dallying llama...

Runaway llama subdued with taser gun after police chase (with photo): apne.ws/12oAzgb -CC
— The Associated Press (@AP) June 2, 2013