Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Spoiler #1: The big glossy TdF mag is a bit disappointing this year.
I buy it every year. It has nice maps and stage guides, and best of all free socks and other tat. It's an annual ritual. My wife throws the tat at me and I pretend to be at the roadside, pushing 10 year old French children out of the way to catch it.
Now, this year's tat is OK - a pair of socks and some coasters. The coasters are a step up in quality from beer mats, and have some rather bad artwork on them including pictures of Merckx and Anquetil that don't look much like them. So 7/10 for tat.
But what's disappointing is the stage guide. Most of the stages have a little message saying that the stage profile was unavailable at the time of going to press, with a QR code to link to the TdF website. WTF? There's a map of the route opposite, so the profile is hardly a mystery. And the stage profile is the first thing that you look at in a stage guide. Also, for those few stage guides that do have profiles, they are printed in pale yellow on white so they are very indistinct. So 2/10 for the stage guide.
I'm wearing the socks as I type.
Here's an example. All but 5 of the stages are like this:
I buy it every year. It has nice maps and stage guides, and best of all free socks and other tat. It's an annual ritual. My wife throws the tat at me and I pretend to be at the roadside, pushing 10 year old French children out of the way to catch it.
Now, this year's tat is OK - a pair of socks and some coasters. The coasters are a step up in quality from beer mats, and have some rather bad artwork on them including pictures of Merckx and Anquetil that don't look much like them. So 7/10 for tat.
But what's disappointing is the stage guide. Most of the stages have a little message saying that the stage profile was unavailable at the time of going to press, with a QR code to link to the TdF website. WTF? There's a map of the route opposite, so the profile is hardly a mystery. And the stage profile is the first thing that you look at in a stage guide. Also, for those few stage guides that do have profiles, they are printed in pale yellow on white so they are very indistinct. So 2/10 for the stage guide.
I'm wearing the socks as I type.
Here's an example. All but 5 of the stages are like this:
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