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Geraint Thomas likes what he sees in team leader Richie Porte’s aggressive approach to the Tour de France. Photo: Gregor Brown | VeloNews.com

OYONNAX, France (VN) — Richie Porte’s “gutsy” ride to second in the 2014 Tour de France is impressing his Sky teammates and encouraging them further to get behind his push for the win.

“It is not like overly aggressive,” teammate Geraint Thomas said. “It’s not like he is threatening to kill someone’s kids or something. It’s just that real gutsy like … I guess the Tassie [Tasmanian] in him, just fighting for that wheel.”

Porte took over after Sky’s initial leader, Chris Froome, crashed and abandoned in stage 5 to Arenberg. Porte then worked his way up to second overall after 11 days of racing. While others have suffered crashes, abandoned, or just slipped behind, Porte has moved ahead.

On Monday’s La Planche des Belles Filles stage, he was the only one to take up the chase after Vincenzo Nibali (Astana) attacked for the stage win and yellow jersey. Thomas crashed and fought his way back, but was more impressed by his teammate’s fight.

“Without swearing I don’t think I can,” Thomas said when asked about Porte’s aggressiveness. “Especially, as you come over the top of a climb, everyone is fighting to be at the font for the descent, he lets people know he is there.

“He shouts, he leans on them a bit, he gives them a bit of aggro. It’s good to see. It’s good to see that fight. You really know he wants it.”

Porte raced to seventh overall in the 2010 Giro d’Italia and won the young rider classification. Since he left Saxo Bank for Sky, he worked for the team’s leaders and had some opportunities to race for himself, including when he won last year’s Paris-Nice. Thanks to those experiences, he appeared to naturally slot into the leadership role when Froome abandoned.

“And he has stepped up. He is suddenly even more aggressive, if that is possible for him,” Thomas continued. “He is like, ‘C’mon, let’s do it.’ And he is always fighting for that position. He doesn’t let your wheel go if you are helping him move up or whatever. He gets up a few riders and lets them know he is there. That’s kind of what you want. You want that aggression where he gives everything.”

Thomas worked for Bradley Wiggins in the 2011 Tour and Froome in 2013, but he explained that Porte has own personality in the pack.

“Brad’s more … quieter. He doesn’t say a lot. You are not quite sure what he is thinking sometimes,” Thomas added. “‘Froomey’ is more sort of, ‘Right boys, this is what I want today.’ And Richie is aggressive and he really fights. That’s all you want.”

Thomas is gaining from his experiences working for team leaders like Porte. Already this year, the team’s brass gave him a chance to lead at Paris-Nice. He held the yellow jersey for two days, but a crash forced him to abandon.

General Manager David Brailsford said that Thomas will have more opportunities and if it works out in the next years, a chance to impose his own characteristics as Sky’s Tour de France leader.

The post Porte’s ‘gutsy’ Tour ride impressing teammate Thomas appeared first on VeloNews.com.

Original source First time accepted submitter SillyBoy123 writes What is the impact of file sharing releases on the movie industry? Ask the studios and they will say billions. An economist named Koleman Strumph is presenting a paper at the National Bureau of Economics this week that tries to estimate the crowd out from these releases. His conclusion: “I find that file sharing has only a modest impact on box office revenue.” In fact, Strumph finds that file sharing before the official release of a movie can actually be beneficial to revenues: “One consistent result is that file sharing arrivals shortly before the theatrical opening have a modest positive effect on box office revenue. One explanation is that such releases create greater awareness of the film. This is also the period of heaviest advertising. In conjunction with the main estimates, this suggests that free and potentially degraded goods such as the lower quality movies available on file sharing networks can have some beneficial effects on intellectual property.”

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Original source mrspoonsi sends this news from The Verge: Elon Musk can no longer say that no one’s ever died in a Tesla automobile crash. But few people will be pointing fingers at the electric car maker for this senseless tragedy. Earlier this month, 26-year-old Joshua Slot managed to successfully ride off with a Model S he’d stolen from a Tesla service center in Los Angeles, but police quickly spotted the luxury vehicle and gave chase. According to Park Labrea News, the high-speed pursuit was eventually called off after officers were involved in a fender bender of their own, leaving the police department strained for resources and without any feasible way of catching up to Slot. Reports claim he was traveling at speeds of “nearly 100 mph,” but losing the police tail apparently didn’t convince Slot to hit the brakes. Instead he sped on, eventually colliding with three other vehicles and a pair of street poles. The final impact was severe enough to “split the Tesla in half” and eject Slot from the car’s remains. The Tesla’s front section wound up in the middle of the road and caught fire. Its rear portion flew through the air with such force that it slammed into the side of a local Jewish community center and became wedged there.

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Original source Trailrunner7 (1100399) writes It’s been a weird couple of weeks for Microsoft. On June 30 the company announced its latest malware takedown operation, which included a civil law suit against Vitalwerks, a small Nevada hosting provider, and the seizure of nearly two dozen domains the company owned. Now, 10 days later, Microsoft has not only returned all of the seized domains but also has reached a settlement with Vitalwerks that resolves the legal action. Some in the security research community criticized Microsoft harshly for what they saw as heavy handed tactics. Within a few days of the initial takedown and domain seizure Microsoft returned all of the domains to Vitalwerks, which does business as No-IP.com. On Wednesday, the software giant and the hosting provider released a joint statement saying that they had reached a settlement on the legal action. “Microsoft has reviewed the evidence provided by Vitalwerks and enters into the settlement confident that Vitalwerks was not knowingly involved with the subdomains used to support malware. Those spreading the malware abused Vitalwerks’ services,” the companies said in a joint statement. “Microsoft identified malware that had escaped Vitalwerks’ detection. Upon notification and review of the evidence, Vitalwerks took immediate corrective action allowing Microsoft to identify victims of this malware. The parties have agreed to permanently disable Vitalwerks subdomains used to control the malware.”

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A nice photoset on English Russia of MiG interceptors flying on a hot day 

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Vincenzo Nibali will ride a Specialized S-Works Roubaix frame with Corima VivaS carbon wheels and FMB/Specialized 28mm tubulars. Photo: Caley Fretz | VeloNews.com

Pretenders. Out of their element. That’s how some of the biggest names in cycling will feel as they toe the line in Ypres on Wednesday, staring down the barrel of a mini Paris-Roubaix, armed only with skinny arms, big lungs, and hope — always hope — that they won’t crack like eggs against the stones.

The stage to Arenberg Porte du Hainaut will take in only 15.4km of pavé, less than half of distance tackled in the April classic. Many of the toughest sectors will be skipped; many of the toughest riders will be reined in by team duties. But the cobbles of northern France are never easy, and the race within the race, the one between the pavé pretenders — the GC men far out of their comfort zone — may be the best of the day.

Nothing could be worse than a flat or a crash. Where bad luck may end one day in April, on stage 5, it could easily ruin the month of July. Teams are understandably cautious, unquestionably conservative. Most will use the same equipment relied upon at Paris-Roubaix. Trust, more than anything, is what predicates equipment selection for the stones.

The small men honed to summer’s climbs rarely venture north in March and April. With a few notable exceptions — Bradley Wiggins and his top-10 this year, for example — they’d much prefer another week at a southern training camp. But behind those GC men are staff and domestiques with experience on the pavé, a group whose proficiency in the classics will need to be tapped to get inexperienced climbers across the cobbles unscathed.

Alberto Contador is not a man for the northern classics, but he did ride admirably the last time the Tour tackled cobbles, in 2010, clawing his way into the front group and gaining time on rivals both inside and outside his own team — notably Lance Armstrong. Contador and his Saxo-Tinkoff squad will draw confidence from that ride, and from the team’s run at Roubaix. Contador himself will be on a bike setup prescribed by riders like Matteo Tosatto, seventh at Roubaix in 2012, and by his experienced mechanics.

Contador will ride a Specialized S-Works Roubaix with 28mm FMB tubular casings wrapped in a proprietary rubber developed by Specialized — the same tires his team used in April. He’ll use the company’s flexy Cobl Goblr seatpost as well.

Mechanics would not divulge his tire pressure, and the exact number will surely depend on Wednesday’s weather forecast (as of Tuesday evening, it called for rain), but the 132-pound Contador will surely run much lower than his 175-pound classics-specialist teammates. Those big men typically have between 55psi and 70psi in the front tire and 60-80psi in the rear. Small riders like Contador could run as low as 50psi up front.

Trek hasn’t changed a thing since April. It simply drove a truck down from the team’s service course in Belgium, about an hour away, full of Domane frames and FMB 27mm tubulars.

“We’ll be on full Roubaix setup,” said Trek Factory Racing’s technical director Jordan Roessingh “All the bikes will be identical to what we raced at Roubaix. Fabian is actually on the exact same bike he raced Roubaix on.”

Garmin-Sharp riders, including GC man Andrew Talansky, will ride the Cervelo R3 Mud frames used at Paris-Roubaix, combined with Mavic Cosmic Carbone and M40 wheels and FMB Paris-Roubaix tubulars.

Chris Froome will surely be ruing his Tuesday crash, which saw him finish the day in a wrist brace, as the race hits the first cobbled section. He has riders like Geraint Thomas to guide him through the cobbles, and will ride the same setup used by Thomas and Wiggins earlier this year.

The team’s Pinarello Dogma K frames are designed with a slightly softer ride and increased tire clearance, both of which will be sorely needed. Froome runs a modified Di2 climbing shifter, attached to his handlebar tops, in regular stages. That shifter will remain on his cobbled bike. Sky will also use FMB Paris-Roubaix tubulars, in 27mm width.

Sky riders will change gearing as well, running the 54/44-tooth chainring combination popular at Paris-Roubaix. The smaller gap between big and small rings helps shifting on the cobbles, and there’s no need for a smaller little ring on the flat course. Most teams will run standard 53/38 chainring setups.

Vincenzo Nibali’s Astana-flavored Specialized will be nearly identical to Contador’s Tinkoff edition. Astana rode Roubaix with an older, slightly smaller version of the FMB/Specialized collaboration tires, but has moved to the latest version, 28mm instead of 27mm, for the Tour stage. All the favorites will use standard carbon wheels, forgoing the aluminum Ambrosio rims that were still common at the Tour’s last cobbled stint.

The GC men will have the best equipment, and the best teams around them. For a few, it won’t be enough. All that’s left to do is hope.

The post Pave pretenders: What will the GC men ride on the cobbles? appeared first on VeloNews.com.

Original source Zothecula writes: As one of the contenders in the race to win a $100 billion contract from the U.S. government for the next generation of attack helicopter in the Army’s Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD) program, AVX Aircraft Company has conceived a futuristic machine kitted out with coaxial rotors, ducted fans and a retractable undercarriage that could hit speeds of over 270 mph (435 km/h).

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To those inquisitive folks reading along, scratching your head thinking, “Hey wait a tic… how does the Tour start in England and then migrate to continental Europe (i.e. France) without a rest day?”, here’s your answer.

Each team has an entire arsenal of cars, mechanic trucks, buses, rolling kitchens, and likely even cars. So this morning we racers departed the previous night’s hotel en route to the race via team bus. Team cars that travel behind the race in the race caravan did the same. Meanwhile all extraneous vehicles — such as mechanic trucks and roving kitchens — drove to the British sea port and hopped on one of a few different ferry boats (let’s just call them yachts, because that’s a fun word) making the hour long journey to France. Upon doing this, they lost an hour since England is one hour “west” of Europe.

So while we raced, the team bus then drives from the start line to the finish line where it waits patiently for us to finish so that we can get a quick meal and refreshing shower. While this is all transpiring, those non-imperative-to-racing vehicles are disembarking from the ferry, whereupon they drive another hour or so to tonight’s hotel.

Next, we racers disembark from our team buses and board a new set of charter buses en route to the downtown London Airport. At 5pm. Amid downtown London traffic. While we set off to the airport en route to France, team cars and buses will now make that ferry trip, previously traveled by said non-imperative-to-racing vehicles.

We racers walk through non-plussed London airport and then arrive to throngs of giddy fans in France, at which point we board a new set of charter buses en route to our hotel.

So as I type this, it’s 10:48pm, I’ve just finished dinner (although sort of 9:48pm since I’ve now lost that aforementioned hour of sleep) and mechanic trucks are here waiting for bikes to arrive much much later this evening. I imagine mechanics and other personnel driving cars (or waiting on the boat to drive cars) are hungry and tired.

No rest for the weary, however, tomorrow is stage 4!

And in other news, this caused a crash today in which I was involved, so that sucks

On a brighter note, I was delivered maple syrup by my friend Janet, so that’s amazing.

And our hotel right now is an enormous villa or estate or anything other than a miserable Capanile so I’m happy as a clam!