A cool, rainy, ugly day today. I hopped on the trainer tonight for an hour with a cadence at about 100. I'm still keeping the gears smallish. The time for pushing the bigger gears will come soon enough. The pedal stroke felt good, round and smooth tonight.

News Item of the Day: Translated from L'Equipe -- The Norwegian Thor Husvod (Credit Agricole), yellow jersey wearer of the Tour of France for one day in 2004, will have to stop his 2005 season preparation for two weeks. His sinuses will be operated on November 22 in order to put an end to respiratory problems.

It is expected the that he compete again at the Grand Prix Marseillaise on February 1. But his true objective should be the World Championships disputed in Madrid "One said to me that the course can be appropriate to the sprinters ", declared Hushvod to L'Equipe on Wednesday.

Viewpoint: It was a slow news day so I plucked the story above. It was either that story or a La Gazzetta report on Ivan Quaranta proclaiming that next year will be his big comeback year now that he is with Domina Vacanze. Sure thing, Ivan. I'll believe it when I see it. He also was talking about how he thinks he would have a good shot at the World Championships next year. I can't see him even getting selected to the Italian team, much less winning the Championship.