We rode out past High Ridge again today. This time we added a loop down Four Ridge Rd and Rock Creek Valley. Then we took a route I hadn't taken before. From Rock Creek we went down Old Sugar Creek until Schumacher. I had never been on Schumacher so it was something completely new. An interesting road with plenty of good sized rollers combined with a couple small hills and mixing in a downhill 180 turn. From Schumacher it was a right turn on Gravois that runs alongside Hwy 30 until Little Brennan and back to Hillsboro Valley Park.

Ride time from Meramec was 2:45. Total time was close to 3:30 and judging from Mark's computer my mileage would have been in the upper 50's.

The Under Armour worked well again today. Temperature was about 30 when I started riding this morning. I wore the Under Armour as a base, then a wool jersey (I dont know if its a winter or summer wool) and then an old team jersey. I had another full zip jersey on as well but that was fully unzipped and flapping in the breeze so it provided no real protection. I was perfectly comfortable with just the three jerseys and the 30 degree temps. That's pretty good in my opinion.

News Item of the Day: The licensing commission of the UCI met this Saturday with the Olympic Museum of Lausanne. Exiting the meeting, nineteen of the thirty-one teams received a " preliminary favorable opinion" to obtain a ProTour license, the last stage of the process before the official publication at the beginning of December of the teams selected for this circuit.

Only the Swiss team, Phonak, were not retained by the commission. The heveltic formation thus pays the price of positive anti-doping controls which struck three of these riders in the past months: in August for the former world champion of the Swiss Camenzind Oscar , in October the American Tyler Hamilton , Olympic time trial champion, and for the Spaniard Santiago Perez, second in the Vuelta.

Camenzind, caught doping with EPO was laid off by the Swiss team. On the other hand, Hamilton and Perez, the first two sportsmen charged with doping by blood transfusion, denied having doped and obtained the support of their team, at least temporarily.

Phonak, only high level Swiss team, still has the possibility of being approved by the licensing commission on November 22 before the final announcement of the Pro Tour teams.

It should be noted that the licences of the preselected teams will last four years, except for those of Lampre-Caffitta (three years), T-Mobile and Baleares Islands (two years) and Fassa Bortolo, whose licence will relate to one one year period.

Let us recall that ProTour is the circuit wanted by the president of the UCI, Hein Verbruggen, for 2005. It gathers the best world teams with the obligation to take part in the principal tests of the season.

For the moment, the leaders of the three Grand Tours (Italy, France, Spain) refuse to enter the new circuit. The three organizing companies which rejected the current state of the ProTour, account for eleven of the greatest tests of the calendar (Tour de France, Giro, Vuelta, Milan-SanRemo, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, etc).

The nineteen selected Pro Tour teams
Quick Step (BEL)
Davitamon-Lotto (BEL)
CSC (DEN)
Balearic Islands (ESP)
Liberty Seguros (ESP)
Euskaltel-Euskadi (ESP)
Saunier Duval-Prodir (ESP)
Cofidis (FRA)
Bouygues-Telecom (FRA)
FDJeux.com (FRA)
Credit Agricole (FRA)
Gerolsteiner (GER)
T-Mobile (GER)
Domina Vacanze (ITA)
Liquigas (ITA)
Lampre-Caffitta (ITA)
Fassa Bortolo (ITA)
Rabobank (NED)
Discovery Channel (USA)

Viewpoint: Phonak must really be sweating it about now. Not to mention Floyd Landis. He goes from being part of one of the best teams in the world (Discovery) to a team that is on the verge of essentially being shut out of the main races of the year.