Warren's Place

Tyler Hamilton is one of the elite professional bicycle racers in the world. He was on the USPS team that helped Lance Armstrong a few years ago in the TDF. Tyler, as many good riders do, moved on to another team to be their team leader. Last year, Tyler was riding for the CSC team, and was a favorite to place on the podium. Unfortunately, early in that Tour, Tyler crashed and fractured his collarbone. As is well known by now, Tyler overcame the agonizing pain of that injury and incredibly rode through the pain and finished the Tour. He even won a stage that year.

Fast forward to 2004. Tyler is now riding for the Phonak team as their leader. He was in the best form of his career, and the consensus was that Tyler would be a serious contender for the Tour win.  The early stages of this year's tour were marred by numerous crashes, likely due to the rainy weather and some unfortunate course layouts.  Tyler was again involved in a serious crash, this time he flew over his bars and landed squarely on his back. The resulting injury proved to hinder his power output in the mountain stages to the point where he had to withdraw from the Tour. I was very disapppointed because I was really rooting for Tyler to do well this year.

I've told you a little bit of Tyler's history to give you an understanding of the man. I don't know him personally, but from the interviews the he has given and from his own words through his journals and ride diaries, I've come to admire Tyler not only because he is one of the world's elite cyclist, but because he appears to be a good man with the qualities of courage, humility, perseverance, and genuine niceness.

As if the Tour this year was not difficult enouth, Tyler and his wife Haven found out that their dog Tugboat, had a very advanced stage cancer. Go to the link below to read Tyler's extremely moving tribute to his beloved Tugboat. 

Tribute to Tugboat

Thanks for reading.

Warren