Mega Bottle Ride: Battlefield.

Looking more like the battlefield than a race course the first week of the Tour was brutal to the racers.

Picture courtesy of VeloNews.

From Scott Sunderland. Aussie hardman of the clasics.

"It is not the critic that counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles. Or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement. And at worst, If he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat."
— President Theodore Roosevelt, "The Man in the Arena", Paris, 1910