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Tour de France kicks off, race to stay within country's borders

Tour de France kicks off, race to stay within country's borders

Yahoo2 days ago
(NewsNation) — The 112th edition of the Tour de France is officially underway and for the first time since 2020, all 21 stages of the race will be held within the country's borders.
Starting in Lille, France on July 5, 184 riders representing 23 teams, climbed into their saddles to begin the roughly 2,075-mile race across the country.
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The race is broken into 21 stages across a three-week window, during which riders will have to navigate flat, hilly and mountainous terrain, as well as two time trials.
For the first time ever, riders will have to climb a prominent hill in Paris known as the Butte Montmartre, three times before finishing at the legendary Champs-Élysées.
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Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogačar is looking to defend his 2024 this year and favorited to do so. Cycling weekly reports that five Americans are competing in the race this year, including Sepp Kuss, who became the first American to win a Grand Tour in over a decade in 2023.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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After every major break-up, I move to a new city — sometimes, even a new continent. It helps me heal more quickly.
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timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

After every major break-up, I move to a new city — sometimes, even a new continent. It helps me heal more quickly.

After a major heartbreak, I pack up and move to a new city — sometimes, even a different continent. It makes it easier for me to heal from the heartbreak. I've done this three times, and I'm not about to stop now. Some people cope with a breakup by starting a new hobby, throwing themselves immediately back into dating, or finally giving in to those BetterHelp ads. Me? I pack up my life and book a one-way flight to a new city, sometimes even a different continent. It started in 2014 after a brutal three-month run: a breakup, a messy rebound, and getting fired from a brand-new job. I was sitting at home in Johannesburg, doomscrolling on Facebook, when an email came through from an airline offering a deal on flights to Cape Town, South Africa. My interest? Piqued. My credit card? Ready to swipe. My impulse control? At an all-time low. I booked a flight for the following week and immediately began boxing up my room at my mom's into three small boxes and sending out invites for farewell drinks at my favorite bar. Little did I know, this major life decision I had made in less than 60 seconds would go on to start a pattern of shaking up my surroundings to an extreme after heartbreak. I did it again in 2021, when I left Cape Town for Namibia, and last year, I said bon voyage to South Africa and moved to France. Is making a major move after a breakup a little dramatic? Absolutely, but there is a method to my madness. Every move forces me to confront the post-breakup identity crisis and answer the million-dollar question: Who am I without anyone else? Starting over in a new place strips away all the relationship compromises, shared daily routines, and habits. The only thing left is me: my habits, my desires, and my identity beyond another person. It gives me the space to figure out where I may have been performing in the relationship and identify where I lost myself. The crisis I had where I wondered whether I was changing my mind about having kids? It turns out I was never unsure about having children — I always knew deep down that it wasn't my path. I was just too scared to choose myself and lose my partner in the process. During my last relationship, I stopped doing all the things I love: DJing, hiking, and going to festivals. It wasn't until it ended and I moved yet again that I realized how much I'd been missing out on when I found myself in Paris at a rave, cheezing so hard my cheeks hurt, asking myself, "How did I forget how much I loved this?" I believe my heartbreak wanderlust has helped me avoid the trap of using other people as emotional Band-Aids instead of processing the pain and grief after a break-up. My self-imposed exile gives me the space to sit with my emotions without any familiar distractions (after all, you can't call up your roster or ex when you're 7,000 miles away in France). It's a launchpad to a life of independence and self-confidence, where I'm showing myself every day how capable I am without someone else, each time I figure out something new. That said, should everyone move to a new city after a break-up? If you have a remote career like mine and no responsibilities tying you to a specific location, I'd say go for it. Being in a completely different city soothes the sting of rumination because nothing is familiar. The first time I moved after a breakup was on impulse. When I realized it was helping me process what had happened and improve my relationship with myself, I got curious and wanted to know why. I learned that when I create new memories and daily habits, I'm training my brain to form new associations that aren't tied to my ex. So when I move, I'm rewiring neural pathways, and I'm spending less energy stuck in a loop replaying the same old story. But if you can't move cities, plan a solo trip for two weeks. You'll still get to reap the benefits of taking yourself out of the familiar and give your heart and brain the chance to reset and interrupt the emotional ties. It's an incredible heartbreak cure, and reader, it's probably the greatest gift I've given myself. Read the original article on Business Insider

Winners, losers from Chicago Street Race won by Shane van Gisbergen
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Winners, losers from Chicago Street Race won by Shane van Gisbergen

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Tiny cars, big stakes: These remote control racers aren't hobbyists. They're pros
Tiny cars, big stakes: These remote control racers aren't hobbyists. They're pros

Los Angeles Times

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  • Los Angeles Times

Tiny cars, big stakes: These remote control racers aren't hobbyists. They're pros

The neon yellow race car whipped around the corner, gunning it in a bid to lose the dragster on its tail. Mistiming a turn, it ricocheted off a dirt mound and landed on its back, swaying side to side, like an overturned beetle. Just then, a marshal scrambled onto the track, flipped the car over and relaunched it through his legs. But such are the benefits of servicing cars the size of toasters. Morning heats were underway at the 26th annual Dirt Nitro Challenge in Perris, where more than 200 hobbyists gathered to race their remote-controlled vehicles in friendly competition. For a couple dozen elite RC racers, the stakes were higher. These drivers are professionals who, like NASCAR drivers, travel the country from race to race, pit crews in tow and sponsors footing the bill. But there the echoes of NASCAR end. While the amateurs pushed 40 mph on the 1/8 scale model racetrack, that Sunday morning in March, the pros waited in the pits, supergluing new treads on their tires. Ryan Cavalieri, a top-25 globally ranked RC driver, is a 38-year-old Huntington Beach native who grew up going to the since-shuttered SoCal RC Raceway with his father, now his pit crew chief. By 13, he was sponsored by a major racing company, and by 18, he nabbed his first national title. Since then, he's supported himself, his wife and two daughters through RC racing. Granted, it's not Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s salary — the top 1% of RC racers typically max out around $150K a year — but it's enough that he doesn't have to work another job. 'I didn't ever think of it as something I would still do now,' Cavalieri said. Drivers stand on a platform overlooking the race track as they pilot their gas-powered and electric cars, using devices mounted with a wheel for steering and a trigger for speed. On straightaways, the pros can hit 60-plus miles per hour. Races run from a few minutes for lower heats to nearly an hour at the highest competitive tier. 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These preassembled vehicles were the easiest way for the general public to get involved in the RC hobby. At the same time, the number of sponsored racers surged, and Drake competed in a pool of pros who went on to become legends in the sport. But even at his peak, the Midwesterner knew he needed to be more valuable to RC companies than as a driver. So he delved into the engineering side of the industry, and he's worked double-duty ever since — going on to co-found The Drake Racing engine service with his wife and fellow racer Ronda Drake in 2018. Though Adam would race that afternoon, Ronda skipped competing in the Dirt Nitro Challenge this year because the course leaned a bit beginner-friendly for her taste. She's been racing since she was 10 years old, competing against grown men who complained about a girl always getting in their way. 'I even had one guy tell me I should be at home washing dishes,' Ronda said. Over the years, she learned to service her own cars and spent every minute she could on the racetrack. In high school, she switched to homeschooling to free up more time to practice. Ronda wanted to be excellent, not to make a statement or become a feminist icon, she said, but because she loved to race. And she liked to win. Back in the pit room, Ronda was reminiscing about the time she bumped her way up five classes to an A-Main when a father-son duo came in for car repair. Ronda sprang up from her seat to help, Adam following closely behind. The couple planned to reopen a long-dormant RC raceway near their home in Beaumont in Riverside County. There, they would host affordable races aimed at getting new people in the door, and helping amateurs to elevate their skills. 'Right now, there's so many big races,' Adam said. 'So many of the tracks and organizers, they just want to have these huge events, because that's where the money is. For us, we want to have fun, enjoyable events, where it's more than just a race.' In the dirt lot behind the pit rooms, Ryan Maifield was stationed at the company tent for Tekno, an RC manufacturer, his shaggy beard and worn-in sneakers belying his global RC stardom. Coming into the Dirt Nitro Challenge, the Arizona-born Maifield was neck-and-neck with frequent competitor Dakota Phend for the top U.S. driver slot. At 38, Maifield has raced for longer than Phend, 28, has been alive. While racers and their crews flitted about the Tekno tent, Maifield worked quietly from a half-obscured corner, tweaking his car after a trial run. His tools sprawled across the table and onto the floor, as though rummaged through by a band of wood rats. To the untrained eye, Maifield's candy cane-colored buggy is 'just a toy car,' he said, but to a pro racer it's a way to make a living, pieced together from race winnings and sponsorships. Sponsors want their racers at their best, he added, 'so you don't have time to work another job.' Back at the track, a line of spectators hollered, 'Cavy!' as Cavalieri took the lead in his afternoon race. Their gruff cheers mismatched the high-pitched hum of the buggies. If Indy cars could suck helium from a balloon, this is what they'd sound like. In the first half of the race, Cavalieri battled to stay ahead of Walker Spinrad, a recent Tekno signee whose driving grew wilder as his veteran competitor hit his stride. Behind the leaders, cars collided in pileups that would have made headlines at Daytona. Twice, Cavalieri pitted to refuel, his father rapidly squeezing gas from a fuel bottle that just as easily could have held drinking water. Each stop lasted mere seconds, then the racer was off again. In the end, he took second place. Although the runner-up finish was all Cavalieri needed to advance, he hadn't even reached the pits by the time he started recounting his mistakes. In the pits, Quagraine approached Cavalieri. 'Should I advise on certain lines?' Quagraine ventured, his voice uncharacteristically even. Cavalieri snipped rubber from a fresh set of tires, the RC-equivalent of adjusting tire pressure on a race car. After running through his problem areas with Quagraine, the duo wordlessly passed parts back and forth, as though programmed in sync. A little after 5 p.m., Cavalieri popped open the Panda Express container that had sat untouched since lunch. 'Nothing to lose,' the racer thought out loud as the evening final neared. And punctuating his comment with an F-bomb, he noted he was 'right — last.' From the outside, the Team Associated trailer looked like a glorified tin can, but inside it was furnished with crisp white shelving and a treasure trove of motor parts. Spencer Rivkin ducked his head as he stepped inside and pulled a chassis off a rack. An hour or so ago, he finished last in the Electric Truck A-Main race, but he wore no dejection on his face. Rivkin, a self-proclaimed RC 'nerd,' received his first RC car on his 9th birthday. His parents split up around that time, he said, and racing kept him out of trouble. By age 13, he was racing competitively, and by 15, he had a slew of sponsors including industry big names like Team Associated and JConcepts. Two years ago, at age 24, he bought his first home in Arizona. 'Doing this saved my life,' he said. 'I just wish more people knew about it.' While a warm pink still lingered above the horizon, the floodlights switched on, illuminating patches of freshly watered dirt. (Tracks are watered intermittently to provide RC cars more grip, and to improve visibility for racers and spectators.) Around the track, cigarette smoke mingled with the tang of burnt rubber so that it was hard to distinguish the two. By the time the sun fully set, more than 12 hours after the first race, the day's dry heat was replaced by desert chill. Frogs croaked from nearby waterholes, joining the chorus of spectators who hollered as the announcer introduced their favorite racers — along with their laundry lists of sponsors. As their names were called, some racers gave a polite wave to the crowd, while others muttered into the headsets they use to talk to their pit crews. Meanwhile, the crowd sent the wave four times around the track. Amid all the fanfare, it was easy to forget these were toy cars. The championship race finally arrived and the drivers' pit crew chiefs lined up, buggies in hand, by qualifying position, with Phend leading the pack and Cavalieri bringing up the rear. 'Those are our gladiators who are going to do battle here,' announcer Scotty Ernst bellowed into the microphone. Then they were off. As the cars zoomed around the track, spectators squinted to decipher whose ride was whose. Some pulled up the live stream of the race on their phones to double-check. Early into the 45-minute event, most drivers maintained their qualifying positions, with Phend and Maifield shuffling between the first and second slots. Rivkin kept close behind, and on one turn bumped a competing buggy back into an upright position after a clash. 'Very good sportsmanship there for Rivkin,' Ernst said. Rivkin later said he didn't remember the run-in. More buggies ended up on their sides or backs, the result of collisions or bad landings in the whoops section. Marshals dashed on the track to the rescue. One had to perform a double leap and pirouette to avoid the leaders. At one point, Phend's buggy did a front-flip over a pipe serving as a racetrack barrier. Across the track, another car landed atop a rock, igniting a barely visible spark. It was still anyone's game. That is, until race leader Mason Fuller pitted at the last minute, giving Maifield several seconds over the pack. Quagraine was glad to have backed out of his earlier bet on Cavalieri, who finished well in back. As Maifield flew through the finish line, the cheers were surprisingly tame, so it wasn't clear the race had ended at all. The 45-minute affair and night's easy atmosphere seemed to have lulled a handful to sleep. But when the rest of the lot rolled in, and a trio of podium girls in snug red dresses and four-inch heels arrived for the awards ceremony, the buzz was back. As race host Joey Christensen read off the names of the top three finishers — Maifield, Fuller and Phend — the crowd members craned their necks, knowing what was coming. On cue, the three racers lunged for their congratulatory champagne, shook the bottles and doused each other in bubbly.

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