Cycling is the most beautiful sport in the world. This is mostly true because the "pitch" for road cycling consists largely of the countryside of six continents. It's also true because the machines themselves are so elegant and because of the colors and designs of the various team and championship jerseys. The action of the race itself is beautiful; the tactics, the effort.
Nothing brings all those elements together quite like the team time trial. I won't go into detail about the rules and definitions of a TTT (this Wiki article does a pretty good job of that); suffice it to say that the teams race as tightly drilled units, against the clock, instead of the entire peloton being on the road in one great mass.
I encourage all of you to watch this year's ProTour Team Time Trial in the lovely city of Eindhoven in the Netherlands. The race will be broadcast Sunday afternoon (eastern U.S. time) for free on cycling.tv, so anyplace you can score a broadband connection is a place you can watch the race.
If you haven't seen one before, you'll definitely be in for a treat. Seriously, they look really damned cool.
