Garmin-Chipotle, the 2-year-old Boulder, Colo.-based team that is making its Tour de France debut in a big way, is riding bikes from Felt Bicycles in Irvine.

The small (30 employees) company can't compete with Trek bikes -- yet. For example, the first full-page ad of this year's VeloNews Tour de France preview is of Trek's 2007 Tour-winning bike, the Madone model, a work of art in bright yellow.

Doug Martin, Felt's one-man marketing department, said his company met up with Garmin-Chipotle founder Jonathan Vaughters two years ago. "We wanted to get with a young, upcoming team," Martin said. "Jon's team fit that bill."

Will Frischkorn rode to a second-place finish in Monday's third stage on Felt's new AR model, which won't be available to the public until 2009. Felt makes up to five bikes for each athlete on the 25-man Garmin-Chipotle team -- including the nine on the Tour de France squad.

"That's an enormous undertaking for a company of this size," Martin said.

To make the AR, Martin said, Felt worked in a San Diego wind tunnel with a Felt bike that already had been measured as the fastest time-trial bike in the world. "We start with a base of products that are extremely high end," Martin said.

(This part is for cycling geeks only: Frischkorn's AR model has a "very flat down tube, a flatter head tube and the wheel well set in a tube," Martin said.)

The AR's retail price hasn't been set, but another bike that Garmin-Chipotle riders will use during the the Tour, the F1, retails for $7,000. "And the AR will be more than that," Martin said.

Felt also is providing bikes for several U.S. Olympic cyclists, including medal favorites Taylor Phinney and Sarah Hammer.

As Frischkorn lost Monday's stage in a photo finish, Vaughters entered the Versus television booth to give his breathless reaction. Mixed in with the excitement and disappointment generated by Frischkorn's almost-win was Vaughters glowing endorsement of the new Felt bike.

"I'll thank Jon for that," Martin said. "We really are the little guy in this business."

-- Diane Pucin

Photo: Garmin-Chipotle rider Will Frischkorn on a Felt bike in Tour de France action.

Credit: Graham Watson/Felt Bicycles

It happened. The racing heart, the feeling of both extreme joy and blissful safety. While I watched the Tour de France this morning at 5:30 I saw them. The blue and green direction markers that point the way to the press center. Those markers meant, on dozens of occasions during 21 days, that my inner compass had worked.

Despite its lessened status among American sports fans since Lance Armstrong retired and Floyd Landis had to turn back his doping-tainted title and since the sport of cycling became the benchmark for cheating winners even if it turns out many other sports are just as shady when it comes to illegal doping, despite all that I adore the Tour de France.

Having covered it for three straight years, from prologue through the parade laps in Paris when Armstrong won his final three titles (yes, we were the typical Americans riding in for a red, white and blue Texas story and so what? Anyone notice how many Japanese reporters came to the U.S. swim trials to chronicle the results of one American who was going to be the top challenger to the Japanese swimmer?) I got into a July rhythm that's hard to stop.

So now that I'm not covering the Tour I still watch every morning. Coverage starts at 5:30 and I'm not ashamed to say I stay up all night. There is nothing quite like covering an extended sporting event like the two-week tennis Grand Slams or the Tour. Every day an unexpected story breaks out. Little novels could be written about the daily goings on. The beauty of it is, you never know what the little novels will be.

At this Tour I have a feeling one of the ongoing stories will be about the two American teams, Garmin-Chipotle and Team Columbia. Monday morning a bright, young American rider from Garmin-Chipotle, Will Frischkorn, almost won the third stage that finished in the Brittany city of Nantes. The 27-year-old from Boulder boldly led a breakaway early in the race and nearly held on before Frenchman Samuel Dumoulin nipped him at the finish line.

Not that he has a chance of winning the overall yellow jersey at the end but Frischkorn is third after three stages and charismatic young Kim Kirchen of Luxembourg who is riding for Team Columbia, is fifth.

Besides seeing those beloved directional markers (you were given either a blue or green parking pass with your press credential. That pass got you everywhere, around barricades, onto the Tour route every day and into alleys and cul de sacs and tiny parking lots where you would be allowed to park backward, sideways, on sidewalks, upside if you could do it) and the arrows always led to the beloved daily press center where you would find a table, a power source, a giant movie screen with the race turned on, a buffet and a toilet. If the buffet had meat innards or jellied pigs feet or other things I might not normally have for lunch, there was always cheese. Spectacular cheese that went with the fresh bread of the region. In July now, I find myself craving gooey, runny, warm, smelly French cheeses.

Also missed are those mass sprint finishes where the rainbow-colored peloton bears down on the hapless two or three guys who have gallantly ridden out front for dozens of miles. On Sunday it happened to be four Frenchmen who hunkered down across the windy roads of Brittany until there was about a mile and a half left when the peloton swallowed them whole and spit out Norwegian Thor Hushovd for the stage win. It is magnificent to watch the working peloton even if it is gut-wrenching to see the ever-optimistic breakaway riders left gasping after the finish line with nothing to show for their miles and miles of lead work except emptiness and the thought there were 19 more days to go.

Tuesday is the first time trial. Don't even have to set the alarm.

And here  is a link to Frischkorn's daily diary at VeloNews. Besides having a promising cycling career, the guy has a way with words.

     -- Diane Pucin

Photo: From left, Paolo Longo Borghini and Samuel Dumoulin and Romain Feillu and William Frischkorn ride during the third stage of the Tour de France between Saint-Malo and Nantes, France. Credit: Mantey / Presse Sports via US Presswire

Amanda Beard talks with Lisa Dillman about Playboy and trying to make the Beijing Olympics team. Watch the video of Beard. The swim trials began today in Omaha with preliminary heats and Dillman is there. Michael Phelps, seen above during today's preliminaries, will be in the men's 400-meter individual medley tonight. Follow the action live. Here's a TV schedule.

Muna Lee, right, may not be a household name yet, but after her blistering sprint to win the women's 100-meter final, Philip Hersh reports that all she could say was, "I'm very surprised."  Looking ahead to today, one of the key events is the men's pole vault final. Brad Walker is in it and holds the American record, set June 8. Will he break his own record? USA Track & Field has posted an event schedule.

Helene Elliott looks at the also-rans at the U.S. Track and Field trials going on in Eugene, Ore. As she points out, the difference between making the team and missing out can be 100th of a second.

Kevin Baxter reports on U.S.-born Mexican athletes playing for their parents' -- or sometimes grandparents' -- homeland, and why.

And Susan Spano reports for the Travel section from Qingdao, China, the old colonial city by the Yellow Sea that will host the Olympic sailing events.

-- Debbie Goffa

Top photo: Michael Phelps swims in the men's 400-meter individual medley preliminaries at the U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Omaha this morning. Credit: Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press

Photo: Muna Lee, winner of the women's 100-meter final, does some low fives with fans. Credit: Charlie Riedel /Associated Press