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Text by Christian Camerota Surprise, surprise. It looks as if Lance Armstrong's charity ride has turned into something more: like, say, a legitimate run at his 8th Tour De France victory. Armstrong's Team Astana, favored to win today's 39-kilometer time trial in Montpellier, lived up to the hype, finishing the 4th stage in 46 minutes and 29 seconds. Their 40-second margin of victory over Team Saxo Bank means Lance Armstrong is now essentially tied for the race's lead, just milliseconds behind official leader Fabian Cancellara. Tomorrow's 196.5-kilometer stage 5 stretches from Le Cap d'Agde to Perpignan and is dedicated to surrealist painter Salvador Dali, who penned the 1959 Tour's official postcard. Read previous Tour De France posts >>

Text by Annie Hay If there was ever a time to knock off one of the world’s Seven Summits, it’s now. This summer Alaska Mountain Guides International is offering a 20 percent discount on its ten-day Kilimanjaro expeditions, cutting the total price per person from $3,150 to $2,520. You’ll follow the Machame path to the top of the 19,340-foot behemoth and descend via the Mweka trail, taking in views from both the east and west sides of the mountain. Plan on ten days total from start to finish, and don’t worry about feeling rushed—AMGI attributes their 93 percent summit-success rate to the extra day they allow acclimation, which is something few other Kilimanjaro outfitters do. The Catch: You must book by July 15th to receive the 20 percent discount on the Kilimanjaro climb, and trips are filling up fast. The discount also only applies to trips on July 30th, August...

Text by Christian Camerota Far from the fanfare of years past, Lance Armstrong is not even considered the leader of his Astana team in this Tour De France. But the leaderboard would tell you otherwise. Though he has contended his motivation for riding this time around is largely charitable in nature, there's no avoiding that if Lance Armstrong is riding in a race, he's always going to be a favorite. Today's results appear to show Armstrong arriving at that conclusion, as well, just as he arrived at La Grande-Motte. About 30 kilometers from the third stage finish, Team Columbia took advantage of strong crosswinds and split the peloton with a late surge. Armstrong was paying attention and managed to stay with the lead pack, ultimately resulting in a rise into third place in the overall standings, just 40 seconds behind Swiss leader Fabian Cancellara of the Saxo Bank team. Armstrong's...

The latest issue of JPFreek magazine is now available at JPFreek.com. This is the summer edition of the online magazine geared not only for jeep enthusiasts but also outdoor adventurers in general, with a range of articles that stretch from an ongoing, round the world road trip to a report from Chile on the Patagonia Expedition Adventure Race.

This is an important issue for JPFreek in general and for myself personally. For the magazine, it is the first issue to fall under their new paid subscription policy. Until now, the magazine was free, with revenues being ad driven, so this is a bit of a change in direction, but one that will allow the staff to continue to bring the same great content to readers, but also look ahead to some great things in the future as well. I can assure you, the team at JPFreek have some great plans for the future.

On a personal note, I'm happy to play a role in this issue. If you turn to page 40 of the virtual magazine, you'll find an article entitled "Amazon Adventures", which I wrote about my April trip to the Amazon River and Jungle. All the photos used in the article are ones that I shot myself, and the layout that the editorial staff put together is amazing. I'm very proud of how it turned out and glad that I was able to contribute and share a little of my own adventure.

Finally, if you look closely at the masthead for the magazine, you'll see the list for the "Crew & Contributors". Looking down that list under "Editorial" you'll now notice that my name has been added. I have joined the crew at JPFreek as the Adventure Editor and I hope to be making larger contributions in the future. Thanks for having me aboard guys! :)

I posted about this over at Gadling this morning, but thought it would be of interest here as well. The World Heritage Committee, which is part of UNESCO, has closed it's 33rd annual convention, adding 13 new places to it's famous list, and taking the unusual step to drop one of the sites completely.

Amongst the 13 new sites added to the list are the Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy, Mount Wutai in China, and the Tower of Hercules in Spain. Each of the locations are cited for offering universal value of a natural or cultural nature. With these additions, the complete list of World Heritage Sites come to 890 and you can read about each of the new ones in the official press release.

The one location that was dropped was the Dresden Elbe Valley in Germany. The Committee expressed concern about changes to the natural habitat there due to the building of a new four-lane bridge through the area. When the plan was first announced a few years back, UNESCO put the site on it's Danger List, but when construction went ahead anyway, they were forced to drop the Valley altogether.

Three sites were added to that same Danger List this year. They include the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System in Belize, the Los Katios National Park in Columbia, and the Historical Monuments of Mtskheta. In the case of the Barrier Reef, the fear is of over development so close to the water, while the other two locations were added to bring awareness to their preservation processes.

With the list growing to 890, we all have some new places to add to our "must visit" lists. Any traveler would do well to start their plans with these World Heritage Sites, and I've been fortunate enough to visit several of them, and they have all been worth the trip.