Quite a few events done this summer, this from the Merida Marathon in Builth Wells in July. Good weekend actually, went down to London to see the Tour prologue on the Saturday then over to Wales for the 100km course on the Sunday. Pretty hard going, it took me over 7 hrs to get round but get round I did and I’d do it again, possibly trying to start somewhere nearer the front (i.e. not pretty much at the back).
Photo from Jon Brooke at rightplacerighttime.
I’m actually hoping that Floyd Landis gets off. I don’t think he doped- he just doesn’t strike me that way unlike, say, Rasmussen, who slightly ironically looks pretty guilty even though he hasn’t actually failed a test like Landis. It never made much sense to me that Landis would do it given the near-certainty of getting caught, but that said just look at Vinokourov in the tour. Hmm. Apart from the Lemond thing, I think Landis is conducting himself pretty well at the moment.
The doping events in the Tour were pretty disappointing, not because of the riders that got caught (because that’s a good thing) but because of the way that riders who didn’t fail any tests were treated. I just said I didn’t much like Rasmussen and I think he’s probably guilty, but the fact is that he didn’t fail any tests and was kicked out for basically looking bad. I’m not sure that’s a good way to go. Contador’s already had to call a press conference just to say he’s not doping, and he’s been told he’s not welcome at the Cyclassics in Hamburg based on what’s essentially circumstantial evidence. Of course he would say he’s clean, wouldn’t he? But the thing is there’s not much more he and other riders can do other than pass the tests, and even if they do that the assumption/accusation seems to be that they were just clever enough not to get caught. Depending on who you talk to, it’s ‘well known’ that Armstrong doped his way to all 7 Tour wins, and if Contador won then he must be doping, right? Well, maybe he was, but until some actual evidence comes up to say so I don’t see what the alternative is other than to accept that he wasn’t.
I’ve not been following the Landis thing too closely (although trust but verify is the place to go if you’re interested) but it looks like his test results might not stand up. The unfortunate thing is that if that if he does indeed get off, it’ll be because of uncertainty: I doubt he’ll be able to prove that he didn’t dope, but the labs might not be able to prove that he did. This is both a good and a bad thing: if there are some false positives some sort of precedent will be good for innocent riders who might find themselves failing a test, but on the other hand it gives the guilty room to wiggle, and who’ll know the difference?
If the lab in question is discredited that’ll be a good thing though- sounds like they’re all over the place. I also think having David Millar around is a good thing. He’s been catching it from some quarters and while you can see where people are coming from when they call him a hypocrite, he’s made his mistakes, sat out his ban and nobody preaches like the converted. People should listen to what he’s got to say.
I like this a lot, although I’d probably look a little bit funny at other people who said they did, if that makes any sense. Hello to Mr Snob NYC.
Did my first two events of the year the last couple of weekends: an Open Adventure 5 yesterday and the Dyfi Enduro the week before. Both went OK, I don’t seem to be as unfit as I thought but I’m feeling the stairs today.
There aren’t really any results for the Dyfi since it’s technically not a race, but I think in previous years there have been lists of positions floating about and I reckon I was somewhere in the top 3rd in 4hrs 12. There were monster climbs as expected, a blues band and cheerleaders (not quite as expected), some great flapjack and some surprisingly technical downhills. I went over the bars once but got away with it, but apparently a couple of people cut themselves to the bone on the slate. There were also a crazy number of people fixing flats, one guy I know had 5 (none for me though, maybe those heavy Kendas aren’t so bad after all). And unicyclists! For when 2 wheels just make it all too easy I suppose…
Kathy and I headed up to Keswick for the first race in the Open Adventure endurance series, and really enjoyed it. Definitely out of practice though, we came in 14th from 27 mixed pairs but there were plenty of places we could have done better- almost 15 mins in transition, for example! No major navigational screwups though and we both felt pretty strong, although we chose a relatively short run stage since neither of us have been doing so much lately. Some of the biking parts were surprisingly technical, I think that’s the first time I’ve had to push the bike up or down anything in an adventure race but definitely a good thing. Next one in the series is the 12hr event in June, but before that there’s the Bristol Rat Race which should be fun. They’re doing one in London this year too, with 1000 people which should really be fun.
While we were in the Lakes we did the North Face trail at Grizedale, not really that impressed (apart from the last couple of sections) but we did some natural/bridleway stuff too which was much more interesting, not to mention difficult. Also a pretty good cafe but back too late for cake.
Finally soldiered through ‘Out of Control’. Tailed off pretty badly towards the end, or else I just lost momentum- spent far too long reading that. ‘The Hour’ was great- whipped through that in France and really enjoyed it, didn’t know up until the last few pages whether Hutch broke the record or not… Followed that up with ‘Greenmantle’, because I needed something for the flight home. Amusingly of its time (1916).
Then ‘No Country for Old Men’, Cormac McCarthy’s latest (I think…?). Really enjoyed it as a kind of bleak, noir thriller but didn’t really get me like the Border Trilogy stuff. I read somewhere it’s going to be filmed by the Coen brothers, and although I normally avoid adaptations of books I like I’m a big fan of theirs so high hopes for that.
At the moment I’m about halfway through ‘The Blackest Bird’, a kind of murder mystery set in 19th Century New York with Edgar Allan Poe as a main character. Great stuff so far.
So not only is the creaking/ticking/annoying noise on my Trek not fixed, it’s getting worse and really winding me up now. I know some people think I’m a bit anal about noises on my bikes (”Hear that?” “Hear what?”) but what do they know.
Current suspects are loose chainring bolts (most likely) or maybe the crank is getting a bit rounded out and not sitting on the BB squarely any more (it’s a slightly old school square taper number). Problem is out of the 4 chainring bolts 2 are so tight I can’t move them at all in any direction, 1 is rounded out (by the shop I think- grrrr) so who knows how tight it is, and the other one just spins. I bought a tool to hold the back but all it did was bend, but not before taking off the profile on the nut- but what can you expect for £3. A fork would have been about as much use.
Tempted just to get a whole new crankset from Merlin, since the cassette/chain will need to be changed pretty soon anyway.
From their myspace page: “note: we have disabled comments because myspace is a cesspool of spammers.”
They did their best stuff when they were banging on about spending time in places like cesspools and other pits of despair. Good times.
They’re right though- I wouldn’t know about myspace spammers particularly but in general it certainly is a bit of a cesspool. However it is letting me check out ‘Survivalism’ which is actually growing on me. I ordered Year Zero almost out of duty after not being that impressed by With Teeth, but I have higher hopes for it now. I’ll wait for them to be dashed in true NIN fashion.
OK, it doesn’t really have any of the qualities of Escher’s stuff but that’s what it reminded me of first. Apparently owned by a bonkers Russian gangster who now can’t afford to heat it after losing everything in prison- he was a millionaire (dunno in which currency) before he went in. Story here.
7/10 on the BBC’s quiz, and that was with a couple of guesses. And I ride pretty much every day. Mostly guff of course, nice picture of Dubya’s knuckles after he ran down a copper in Scotland last year though.
Just back from Meribel, first snowboarding trip since Chamonix in 2001 (apart from a day at Valdesqui in Spain a year or so ago). Still got it- well, as much of ‘it’ as I ever had anyway. We were out pretty much all day every day, and at the end of the week I felt like I was riding better than I ever have, and beginning to play around a bit with little jumps and riding fakie. Dave got better and better (on skis) as the week went on, and Richard was surprisingly good to start with. (He wasn’t pleased to hear that, but it’s his fault for showing us a bit of video of him locked in the death wedge from his last time out.)
Plenty of snow about, and weather split pretty evenly between clear blue skies and pretty much zero visibility/snowing. As predicted we didn’t have much apres ski energy, and we were a bit out of it anyway staying in Brides les Bains. There were a surprising number of empties lying around the apartment though by the end of the week, which was rounded off nicely by getting up at 3 am to drive for 2.5 hours back to Geneva, fuelled by some nasty French Red Bull knock-off and Snickers.
