Recently it's not normal for me to describe any of my rides as 'epic', but today's I can safely scribe as one of those, 160km from Oban, round the coast, up Glen Coe and across Rannoch Moor, all in hideous weather. It's also not normal for me to decide to go out in the rain, but I'm on holiday and determined to forget any health problems I've been experiencing this year and get some decent rides in my legs to salvage something from this season, I can't think when I've had the motivation to do that kind of distance by myself before, other than on a foreign touring holiday when I've had to get to one place for a flight home.
Everything seemed to be going pretty well, feeling good in the light rain, but as I hit Glen Coe, I could see the cloud hanging around the top of the glan, tourists seemed quite happy not to venture too far up the hill, taking photo's from the lower car parks, but the top looked dark, cloudy and not particularly pleasant, but no point in turning back, there's plenty more bad weather behind me too. Having hit the cloud and stopped to pull on the goretex another time, as I set off the bike didn't feel too good, on I went and things seemed to be getting 'draggy', the wind was picking up over the drag to the highest point of Rannoch Moor, you could also see your breath and it was getting colder all the time and near the summit a gusty headwind, visibility down to about 200m, like in the werewolf film on the moor. You know when somethings not right and you think, "I've not got a puncture", you bounce the back wheel only to find that's what you have, well it was one of those days, a slow puncture, but a puncture none the less.
So, you have 2 options.
1) Replace the tube
2) Pump it up and hope for the best
I went for option 2, as anybody who's been across that bit of road knows, there's no shelter, so along with it absolutely chucking it down with rain and a freezing wind (+ the werewolves), I wasn't going to be faffing about with fixing a puncture if I could help it. Quick fill with air and on I went, did this another couple of times and eventually made it to the first settlement, Bridge of Orchy, the hotel was serving food and was filled with walkers, I was directed to what must have been the 'cyclists table', it has what looks like waterproof seats, they seemed used to this, so went for the lentil soup and what I assumed would be the biggest dish, fish n chips, plus the obligatory two coffees. All the walkers looked dry, don't think it was nice enough weather for them, but they were dressed in the full clean & dry kit, pretending they were willing to brave the elements. A pair of old motorcycling mates came in, sounded like they'd ridden up from Yorkshire in the last couple of days, they both had bikes (loud ee by gum type conversation) and still had to ride up to Fort William, both sank 2 pints quickly and said "that were better than last one", made me slightly frightened to think how many pubs they'd stopped at, but no accidents on the news tonight, so they must have got there in one piece. Fixed puncture properly after I'd eaten, then off I went.
Set the virtual partner on the Garmin at 30kmh, he beat me back to Oban by 2 minutes, I cracked on the final climb, so not a bad days training on a nasty day, a shorter hilly ride tomorrow afternoon I think, needed an epic today, just to prove I could still do it.
Monday 26 July 2010
Saturday 3 July 2010
Cancellara dominates in Prologue
Big Fabian does it again, blitzes everybody and has bike scanned by the UCI for a motor!!
Quite interesting results, especially Wiggins, he gambled on an early start to avoid the rain, but hit the worst of the weather, ITV4's coverage of his ride showed him taking the corners incredibly slowly, he'll be a bit dissapointed with 77th @56 seconds. His interview didn't show him to be too upset, so there is another possibility, he's lost weight since the Giro where he won the prologue, could he have furthered his transformation from pursuiter to mountain goat and this is the result, a reduced ability on shorter TT's, we'll find out soon enough.
Pleased to see Geraint Thomas up there too, I'd placed a £2 bet on him and was set to get £130 back if he placed in the top 3, all going well until Millar & Lance finished.
Tyler Farrar looks to be flying with a top 10, so should be interesting in the sprints this year with a below par Cav probably unable to dominate.
Looking forward to the first week, seems like bad weather, crosswinds, cobbles, no boring stages this year, there could be a few high profile victims fightingh to keep themselves within touch of the yellow jersey.
| 1 | Fabian Cancellara (Swi) Team Saxo Bank | 0:10:00 | |
| 2 | Tony Martin (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia | 0:00:10 | |
| 3 | David Millar (GBr) Garmin - Transitions | 0:00:20 | |
| 4 | Lance Armstrong (USA) Team Radioshack | 0:00:22 | |
| 5 | Geraint Thomas (GBr) Sky Professional Cycling Team | 0:00:23 | |
| 6 | Alberto Contador Velasco (Spa) Astana | 0:00:27 | |
| 7 | Tyler Farrar (USA) Garmin - Transitions | 0:00:28 | |
| 8 | Levi Leipheimer (USA) Team Radioshack | ||
| 9 | Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Professional Cycling Team | 0:00:32 | |
| 10 | Linus Gerdemann (Ger) Team Milram | 0:00:35 |
Quite interesting results, especially Wiggins, he gambled on an early start to avoid the rain, but hit the worst of the weather, ITV4's coverage of his ride showed him taking the corners incredibly slowly, he'll be a bit dissapointed with 77th @56 seconds. His interview didn't show him to be too upset, so there is another possibility, he's lost weight since the Giro where he won the prologue, could he have furthered his transformation from pursuiter to mountain goat and this is the result, a reduced ability on shorter TT's, we'll find out soon enough.
Pleased to see Geraint Thomas up there too, I'd placed a £2 bet on him and was set to get £130 back if he placed in the top 3, all going well until Millar & Lance finished.
Tyler Farrar looks to be flying with a top 10, so should be interesting in the sprints this year with a below par Cav probably unable to dominate.
Looking forward to the first week, seems like bad weather, crosswinds, cobbles, no boring stages this year, there could be a few high profile victims fightingh to keep themselves within touch of the yellow jersey.
The Tour starts today.
Another Tour, another revelation on the eve of it.
These are generally happening every year now, but the latest revelations from Floyd Landis, which appear in the Wall Street Journal are making lots of things slip into place about the Armstrong phenomenum and the high possibility that 7 Tour wins was all a giant fraud.
The article is linked here: http://tinyurl.com/3xftw94
Landis alleged that bikes were sold off to fund the teams doping programme, in the article Trek do admit that some of the bikes went missing, apparently half the number they supplied to the team. These were seen for sale on the internet, during the early part of 2004 Landis was seen riding an old Trek bike while Lance was on his new Trek Madone. So I expect there are hundreds of Armstrong fans who have a team bike at home, unwilling to face the fact that they may have been part of the funding process for their hero's doping programme.
Whatever the outcome, Armstrong is damaged, but he's the biggest cash cow the sport's ever seen, the authorities and race organisers seem unwilling to remove him from the event, they have TV viewing figures and sponsorship deals to worry about. Teams and riders have been removed in the past for being under investigation, a policy which the Tour organisers ASO seemed to be employing the last few years, there is enough evidence in this case for the US to have started a federal investigation into the allegations from Landis, so I expect the cash cow can't be removed, that's bad for business.
We're about to witness one of the most incredible Tours in history, Radio Shack (Armstrong's team) are going to under a huge amount of scrutiny, they won't be able to stop the bus on a mountain road and get a blood transfusion. So what's going to happen, will he flounder in the last week without his normal boost, will we get an unexpected Tour champion if the survielance is hightened and the 'real' grand tour riders come to the top.
So my predictions are that we'll see some unusual names in the top ten, riders will have bad days again, like they used to back in the day, I also expect Armstrong not to finish for some reason, at this point I don't know what the reason will be, but expect him to come out all guns blazing. He may be a sporting fake and a generally unpleasant human being, but he's a fighter and this is going to be one spicy Tour.
These are generally happening every year now, but the latest revelations from Floyd Landis, which appear in the Wall Street Journal are making lots of things slip into place about the Armstrong phenomenum and the high possibility that 7 Tour wins was all a giant fraud.
The article is linked here: http://tinyurl.com/3xftw94
Landis alleged that bikes were sold off to fund the teams doping programme, in the article Trek do admit that some of the bikes went missing, apparently half the number they supplied to the team. These were seen for sale on the internet, during the early part of 2004 Landis was seen riding an old Trek bike while Lance was on his new Trek Madone. So I expect there are hundreds of Armstrong fans who have a team bike at home, unwilling to face the fact that they may have been part of the funding process for their hero's doping programme.
Whatever the outcome, Armstrong is damaged, but he's the biggest cash cow the sport's ever seen, the authorities and race organisers seem unwilling to remove him from the event, they have TV viewing figures and sponsorship deals to worry about. Teams and riders have been removed in the past for being under investigation, a policy which the Tour organisers ASO seemed to be employing the last few years, there is enough evidence in this case for the US to have started a federal investigation into the allegations from Landis, so I expect the cash cow can't be removed, that's bad for business.
We're about to witness one of the most incredible Tours in history, Radio Shack (Armstrong's team) are going to under a huge amount of scrutiny, they won't be able to stop the bus on a mountain road and get a blood transfusion. So what's going to happen, will he flounder in the last week without his normal boost, will we get an unexpected Tour champion if the survielance is hightened and the 'real' grand tour riders come to the top.
So my predictions are that we'll see some unusual names in the top ten, riders will have bad days again, like they used to back in the day, I also expect Armstrong not to finish for some reason, at this point I don't know what the reason will be, but expect him to come out all guns blazing. He may be a sporting fake and a generally unpleasant human being, but he's a fighter and this is going to be one spicy Tour.
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