Wear and tear
[ posted by iain Saturday, April 23, 2005 ]
Thanks to Doug for the recent updates to the
hill profiles. I had the opportunity to take some of them in during yesterdays rainy ride.
Three weeks until my holiday starts and I've been checking things over in preparation. Cycling to work is really taking its toll on my kit, I'm going to invest in some new shoes and I need to get hold of a bike bag/box for the journey. The other piece of kit I'm a bit worried about at the moment is the rear wheel on my summer bike. It's a Campag Nucleon with more than its share of wet rides ground into the rims, I'll be cycling over to Box Hill to get it checked out next weekend.
Good news that the Giro and the ProTour have sorted out their differences, I am really looking forward to seeing Basso, Cunego and Simoni slugging it out on the Stelvio.
Turn Right for Japan
[ posted by phill Wednesday, April 20, 2005 ]
A friend of mine brought this site to my attention [
www.turnrightforjapan.com ] - that's one long bike ride! Good luck Steve I'll be following your progress with interest.
Giro del Trentino
[ posted by phill Tuesday, April 19, 2005 ]
The first stage of the
Giro del Trentino went up my usual training climb today, a great opportunity to see how it should be done. I rode up to Ronzo-Chienis under a warm sun to see the finish of the stage and ended up freezing on the roadside for an hour under torrential rain in 1mm of lycra waiting for the race to arrive. I'm sure anyone who has gone to see a major stage race in the mountains knows the feeling!
At least while I was waiting I met Peter the photographer for the
KRKA cycling team (Slovenia), the only amateur team in the race and made up entirely of riders under 23yrs. So good luck to them for the rest of the race, should be good experience for them.
The stage finished with a first category climb from Loppio to Ronzo-Chienis, unfortunately they missed out the hard bit which continues on up to Passo Bordala. As far as Ronzo it's 11km of fairly consistent 7-8% and not very selective so it was to be expected that the stage ended in a sprint which Simoni didn't contest and Casagrande lost out to Niemec (Miche).
Took it *very* easy on the wet roads back down to Rovereto as I'm not too keen to repeat my performance of 18 months ago when I managed to break my hip on this descent with a bit of careless cornering (well officially I blame gravel on the corner).
Forecast is snow over 1100m for the next couple of days, I'm starting to get concerned that Passo Stelvio won't be open for the Giro next month, anyway let's hope.
Tyler Hamilton
[ posted by iain Monday, April 18, 2005 ]
Tyler Hamilton was banned for two years today.
He has written a lengthy entry in his website journal about the investigation [
www.tylerhamilton.com ].
Mixed weekend
[ posted by iain Sunday, April 17, 2005 ]
A mixed weekend of riding for me. Yesterday was colder than it has been for some time and I felt good doing a fairly hard paced 3 hour ride. Today I was out in the sun and warmer temperatures and I felt terrible, so it was just a short ride out and about in Surrey. I managed to get back to see the coverage of the
Amstel Gold Race, which once again was severely shortened by the coverage of the motor sport. No chance to really get into the race and even David Duffield was forced to speak only about the race rather than last night's dinner. Great sprint by Di Luca all the same, I remember him winning a similar uphill sprint in the Giro a few years back.
Two big announcements are due tomorrow. Lance Armstrong is
expected to announce this years Tour will be his last and
Tyler Hamilton's verdict is due. Tdfblog.com has good coverage on the Hamilton story
here.
