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I’ll keep posting things here from time to time when I remember. The first lot is a cake, a tiger and a drum. | |
Ouch!
Tour of Qinghai Lake , China, July 15-23, 2006. That has got to hurt.
Colne Grand Prix – hot, hot hot.
A 7pm evening crit after a mad dash from Sheffield (working) and surreal temperatures (still over 80 degrees on the start line). The race itself felt pretty fast (but that may have been the heat) and was dominated (spoilt?!) by Aire Valley RT riders protecting their sprinter and pulling back every move that went up the road. In the end, and the inevitable sprint, I was eigth, which isn’t bad for someone who’s never been able to sprint. Great race. Bitter? Moi?
The Chap Olympics – none of this vulgar sporting tosh.
Some funny photos on the BBC website of the annual event hosted by Chaps Magazine. The opening ceremony includes the lighting of the Olympic pipe.
A weekend at home – just the ten of us
A gorgeous, balmy summer weekend with Dippy, Jane and children Libby and Flo. Then James and Katie came on a flying but packed visit from Australia, with Maisy. What a great time – the hottest weather we’ve had since we moved here four years ago – perfect for making memories. See the video here.
Nice prolitariate posters
The Tour de France gathers pace (or rather loses pace) as the race its the mountains today – when the going get tough….
I’ve browsed to these posters (Promoting the Discovery Channel riders) on show in the US at the moment – I just love the style of them. More posters in the series here
5 Olives
Lily celebrated Saturday by putting five olives on her fingers then eating them. The olives, that is. 
… and today, I watched…..
A very simple but strangely compelling and lovely video called Where the Hell is Matt?.
Back on the road
First race on the road this year (if you don’t count a duathlon), the supporting 3rd cat and Juniors’ race for the National championships at Horwich (nr Bolton). I was disappointed a bit – I’ve got high expectations of myself – but I finished in the middle of the whittled-down bunch on a wet but fast course. Probably about 20th place – but the results will confirm that. Sprint finishes in bike races are a bit out of my territory and I was looking for a break to get into instead, but it was too fast a course with easy corners – so there wasn’t much jumping about into and out of tight bends (luckily – the roads were wet!).
Having made my excuses, I must say that I just am not up to that speed of racing yet (26.5mph) after commuting and riding steady since the last cyclo-cross race in January. I’ll get there – as I ride the races at Colne, Clitheroe and Rochdale later in the summer, but I’m going to have to ride more strongly as well as intelligently if I’m going to repeat my podium place at Colne in 2005.
The races themselves were well put together (by Horwich CC) and it’s always much more exciting racing in front of a good crowd. British Cycling’s report here.
A video tour of the house in mid building chaos Autumn 2005
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Wow – it’s wierd looking back on this video of the house building now. Seems like we’ve come so far. What a satisfying struggle it’s been!; |
A trip to see Dips, Jane, Libby and Flo
By George – these flags are doing my head in
RANT: The world cup is nearly upon us and an ever-increasing number of drivers decide that it’s time to stop sitting around and really help the England football team over in Germany by flying small flags on their cars in England. There’s a thin line here – I don’t want to discourage patriotism. The problem is; it isn’t partriotism. I wonder how many of these people know when St George’s day is (or indeed who he was). There was no flag-flying going on when the English team went off to Melbourne for the Commonwealth games this spring.
What’s funnier is that the whole concept of a flag is that it’s a visual symbol recognisable by its patterns to denote a particular country. But that’s not enough for the thickies… they need the word “England” written on – just to be safe in case someone thinks the George cross means Brazil , Paraguay or something. Even the concept that flag drag will boost fuel costs seems to make no impact on the dim whits who fly these annotated flags from their cars. I wonder how many of these patriots think the price of fuel is astronomical in this country?
But my real rant is about how this links to football, and why I like to play it but hate to watch it. Every summer, I love to watch the awesome challenge of the Tour de France, the tennis at Wimbledon, some cracking Athletics meetings and several other sports. But there’s something else in football. Many sports have their passionate fans, but none are so partisan. I don’t really mind whether Lance Armstrong or Ivan Basso win a stage or the overall… it’s how it’s done that makes it entertaining. The England fans I saw watching the last world cup in the pubs of this country didn’t care how it was done – didn’t even care whether England had played fairly – they just wanted them to win. Panache not required. What a dull outloook on life. Rant over.