Blogs

Through the door, keys fumbled with unfeeling fingers, dump bike by the side. Deal with that later. Tiptoe into the kitchen leaving as little of the ride in puddles on the carpet as you can.

Turn heating on.

Road discs then. Everyone's talking about them, and quite a lot of people are trying to make them. But they're not ready, yet. Why is that? Personally, I think it's because making discs work in a road bike situation has been a bit harder than people expected. Even though the technology is well proven in a MTB context, there are different considerations and the usage is significantly altered on the road.

I'm here in sunny Benicassim, north of Valencia, with the Lotto Belisol professional cycling team a they undertake their last training camp before embarking on the 2013 race calendar. It's taken my eyes some time to adjust to the cloudless blue sky and bright yellow thing up there I can tell you.

It's January, everyone decides to lose weight in January, well not everyone, I was at a CX race at the weekend and there were plenty of racers with less meat on them than a butcher's pencil, so maybe not them.  I, on the other-hand have indulged over the holiday period so now it's time to knuckle down to some serious weight loss and get to my desired weight in time for the start of the racing season.

There are many reasons I love this website. The main one being that they have long given me the mouthpiece to spout my nonsense about Albert Timmer, Tony Gibb and fake replica jersey's.

I suppose its like giving the madman the keys to an asylum. Or something like that.

Where this site has come into its own in recent years has been the fantasy cycling competition.

Many a lunch time has been spent agonising over the selections as I scanned the list of 3.5 credit riders looking for the next Thomas de Gendt.

Getting sand in your shoes conjures up images of long walks on warm beaches, romantic sunsets and happy holiday memories. Not standing in a grey field claustrophobic under low cloud with a stiff breeze coming off the North Sea rattling in frequent showers that push wet into the back of the jeans and cold deep into the bones. I have damp sand in my shoes. I’m in Belgium. If there is any romance it smells of beer and embrocation.

The polar opposite to race finery, the gritty bottom feeder in the food chain of cycle clothing. That old, tatty, moth-eaten, patched, worn out but still useful kit that is always just one ride away from being binned.

twitten n. Sussex dialect - a narrow path or passage between two walls or hedges. (see also - jennel, gennel, ginnel, twichell, entry, jigger, snicket, jetty, gitties, gulley, chare, ope, shut, cutting and snickelway in other parts of England)

Emma Osenton rides for the Kinesis Morvélo Project, a cycle team that races all types of bicycles, and she has been bitten by the cyclocross bug. As she explains:

Sitting in bed with a brew it felt like the rain hammering on my window wanted to jump in bed and join me. The glass rattled as the hum drum wet played it's Keith Moon-style drum solo. I tweeted my concern. The response came back from road.cc's own Jo Burt that if the weather was crap less people would show up and I was going to get a better result. With those words ringing in my ears I got my routine underway.