Blackhound's blog

Seven weeks from now I will be retired and I can start to realise some dreams.  Or will they be nightmares?  I have been made redundant but had planned to leave around now so the timing is good for me.  At just 51 I am young enough to have a few years in me and I believe, hope, that I have sufficient funding. I should be fine.  First really big target is the Great Divide a mountainbike route between Banff, Canada, to Antelope Wells on the Mexican / USA border.  Race or tour?  Not decided.  Lets see how it goes.

I noted Bradley Wiggin's comments regarding not winning the Champions League while playing for Wigan last week.

While understanding the comment in general, Garmin were not that far away.  If Armstrong hadn't returned Wiggo would have been on the podium and Contador is way out ahead at the moment anyway.

Back home in front of the tv icing my achilles and watching the womens road race championships.  I should be up in the Peak at the moment approaching a cafe stop at Monyash on route to another metric century.

It has been hurting since  touring Ireland two weeks aBgo and a visit to a osteopath improved it but not it is still sore.  Just 75 minutes this morning.

Got a week off work and a mate and I are off for a bike tour of Ireland. Usual last minute rush at work deciding what to do and what to leave.

Having got home to pack, some new luggage had arrived from Alaska and I was trying to get everything in.  Bit smaller than I thought but all packed now so a long train and ferry journey tomorrow.

Went to the last club tt of the season.  Not done much this season, two hilly's and a two up.  This was my first and last chance at the standard course.  About to set off from thr club house and the heavens opened.  Riding to the start felt OK but getting cold in the rain.

Last weekend went to Powys for a weekend away with Herself. One afternoon we visited Llandrindod Wells and stumbled across the National Cycle museum. I had no idea it was there and spent an hour or so wandering around looking a bikes from the 1800's to the last 10 years or so. Not a lot of carbon fibre there.

Interesting to see the changes in design. In one sense bikes from 100 years ago look very similar to todays bikes and yet looking closely even bikes from 20+ years ago have significant changes, down tube shifters and toeclips.

I rode the Flanders sportif the other weekend and there were 19,000 riders taking part. I was expecting a few thousand but nothing on this scale. Once we started riding cyclists were everywhere and yet in the total of eight hours I was on the road I never heard one car horn or shout from a car window about us holding up other road users.

At the end of last year I had stepped on the scales and noticed I had put on a chunk of weight during 2008. Work had been very busy since the spring with limited riding during the week.

I joined the singletrackworld "fat club" with the intention of losing 12lbs in 12 weeks.

Last week was the final weigh in and I lost 11lbs. The day before I weighed myself and was bang on my target weight of 10st10 but a meal out on the last evening with two visiting Aunts put me over the limit. Over the weekend I was back down again.

We all recall semolina with strawberry jam from school dinners, not as good a pudding as spotted dick and custard or jam roly-poly.

I was reading an article in Singletrack a couple of months ago by Matt Hart on pasta and about how it is made from durum wheat, or semolina. Now I think I knew this deep down in the recesses of my brain but never did anything with this information.

Last Saturday decided weather had improved sufficiently to get best bike out. Needed to take it for a spin as it is only three weeks till Tour of Flanders sportif.

It felt fast when the wind was with me, riding alone as away for the weekend with friends. Escaped for a few hours, very nice. Started East of Newark and headed SOuth to Vale of Belvoir. Flat.....