It seemed a wonderful plan. While getting my broken spokes fixed (3 broke in my rear wheel in just one week time!) to get new tires at the same time. A bit smaller, because the ones on my MTB were just huge and chunky. Good for offroad, but just a lot of effort on the road. The classic zooming sound was kinda pretty, but besides that there was just a lot of rubber rubbing off on the road.

So smaller, proper road tires seemed the most logic way to go. The guy in the bike shop did warm me… it might look a bit funny. Small tires under a big bulky frame… I couldn’t mind. Put ‘em on! But then I went to pick the wheel and tires up on Saturday afternoon, put them under the bike again and… Oops… That does look funny! :-)

Well, funny… ridiculous is definitely a better word! I will make a picture tomorrow, so you can judge for yourself! It used to look something like this: Bike with big tires.

And now it looks like this:

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So far cycling to work is proving to be somewhat of a mixed success. In the morning it’s just great! It’s quite a short ride, just about 15km or 40 minutes, easy and safe parking of the bike and I can shower at work, so no problem at all. I do start quite early, but that’s mainly because I like to finish early. Especially when cycling home and afterwards having to shower, do grocery shopping and cook, it just takes up a lot of time and it’s nice to leave for home a bit early.

But that’s the morning… in the afternoon it’s a different story. I take a little detour on the way back, through the dunes and that makes the ride about 10km longer. Still, cycling 25km shouldn’t be any problem. It’s just a bit more then 50 minutes, but every single day I start to feel quite “empty” after about 35 minutes…

Don’t exactly know why, but my best guess would be a simple lack of energy… true, around 1700 I do get a bit hungry, but it’s quite rough on the bike. I have breakfast just before I leave in the morning, and a normal lunch at noon, so that should prove to be a problem… even introduced a couple of “snacks” (apple or Liga EverGreen) before I leave, but that hasn’t helped much so far…

Not sure what to do now. Probably will just try to keep cycling and see what works best. Maybe a bigger lunch, a later breakfast, more nasty snacks? Or maybe it’s just getting used to the fact I am on the bike so often now. OK, the rides are a bit shorter then normal, but still get a good 1 and a half hour of exercise every day.

And normally I would always praise and follow the classic “one day on, one day off” tactic, especially as numerous times that has proven it’s success… or actually I should say, not following that philosophy led to problems, so that might be the case now as well… I guess time will tell. Maybe it’s just because I am only moderate and am expecting to much! ;-)

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Yes, cycling to work for me must be cursed. Well, at least a little… tried 3 times, failed 3 times. First time last Friday. Got up early, but from my bed I could already hear I wasn’t going to cycle that day. Very heavy rain, thunder and lighting… I really wanted to cycle to work, but not that bad I considered going through that kind of weather! I would try again on Monday.

Well, yesterday I did try. But didn’t get further then about 200 meter on the bike. After that distance I noticed my rear tire was surprisingly soft. Or at least not as hard as it was the day before, when I rode my bike on a little ride after fixing the unexpected puncture on my front tire and pumped up both tires in the process. So when checking the rear tire before pumping it up again, I could hear a little sizzling sound… F#ck… another puncture… And at 0645 in the morning not something you wanne fix right there and then. So I left the bike for what it was, and took the bus/train to work again…

After fixing the tire that night, I got up early again this morning for the next attempt! Quite motivated I got on the bike on 0630 (!!) and took off. And then disaster struck again… after 4km I heard something funny… psst.. psst.. psst.. psst.. psst.. Oh no! And indeed… another puncture… Just my luck… Only problem now was that the distance to work (probably at least another 13 or more km) was a bit to far to walk with the bike… so there was no other option to return home again… *Aarggg* So after cycling for 15 minutes I had to walk back with the bike for 45…

Well, I guess there is no other option then to just keep trying! Some day the curse will be gone and I should get there without any problems! :-)

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Cycling in Australia was mainly focussed around 2 simple words, repeated uncountable times: keep left. Yes, my greatest problem wasn’t wind, bad roads, hills, rain or whatever, but it was keeping to the correct side of the road. At times it was quite obvious to stay on the correct side of the road, but on small roads, cycling paths or roads with little traffic I sometimes ended up on the right side of the road… not good and to prevent that I had to keep saying to myself to keep left!

When I did kept left, cycling in and around Canberra is mainly great fun! As soon as you get a bit out of the city and end up on the highways, the cycling pleasure goes down a bit. Riding on the shoulder, full of stones and dirt with cars flying by at 100km/h, doesn’t make very relax cycling. But besides that, it’s quite nice!

Except for a ride along the shores of Lake Burley Griffin, it’s never really flat. Small hills provide a fun ride. Plus there are some challenging rides very close to the city as well. Take Mount Ainslie. Definitely a challenging climb with 2.5 km at an average grade of 8.6%… and knowing there is a small steep bump in the beginning of the climb and after that quite a long “doable” stretch, means that the end of the climb is much steeper then the average 8.6%… But then, with just a 2.5 km climb, it’s very doable! Even Sally “wiggled” her way to the top for the first time ever! :-)

The weather wasn’t that briljant for cycling the time I was in Canberra. With 12 degrees and without my cycling gear on a to small bike it could have been better. Although I must say I was very happy I could borrow Sal’s and her sister Pip’s bike to go for some rides! Already looking forward to take some rides in spring or summer. Black Mountain and Mount Stromlo will prove to be fun rides!!

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Inspired by yesterdays heroes of Paris-Roubaix, I wiped the big layer of dust of my bike this morning and took the “steal horse” for a ride this afternoon. Inspired yes, but I was far from flying like Fabian Cancellara was doing yesterday over the cobble stones in the North of France…

I expected the first ride to be quite ok. I had been doing quite regular 2 times a week spinning in Barcelona, but that didn’t help much… I guess 30 minutes intensive spinning, with intervals, is still quite different from just cycling against a though cold wind for 30 minutes… Well, don’t have to guess here of course, I was the living proof today! :-)

So I returned after a short ride (just over an hour) slightly disappointed, but smiling as well. It was nice to climb on the bike again. A strange sense of freedom when riding (or in my case struggling) through the wind. Just me and the elements. Strange to believe a year ago I had already cycled more then 600km at this time! And Bastiaan and I were in serious preparation for the Amstel Gold Race. It will be hard to match the number of kilometres from last year, but the start is there! ;-)

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Stage 13 in the Vuelta yesterday. 3 Spanish riders, Mauricio Ardila, Oscar Pereiro and Samuel Sanchez are away and will sprint for the victory. Ardila seems to have the best sprint of the 3… After a long 4 hours on the bike he sees the banner above the road, thinks it’s the finish and goes for it! Arms in the air, victory! NO!!! Wait! Where is the finish line?!?! Sanchez takes off and wins his first ever professional race! Could it be more dramatic? :-)

As the finish from the stage was on a climb, the banner Ardila was sprinting at was there for the mountain-jersey points. And for some reason they put that banner just 150 meters before the actual finish line! A painful mistake…

Click the image below to watch the video! A truely classic finish!! :-)

A classic finish! (Source: Eurosport)

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Excitement comes easy these days. Even from cleaning my bike! :-)
Well, it was in need for some quality cleaning time. I have been cleaning it quite well and quite regular ever since I got it, but still cleaning the gears and chain is quite hard. If you wanne do it good that is. Usually I used some old piece of cloth to do it, which works quite fine, but of course always leaves some dirt. So today was a day from some more drastic cleaning.

I got off to quite a good start and quite fast started thinking about dismantling the whole bike! Strip everything off, only leaving the bare tubes (thank you Peter ;-) so I could clean all parts perfectly and assemble the bike again afterwards. Well, I took a side track from that idea even quicker then I came up with it. I wasn’t 100% convinced I possess the essential knowledge to put it all together again. I think I can, as it ain’t rocket science, but as the weather will most likely be quite nice the coming days, I prefer making sure I can actually use the bike (in a proper way) over trying to be the bike mechanic I am not and screwing up the tuning of my gears, breaks and saddle position. So I took the easy way out, only dismantling the parts that could do no direct harm.

By far the most challenging was cleaning my bike chain. I dislocated one of the little chains so I could remove it from the bike and but it in a little bowl filled with “refined petrol” (or in Dutch: wasbenzine, in Swedish: tvättbensin and Danish: rensebenzin) and used my old toothbrush to clean it… Almost nothing but a great success, the chain got perfectly clean after I was done! But please kids, don’t try this at home!!! Because I had been with my left hand in the petrol almost non-stop for about the long half an hour it took to brush my chain, the skin on my hand got kinda irritated for the next about 4 hours… Some weird non-stop burning sensation… Well… sensation… I thought it would go away instantly when I would wash my hands… but no… I was seriously wrong! :-) Even holding my hands under the running cold water for 5 minutes, brought me nothing… Next time I will choose the wear gloves! ;-)

Well, a struggling 3 hours (including long tea break) later it’s almost showroom shiny again! :-) I just need to put the parts I took off back on again and come to think of it… I actually also still need to clean both wheels… oops… forgot about that… Well, I guess I have something to do again tomorrow morning! ;-)

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Yesterday was the “Ride“, and the ride went well! For us, but even more important for the cancer foundation. As all together “we” collected € 718.990, an amazing amount!

Even though the money is the most important thing, you tend to forget that during the ride… well, at least I did… Because we were riding in a peloton with 6000 people, at almost every place the road got smaller (for example every roundabout… and Holland has WAY TO MANY roundabouts, I know now! :), the whole pack bunched up together which often meant a complete stop. We even did almost 10 minutes over 1 km at one time…. And that got kinda annoying after a while… again, I should have known that from last year, as it was more or less the same, but I couldn’t help the frustration coming back every now and then when you were just riding in a nice pace and we had to stop again…

But that was more or less the only little “negative” thing about the day. It was great fun riding in the big pack again, closing gaps with 48km/h between groups, seeing the most amazing bikes (even with banana’s taped to the frame!), the cycling over blocked main roads straight through the city, the applause from the people on the side of the road and the great feeling when realizing everybody is there for the same reason.

The rest of the family did the 50km and seemed to have enjoyed it a lot as well! Good thing! :-) I guess they were not so happy when they had finished their ride and had to wait one and a half hour before me and Bastiaan finished the 120km ride… I didn’t realize at all they were waiting that long… that had never crossed my mind, making me feel very guilty when my mamma told me on the way home. Guess we have to plan things a bit better for next year! For now just my humble apologies…

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21st of August, The Ride for the Roses. Or “The ride” as we like to call it. It’s a 100km charity cycling ride to collect money for the cancer foundation. This year we (Bastiaan and I) will participate for the 2nd time and my parents and brother will participate for the first time this year. They will do the 50km. Last year “we” collected over € 400.000,- for the cancer foundation, so quite a lot of money! So joining again this year, was somewhat of a logical thing to do. It’s a little contribution and kind of fascinating to cycle together with over 8000 people.

The most rememberable thing from last year, except the riding in a peloton and Bastiaan breaking away from it with 45km/hour after 95km!, were the people cycling with signs on their back, saying things like: “I survived cancer” or “Thank you for your support”. Kinda makes you think and be quiet for a moment…

Also quite fascinating, but in a rather bad way, were some of the “officials” last year. People from the organization who were standing along the track, guiding everybody in the right direction. Almost all were just doing a great job, so no bad words about them, but there were some that were smoking while doing their job… Maybe not the best thing to do on a charity ride for the cancer foundation… But well, I guess as with most habits, we don’t always are aware of them, I just hope they are this year!

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Amazing documentary on TV tonight. A sports documentary about the cycling life of Lance Armstrong. Who is on the doorstep of winning his 7th consecutive Tour de France. An amazing story. I read the book about his story, so seeing the pictures with the story was quite impressive. But what was even more impressive was something Hein Verbruggen, the International Cycling Union (UCI) chairman, had to say… Apparently Armstrong has been donating money to the UCI for many years, to support their quest to end the use of doping in the cycling sport. Just recently Armstrong even bought a new blood testing machine for the UCI. Using his own money…

What makes this even more amazing is the fact that Armstrong is seen as one of the cyclists most likely to be using doping, as he survived cancer, and how can a cancer-survivor win the Tour de France without using doping? Well it can. Armstrong is the living proof for that. But even though he is by far the most tested cyclist for doping, many people, especially the French, still regard to him as a person who does use it. I am a bit skeptical, but I am that with all cyclist. Not just Lance Armstrong. And as long as they answer questions about doping with “I have never been caught“, I will stay that little bit skeptical. But when a cyclist is funding doping research, what can you say?

When I will be watching the Tour on Saturday there is no room for doping in my little world. Just 189 hero’s. One a bit more hero then others, but initially all hero’s. And after 3 weeks, Armstrong will be the biggest hero of them all again. It will be interesting to see how fans and press react to this news. Hopefully like me, and become a little bit bigger fan of Armstrong! :-)

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The weather was just briljant yesterday. At least 30°. Maybe a bit to briljant… To avoid the most heat and highest temperatures during the day, I decided to go cycling early. So on a Sunday morning, I climbed onto my bike at the somewhat crazy time of 09:00… What was I thinking?! But it turned out to be quite ok. After just a little bit I was enjoying myself with the exercise.

Enjoying was a great description until I got to a long open stretch with the wind full in the face… Where the wind wasn’t the real problem, but my knees started hurting… Badly… The knee pain (Osgood-Schlatter) I have had ever since I was a kid, started bugging both my knees again… Strange, as I haven’t had real problems with it for a very long time now. Every now and then when there is a lot of impact on my knees (either by tough exercise, or by sitting on my knees for any time longer then a couple of minutes) it still hurts, but it’s been a while since it as painful as yesterday… :-( Not good… I didn’t feel I was totally going over the max. I rode an ok gear, had a good pace, but still it was hurting. Strange. And annoying, as cycling with pain in both knees ain’t much fun.

I was trying to do some on the bike stretching and thinking of going back when I was passed by two other cyclists… Even though they had a much quicker pace then me, I decided to accelerate and cycle behind them, or in cycling terms: “sit in the last wheel”. Amazing! I had to cycle quicker to stay behind them, but because I was behind them I wasn’t struggling through the wind anymore and could follow the quicker pace easily! Even the Osgood-Schlatter pain in knees went away quite quickly! :-)

Lovely stuff, but after sitting in last position for about 10 minutes I started feeling a bit guilty… Cycling along like that is a bit “not done”… the “sticking” in the last wheel and making use of other peoples efforts. So to relieve my sense of guilt I decided to take the lead in our little group of three for a bit. Outch… That took a lot more effort then riding along in last position… But I wouldn’t let go that easily and was fully committed to return the favor. So I struggled on for about 6 or 7 minutes on first position of the group until the guy behind me took the lead again. Also started to feel my knees a little, so it was good to be able to catch my breath in last position.

It turned out that the two people I passed had exactly the same route in mind as me. So I took my share of work in the lead of the group on the way back as well. Especially after they expressed there annoyens of people “sticking” behind them for the entire ride and not helping out at all… But I managed to keep up and do my work. Besides the last 5km, the complete ride home was in the little group, resulting in a rather mad and record breaking (for me) 33.5 km/h average for the 70km I cycled… The wonders a little group can do… especially on a ride that started out with a bad knee pain…

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Yesterday Dutch cyclist Marc Lotz had to come clean and let the world know he was taking doping (blood doping EPO) to improve his cycling… I was both surprised and stunned… Surprised because I would never have thought Lotz would use doping and stunned because I can’t believe he used EPO… How stupid must he be?!?! EPO has been strongly connected to cycling since the Tour de France of ‘98. And ever since there has been so many blood tests… and the one thing they seem to check for the most is EPO… so what was he thinking?!?! Besides that there was something I didn’t think about until I watched the sportnews later that evening… In my naive mind I thought or hoped it was just Lotz that did something stupid… Until old Dutch cyclist Maarten Ducrot gave his view in the sportnews… He simply stated the team Lotz was riding for had a team doctor, who monitors the riders very closely, so if Lotz was messing around with his blood, at least the team doctor must have known!
Bad… really bad… it feels like this could lead to yet another big doping thing… and the longer Lotz is quiet (he wants to be left alone now, and not talk to the press), the more speculation there will be… Are there more in the Quick-Step team that take something? Did he just started using it, or was he already using it when he was at the Rabobank team? What about the guys he trains with? They should have known…

Today the doping story continued when some stories from a new book from retired cyclist Philippe Gaumont were published. Gaumont, who was banned from the sport after admitting to using doping some years ago, now writes about all the doping stories in his former Cofidis team… Some were already known, like the classic story about Frank Vandenbroucke (who was caught using grow-hormones and EPO, but declared that the doping was not for him, but for his dog…), but it probably also contains new stories about the use of doping in the cycling sport.

Sad, because it really looked like the professional cycling was getting cleaner and cleaner the last couple of years… now it takes another big blow… What doesn’t help much is the default answer almost all cyclists give when they are asked if they use doping. It always is something like: “Well, I have never been caught.”

…

Well, at least I can finish the story on a high! I have been “clean” for almost 2 months now! Haven’t used any doping lately! :-) *hahaha* still don’t know for sure if my asthma medicine from my inhaler contains something illegal that is on any doping list, but apparently my increased level of fitness by all the cycling I have done makes me breath more easily! Now I just have to make sure I keep this level of fitness so I won’t ever have to speak those horrible words: “I have never been caught”… :-)

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A week in the south of France. What a life. Briljant weather, never forcing the issue, opening the first rose every day at 1600, a daily barbeque, French bread with great herb butter, fresh croissants and pain du chocolate’s, cycling in beautiful surroundings… how could you not enjoy it?

So enjoying we did. First day started with a lunch in St. Tropez, followed by our first little ride in the area. When we booked the holiday house we had no clue about how the area would suite cycling… we got lucky! Very lucky! When we arrived we drove through the thick fog over, what we believed was, quite a big hill. That proved to be right. The whole area inland from Cogolin was full of small mountains. Very quite roads and the climbs were not to steep, so briljant for cycling!
Already on day one it became clear that I was the better climber and Bastiaan was better on the flat. Or in other words… I annoyed him greatly when cycling uphill and making little movies and pictures of him at the same time… But I also struggled on the flat to keep his wheel… when he was powering through full headwind with 35 to 40 km/h!!! He kept wondering why I never took over the lead while I was just giving everything to stay in his wheel!! :-)

This was Bastiaan’s first reaction on top of the first climb of the 2nd day, the Col du Perier (350m). This was our first real climb and good for at least 6 km of climbing!

First reaction! (8.0 MB)

The tone was set for that day. Two more climbs would follow. In the downhill after the second climb (Col de Taillude, 411m) I got a little bit carried away… Well a little… maybe I should say “a lot”… It was a long downhill with speeds constantly about 50 km/h and not long after we started the decent, we caught up with a car that was also going downhill. Because of many years of watching cycling on TV, I knew someone on a bike goes quicker downhill then a car, so I only thought one thing: “I have to pass it!”. And I did. On a little less bendy piece I didn’t hesitated and passed the car! Totally crazy move if I think back of it… I could hardly see if someone was coming up the hill, plus speeds were close to 60… Strange maybe, as I didn’t think about that at all at that moment. Just that I was faster and had to pass it.

The last, Col de Babaou (414m), was a lovely climb. Very steady grade so after finding a good climbing rhythm it was a nice ride to the top. Even Bastiaan looked really good on this one! On this one… it did cost him a lot of energy and the downhill after the climb and 22 km flat roads back towards Cogolin took his toll… When trying to be funny and making pictures behind my back, I got a well deserved finger! :-)

A deserved finger! :-)		Cogolin

Besides the cycling, time was mainly killed by relaxing. Just relaxing. Reading books, lying in the sun. Here some lovely views:

Reading a book		Newspaper and rose

Taking different routes in the area, took us over different hills as well. And sometimes the grade on a climb could change rather drastically, like in this turn:

Steep turn (4.0 MB)

Or, as we saw in Bastiaan’s last ride (his “jour sans”, when his left knee stopped working!) sometimes hills would pop up which even couldn’t be found on any map, but turned out to be very, very steep!!! And when cycling with one leg, they are very though:

Not a col! (8.6 MB)		The only day with some clouds

What didn’t help was the fact that his “jour sans” was on the worst day in Cogolin. The day started out as beautiful as all the others, but in the early afternoon we could already see the clouds in the distance… I pushed to go cycling either way and it turned out to be a mistake… Luckily the ride we choose (to the Col de Collebasse, 131m) wasn’t that long, although going downhill with 50+ km/h on super small tires on wet roads with unknown corners wasn’t the most pleasant feeling… but a long warm shower makes up for a lot! :-) Not to mention the barbeque and rose in the evening! :-)

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The last day in Cogolin was the day of the queens ride! A stage that would take us to the “roof” of the holiday, the Notre Dame des Anges at 780 meters. Or us… the day before the stage was planned, Bastiaan had a “jour sans” and decided not to cycle but ride the first following car. A wise decision as the queens ride would take us over 5 climbs.
The weather was briljant when leaving Cogolin. Morale was good and the first climb started out really well! The average speed was about 22 or 23 km/h. Until about 1 km from the top… There the climb got a bit more steep and stupidly I tried to reach to top at the pace I set earlier in the climb… a mistake… and I paid dearly for that mistake the last couple of hundred meters… Ouch… Knowing I only just begun and had 4 more climbs to do, morale took a big hit… Not helped by a Dutch couple that was also cycling in the area and at the top told me it was not a good day to cycle up the Notre Dame des Anges. Way to hot. But of course I was welcome to try.
After a short downhill, I rode up the next climb together with the Dutch woman. She rode a very relax tempo and at that pace I could ride all day! Before I knew it we reach the top of the second col. Another fast downhill. I left the Dutch couple behind when turning right towards the next climb. From this point it was only climbing for the next 15 km. There was not turning back now, the only way was up. I choose a lighter gear with a much faster peddling pace. A smart decision, as from there on the ride to the top became much easier. Pace went up and down but was always around 20 km/h and support was always there from the following car! On the first climb I got annoyed by my helmet, put up my hand and could throw it into the car. On the start of this climb I wanted to get rid of my helmet again, put up my hand but couldn’t be bothered to wait for Bastiaan to catch up in the car and just threw the helmet in the grass at the side of the road! :-)

Raining sunbeams! (3.6 MB)

When reaching the top of the 3rd climb (Col des Fourches at 535 meter) morale was at an all-time-high! Ok, I could definitely feel the effort in my legs, but I wouldn’t quite this close to the top! After a very short decent, the climb up to the Notre Dame des Anges started! Easy at first, but quite quickly the climb got really steep! Now it was serious climbing:

Serious climbing! (4.9 MB)

The pace dropped quite a lot the last couple of kilometers, but the feeling of being able to reach the top made even the pain in my legs disappear for a while. The last kilometer I rode with a big smile on my face! I was gonne reach the top for sure! :-) And I did, this is how my last meters looked:

Reaching the top! (15.8 MB)		A wide view

After a look around at the top of the Notre Dame des Anges and enjoying the far and beautiful view, it was time to go on again. The decent back to the top of the Col des Fourches went quite smoothly, but the next 9 kilometer downhill were just horrible… all downhill’s up to that moment were just great fun! 50+ km/h, fast corners, slow corners, good roads, good fun! But these 9 kilometers downhill were over a very bad road… unbelievable bumpy… After just a couple of kilometers my hands, arms, back… everything started hurting… This sucked big time… Downhill should be fun, not painful! :-|
When the 9 km were finally over, a long straight followed. 13 km with the wind in the back! That was very welcome. I could definitely feel the effort of the 4 climbs in my legs already.

The last climb was a struggle. A busy road, so the need to be very concentrated all the time. Some parts turned and were full against the wind, making the struggle even harder… Luckily I had a good moment halfway through the climb and was able to accelerate a little bit and keep the new pace until the top. Out of water at the start of the climb I tossed my water bottle to Bastiaan half way on the climb with the message for him to fill it up! He tried, but with his parking problems in the little village and the time it took to find a supermarket and buy a couple of bottles of water, I had passed him and was already in the 10 km full speed downhill (55+ km/h!!) and he could never catch up with me again. The last bit was pure joy! 81.82 km in 3 hours and 12 minutes and in lovely hot weather! I made it!!! :-)

The queens ride route

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Mmmmm… 2 days after the race today. I feel remarkably good. Some little pains left, but non really worth mentioning. Well, maybe only the painful shoulders… the cold really got to me there.
Luckily being unemployed really pays off these days after the race! *hahaha* it was just briljant to just take a little nap this afternoon. Felt reborn after having closed my eyes for a little hour! :-)
Today it also became clear we were chokingly underdressed… the man from my bicycle shop also did the race and wore 4 (!!!) shirts! A long sleeve undershirt, a long sleeve bike shirt, a long sleeve wind breaker and a raincoat! We wore 2 shirts… a sleeveless undershirt and the T-Mobile short sleeve bike shirt… He was warm, we were freezing… it seems we still have quite a lot to win in our preparation! :-)
Although next time I don’t think I will start if it’s raining… I ride my bike for fun, and riding in the rain ain’t that much fun… Although it did make quite an heroic story… Can’t wait to go cycling in the south of France! That must be just briljant! Cycling how cycling was meant to be. Under a sunny sky with a lovely 25 degrees! Doesn’t that sound nice?

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