Goodbye 2005

As noted last week, it's that time of year again (Or not in a few hours). Due to non-relativistic time differences across the globe, the New Year is celebrated at different times depending on where you are. If you lived in New Zealand and had a fast aeroplane, you could probably celebrate it twice, which means that you would have to drink twice as much and in all likelihood get twice the hangover.

I opted out of doing that this year, so I decided to have my New Years Eve celebratory drinks on December 30 at Kristy's rather impromptu bbq, which was in part brought on by the fact that Greg Boorer and Margie Hemsley were passing through town. Definitely a fun evening and I have added two new words to my lexicon, courtesy of Greg: Tidy and Complete Package.

After draining the last drop from the Grand Marnier bottle, we called it a night, or to be more accurate, an early morning. I'm certain that they put stuff in Grand Marnier that makes your head spin, round and round, up and down. It was still doing it 6 hours later when I arose, bright as a brand new pin to greet the dawn and start work. It was approximately at this time when I decided that I wasn't going to drink tonight (being NYE).

Translating Portuguese with a spinning head is never easy, but fortunately I had a trick up my sleeve courtesy of a Christmas present from Uncle Ron and Aunt Kate: a book called Superfoods: Fourteen foods that will change your life. For some reason, neither beer, potatoes, or chocolate are mentioned in this tome but I'll overlook that glaring lacuna.

To save you reading the book, the 14 Superfoods are: Beans, Soy, Blueberries, Spinach, Broccoli, Tea (not herbal), Oats, Tomatoes, Oranges, Turkey, Pumpkin, Walnuts, Salmon and Yoghurt. There are a number of allegorical similar foods in each Superfood group, e.g. cherries, strawberries, red grapes, cranberries, raspberries, blackberries and currants in the blueberry group. But blueberries are the tops in terms of the size of their nutritious punch. They even contain a couple of compounds (one is salicylic acid) that are anti-inflammatories!

Although it's obviously aimed at Americans with rubbish diets, I did find the book interesting reading. These foods are singled out because of their role in reducing diseases like cancers, stroke, arteriosclerosis, death etc. They're better than other "health foods" in this regard. Hell, even apples don't get a mention.

So I decided to eat a healthy breakfast this morning, having concocted the ideal Superfood brekky in my head: porrige (oats) with LSA mix (Linseed/sunflower/almonds - all good Omega 3 sources, like walnuts), blueberries and strawberries, soy milk and yoghurt, and a couple of cups of tea. That's six Superfoods in one meal, and it's actually almost identical to my standard breakfast anyway.

I must say that it had a remarkable effect on me. I went from feeling like I had been eating pure salmonella out of the can to feeling human again after having ingested brekky. Much better than a Berocca any day.

I still have to work on the rest of my diet, as for lunch I had two cheese and tomato sandwiches, an apple, a power bar, some chocolate and some muesli bars (jeez I was hungry). For arvo tea I had a cheese and tomato sandwich, a muesli bar, an apple and a cuppa tea. For dinner I had two toasted cheese and tomato sanwiches, a bowl of ice cream - with extra nuts - some muesli bars and a cup of milo - with LSA added.

OK you have to take these things a step at a time. No point going cold turkey...

NYE crit racing

I saw that they were racing at Sutherland on NYE so I thought it might be a good head clearer. It was nice and quite remarkable to ride 30 km out there from work along the Princes Highway at peak hour in almost no traffic.

We only had 10 starters, including the 9 foot tall Troy Glennan (FRF) and Dave Treacy (who has just joined Randwick/FRF). I went with the first attack and that ended up sort of being the winning break. We had three for a while and I was the strongest, which was nice. But then Troy and Dave bridged up, we lost one, and I suddenly became the weakest, which was not nice.

Troy eventually just rode away and we were quite happy to see him go. Dave stopped working because he was in theory a teammate (and I guess I was too) but it was academic. For some reason I ended up doing the last lap in front, even having a little dig up the hill when the other two started playing cat and mouse. But they came back, I led out, and of course finished last.

I had planned a ride home with Dave and Troy's brother but my tyre went flat just as we were leaving. I put one tube in and it was a dud, then another one in that almost worked, but then suddenly it died (the patch wasn't good enough). The auspices were not in my favour and it was getting dark so Dave's partner Mel kindly gave me a lift home. It was actually a bit of a relief to spend NYE fixing tubes and eating toasted cheese and tomato sandwiches.

I also bought my plane ticket back to Belgium today. Leaving Sydney on Feb. 14 and getting in a day later, I hope.

er, Happy New Year and all that. I'm getting auld. That makes approx. 50,000 words of bilge since I started this in May. What dribble.

Jeff's Christmas Blog

Dear all,

I am not a habitual Bible quoter (or reader for that matter), but this passage from Corinthians sprang into my mind the other day between Waterfall and Sutherland, and wouldn't leave. So it's going to make it into me Christmas update. Sorry for any offence - just don't take any; that's my motto.

51: Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
52: In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the Last Trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians, chapter 15)

Yes folks, it's Christmas again, and that means it's that time of year. This can be done in reverse as well at no extra charge. As a bonus, I'll throw in a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to youse all for just $4.89, and that, believe me, is a bargain if ever there was one. Please send money to Jeff's Bilgespot, c/- The Steaming North, Australia. I'm not actually in The Steaming North as such, but it feels like it. For those with a geographical bent, I'm at my grandparents' place in Nelson Bay, approx. 200 km north of Sydney, and it's very steamy.

Thank you to all who have sent me Christmas cards and presents this year, but for those of you who didn't bother...don't think you are being removed from my email list that easily! Oh no, it's much harder than that. On a comparative scale, it's far easier to stop receiving offers for free Rolex watches and Viagra than it is to get off this spam list. I know where you are and I will track you down if you try.

Alas, this marks the end of my holiday period and that means that it's the beginning of my working period. I'm back on the job on Monday and will be going down to cover the Aussie Championships and Tour Down Under between January 11-24(ish). Jeez, that's nearly two weeks. I'd better make it my off-season. And in a cunning move to a) avoid even more Belgian winter and b) avoid getting deathly ill, I've delayed my return date to Belgium by a few weeks, until February 15 or thereabouts. Luckily I paid an extra month's rent on my place in Gent.

Speaking of holidays, an account of my holiday can also be mailed to you free of charge, save for the account itself which runs into several hundreds of dollars. This is on account of various activity nights over the past three weeks, and accounts of those can be read in the other updates on me Bilgespot. I have shown, conclusively I think, that lots of beer makes you dehydrated. I'm going to publish that as a Fact Worth Knowing, especially when you are in The Steaming North.

Anyway, it's been great to catch up with everyone over the past weeks, and I hope to do some more catching up before Departure.

Trophy Race reportage

There's not a great deal to report from the Easts Trophy Race, as it wasn't terribly exciting. Started with a bunch of 58 A and B graders, finished with a bunch of 25 A graders and a few disgruntled B graders who were chasing. There were too many teams interested in a bunch sprint so that's how it ended up. My plan was to try to assist one of the other Gallant Randwick Botany lads in the last few laps but several mishaps at critical points in the last three laps put paid to that. I managed to drop my chain (very rare on this bike), nearly hit Spongee Jenkins when he dug a pedal for the nth time, and nearly crashed into Katie Brown, who was warming down in stealth mode after coming third in C grade.

Oh well, Pat Naughton and I watched the sprint unfold from the back and saw some interesting shortcut tactics going on coming into the straight. Mr Fitzpatrick, S., guilty as charged, Your Honour. But José won it anyway so it was all to nought.

All up it's been a moderately successful summer for me here, with fewer placings but one win - so that's enough to keep me happy until next year. My sprint has completely gone to pot so I must be getting old, or not smoking enough.

Movies

The movie report will be even shorter than the race report because I haven't seen any movies at all in the last two months. I think most of my movie watching time has been taken up by recovery sleeps, and that's probably a good thing. But be warned, this section will be back, filled with more dross than ever before.

The Last Trump

Well, I've just typed over half a milli-simian, which is approximately ten times the output of a single monkey that has been employed to randomly write out the complete works of Bill Shakespeare. Basically, that amounts to a whole lot of drivel, and there's more where that came from. Mark my words.

For those of you who missed it at the beginning, and I don't blame you in the slightest if you skipped to the end to find out what happened, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, and don't forget to hydrate properly.

To the Club

I am reminded of a song by Spankox entitled, "To the Club". It goes something like:

Monday night, to the club
Tuesday night, to the club
Wednesday night, what a headache, but I went...to the club
Thursday night, to the club
Friday night didn't wanna go, but my friend Michelle called me on the phone and so I went...to the club!
etc.

Yes, there have been more outings this week, including another and more "in depth" visit to the Belgian Beer Café on Wednesday, and a rather late (or early, depending on how you look at it) excursion to a nightclub on Friday. Belgian beer is good stuff, but I was reminded on Thursday that it is possible to have too much of a good thing. Thus, Friday evening after racing was spent drinking lite beer, which is a bit of a waste of money. You may as well alternate between a glass of real beer and one of water, because lite beer just doesn't quite have the flavour/alcohol/social ambience of the so-called real stuff.

Despite not hitting the turps too hard, getting to bed at 4am on Friday night was not really conducive to the Optimum Recovery from Racing Plan^TM, especially as I had to get up at approximately in the vicinity of that hour on Sunday morning to race at West Head. It's all in the name of Fun and Fitness and is slightly better than banging your head against a wall.

I've been brushing up on a bit of Barry McKenzie too - classy stuff. Also, ma and I murdered Schubert's Fantasia in F minor duet on Saturday night. There should be a law against playing the piano when slightly pissed (we had one of mum's friends around for dinner). Maybe the Philosophers Song is appropriate at this juncture.

Racing (Greg)

Only one more race to go this year so I've been doing as much as poss in the last few weeks. Five times in the last nine days has been pretty full-on, especially combined with the Optimum Recovery from Racing Plan^TM. However, it's been generally OK.

Last Tuesday at Heffron was our quickest yet, and I actually had good legs which was lucky, 'cos the FDJ-NSWIS boyz came down along with a few other hitters. We were lapping between 2'38 and 2'40 (a bit over 45 clicks an hour, utilising the metric system) and caught B grade with about four to go and C grade with just over one to go. The last lap and sprint was somewhat hairy, as they always are, but I managed to navigate my way through a bit of traffic to finish in the top 10 and well out of the money. But the sensations were good, as they say.

Just for a change I pedaled down to Sutherland for a Friday evening crit, and that was an enjoyably painful affair, with the emphasis on the painful side of things. At least it was only 24 km, so the pain was not too long lasting. Feeling suicidal, I attacked after about 10 mins and had a small gap when they blew the whistle for the first prime. My eyes lit up with the prospect of winning money, and I went flat out for the next lap to secure the princely sum of 10 bucks, which cancelled out my race entry money. Whoopee!

I hung out there for a few more laps until the hill started to take its toll and I was swallowed. The next two laps were rather painful but I just managed to hang on. At about 3.5 to go, a couple of guys attacked and - still feeling suicidal and not wanting to miss the fun - I got onto them at the bottom of the hill. It was a bit of a mistake as I couldn't even do one turn, and I was a little relieved when a couple of others bridged up. I hung on and finished fourth (they only paid top 3) and was a little annoyed that I was feeling so bad that I couldn't do any work. Thus, I vowed to drink lite beer that evening...

Sunday's Graham Jones Memorial Tour was a race I'd been looking forward to, because it was a change from the criteriums. We did an undulating 9.6km time trial, followed by a 45 km road race out to West Head and back, twice. I was happy with my TT, finishing in about 14'10 which was 15 secs quicker than two weeks ago. But for some reason, all (or a lot) of the times were out by roughly 30 seconds so I was given 13'45 for fifth place. Quickest was NSW State Champ Klayten Smith, who did 13'19, then David Rae (Easts, complete with shit hot TT bike) on 13'20, then NSW State runner up, Grafton and Tour of Bright winner Pete McDonald on 13'27, then another guy from Bicisport on 13'42, then moi.

With Klayten and Pete there, I knew there was approximately zero chance of me winning unless both of them crashed into each other. Klayten was a bit iffy 'cos his stem had a big crack in it, but we were all hoping that it wouldn't collapse on the way out to West Head.

The road race is always brutal. It starts with a 2 km climb and then goes up and down all the damn way, with climbs of between 500m-1km, dead roads and a nasty finish up a 300m/9% climb. Luckily there was no repeat of last year when the Tour leader attacked on the first climb and destroyed the bunch within two kilometres, with Robbie Cater and I hanging on for dear life. Robbie was actually with us today, but it was his first race back after a few months off so he just did one lap.

Given that David Rae was a TT specialist, it was really up to Pete to try to take the 8 seconds back from Klayten, which meant that he would have to win by 4 seconds as the time bonuses were 15-10-5 seconds for first three. On the first lap, Pete and David kept throwing in these little surges on all of the climbs and I kept yo-yoing off the back. Not good, as the group was still pretty large. But I didn't want to go into the red too much early on, and I was fairly confident I could rejoin on the downhills, which I managed to do each time. The group slowly got smaller and I thought about chucking it in on the way back on lap 1, until I saw David Rae crack. I chased back on and we were down to six riders, then on the finishing climb at the end of the lap, we dropped two of them and were finally down to four.

Lap 2 was a bit better as Pete's surges weren't as savage and Klayten was just keeping an eye on him. The other guy with us had beaten me in the TT by 3 seconds so all I needed to do was try to stay with him and grab the third place time bonus at the end.

Pete and Klayten finally cleared out with about 4 km to go and we really didn't have to chase them, even if we were able. On the finishing climb, the Bicisport dude sprinted hard from the bottom, which I thought was suicide. I was proved right as he expired halfway up so I secured third. Definitely happy with that, considering we had the top two guys in the State titles there.

I had better get some shut-eye. My body clock is just totally wrong.

Sweatin' it out

After the Week that Was, there came the Weekend that Wasn't. It wasn't as bad as I expected it would be; neither was it particularly good. If Josh is correct - and I'm sure he is - then the last Week that Was was at Noosa in Feb. '98.


The 'why am I here?' look on Saturday
© Tony Horneman

On Saturday I lined up at Heffron for the usual 18 lapper, fully expecting to be hammered by Grafton winner Peter "The Machine" McDonald. He did not disappoint, attacking on the first lap and not ceasing until in the end, he had whittled the bunch of 13 down to three. He sprints as well as I do, so he got third.

In the early stages, when we were seven, I made the mistake of sitting up after doing my turn and trying to go to the back of the group. There were two guys who refused to come past me and we were all dropped simultaneously. Rule number one: Never let Peter McDonald get a gap.

So I spent the next 14 laps chasing with another guy, slowly losing ground to The Machine's group of four, which eventually became three. I guess we kept putting time into the rest of A grade so it wasn't all bad. I actually ended up fourth, where I probably still would have finished had I been with the front group. But it's always nice to be in the lead break rather than chasing. It was a good way to work off the excesses of the previous week too, as the photo above indicates.

Sunday's fixture was a bit (but not much) different - a 47km crit up at Beaumont Rd, Mt. Kuring-gai. It's about 40km to get there but the start was at 8:15am, so I didn't have to get up at a completely stupid hour. The course is a hotdog circuit of 3.2 km, with a bit of a hill in the middle and U-turns at each end.

I was impressed with the turnout: we must have had well over 100 riders in four grades, including a good 25-30 in A grade. It was a fairly attacking race too, which was good. It was also extremely easy to sit on, because apart from the two corners there were no other technical difficulties and no wind. I managed to inveigle my way into a few breakaways at various stages, all of which were pulled back.

I thought I'd have a go on the last lap 'cos I knew that a top 3 in a bunch sprint was somewhat improbable. So I went on the downhill just before the last corner with about 2km left and got a bit of a gap. I made it to the top of the hill coming back and attempted to wind up for a last ditch kick for the line, but there was not a lot left. A South African kiddie - Raynold Smith, who rides for Van Hemert Groep and did OK in Belgium this year - flew past me on the run into the line and won easily. Another guy chased him and I should have tried to get his wheel but mentally I had given up the ghost. He was just caught by Nash Kent and Laurie Vignes for second and third. It was rather fun.

I rode home via Bobbin Head with most of the Bicisport peloton and that was also rather fun. Spent most of the rest of the day sleeping and buggering up Bach's Prelude No. 2 in C minor. I've nearly cracked it though...

More galvanising this week, starting with Janelle's very sensibly organised Monday night birthday bash. Must try to get out for a ride.

The Week that Was

Squally pocker dum. Oog. Walter the Wallabee has been spending the day week drinking beer with his pals Isembard the Iguana and Roger the Rabbit. This time, there was no inkblot to prevent them and Walter imbibed much amber ale. In the absence of real Belgian beer, I have Walter has opted for Becks, Hahn, Little Creatures Pale Ale, Redback, and - at a stretch - Tooheys Extra Dry. But no wine.

So far it's been all good. I feel like I've been drinking beer since Tuesday, December 7, and apart from a few breaks to ride my bike, it's not too far from the truth. Tuesday was fun - we came dead last at the Recognition PR Trivia Night at NSW Leagues Club and we were actually trying. Even if I had been there for the first two rounds and got questions such as "Who wrote the Nutcracker Suite?" correct (Hint: it wasn't bloody John Pachelbel, it was Mike Tchaikovsky) we still would have been shafted. Apart from getting our wooden spoons and Kit-kats for coming last, the highlight of the night was probably when each table was given a bag of straws, paper, blu-tack, scissors and elastic bands and asked to build the tallest free-standing tower possible. We started by joining straws together and that probably wasn't the best plan. We eventually built a foundation from rolled up pieces of paper and propped up our superstructure against the table.

It goes without saying that we lost the tower building competition quite miserably.

And so it continues...

Forget the hair of the dog. I find the best hangover cure to be a four and a half hour ride in 30 degree heat. So on Wednesday I set out north, bound for Berowra Waters and Galston Gorge, two climbs I haven't done for yonks. It was a fun ride, and Berowra is still a tough little climb, averaging about 7 percent for 3 km. Galston is much more fun because of all the hairpins, and it's only 5 percent for 3 km. By the time I got back it was mid-afternoon so I had to rehydrate in time to go to the pub with Steve later.

Thursday: repeat, except the ride was only 75 km and I still had a hangover. Evening. Pub. Paul M., Dave, Kristy, Kate M. Missed dessert and got home late. Worked on the hangover again. Hangover coming along nicely.

Friday: repeat, except the ride was only 40 km, I still had a hangover and I had to go to the dentist. I needed two injections to make my mouth numb enough for the Friendly Dentist to go in hard with the drill. It was only one filling, but I've been putting it off for the whole year. Tricky. I couldn't talk properly for about five hours afterwards, and even drinking out of a glass felt strange. Thus, I had to drink straight from the bottle for the office Christmas Party. That was at Tanman's rather fine apartment in Randwick overlooking Coogee Beach and a whole lotta other bits of the Eastern Slurbs.

Crikey it has been a tough week, despite being on holidays. I would have to backtrack to Noosa (199?) to find an equivalent week. I'll have to dry out over the weekend and race a couple of times, provided the weather eases up. It's pouring here at the moment, as it has done all afternoon.

In the meantime, I've been brushing up on my Bach and Chopin, and can now play that bloody Nocturne Op. Post. in C# minor without buggering it up halfway. I'm so proud. I've also sorted a couple of Bach Preludes, but I'm still nutting out Number II in C minor. Bit tricky, but I'm getting there. It's been fun playing the piano again!

Hits from the Blog

Huzzah, 'tis the holidays (for me anyway). That means I can be a sloth for the next three weeks before work resumes at Xmas time. Oh wot larx. My social colander is already filling up with important macaroni, and it's now five-sevenths full for the next week. In non-food layman's terms, this means that I am going out for five days out of the next seven, which is probably a post-university record. It also looks like quite a lot of alcoholic beverages, so I will have to pace myself like I did at the Australian Cyclist of the Year Awards.

Strangely enough, on the Sunday morning following the Awards, I woke up feeling very, very ill. It was strange because I should have felt worse on Saturday morning, but didn't, so I have retrospectively attributed this to food poisoning of some sort. I could barely eat breakfast but still rode out to Parramatta in 38 degree heat for the Teams Race. Dearie me, what was I thinking? Two punctures later, I got to Parramatta Park in the midst of all the 5000 people finishing the Cycle Sydney, and proceeded to not look forward to the race. Luckily for me, the worthy burgers at NSWCF Inc. Pty. Ltd. cancelled the race because the local Sarge hadn't actually approved it. I did think there would be a problem racing on the circuit when there were hordes of people still trickling in (some literally) from the Cycle Sydney. But what would I know?

I did make it to Josh's place a bit earlier and collapsed on the floor for the duration of the afternoon, being rehydrated by Josh and Anita and occasionally trodden on by Daniel, who is a fine child of two and more than a half. Anita is expecting another in January and good luck to her, I say. Fortunately Josh gave me a lift home because I was in no condition to move very far. All I could eat all day were some cheese and crackers and a chocolate biscuit. Even drinking made me feel ill.

Monday was pretty much the same, so definitely no riding. Once I got into work I was a little better and I could eat solids again. I really have no idea what was wrong, but I felt as if someone had flattened me.
Tuesday and Wednesday were marginally better, despite it being 40 degrees in Sydney(!) Jeez Louise. I managed to ride but had a tendency to blow up after about an hour.

It took until Friday to feel back to normal again. This was fortunate because we had an important Family pre-Xmas engagement over at Kiribati. Most of the Jones brigade were there: Alec, Libby, Antony (who's orf to China this week for a five week look-see at the Forbidden City and Great Wall), Alana, Sophie, Nik, Nina (child of Sophie and Nik, also very fine), Cathy (not a Jones but mother of Christina, of Sam and Christina fame, neither of whom were there), and Edith. All of the elder Joneses are pretty deaf so we spent the evening shouting at each other, drinking champers and eating Dolmathakia.

I felt well enough to race on Saturday so I did, and managed my first third place this summer season. It was one of those ridiculously strong Nor' easterly days which reduced us to a grovel on the back straight. I was using my 53x21 on the second 'pimple', to give you an idea of it. There were about 15 starters but after a few laps, Spurge decided that he'd had enough and attacked a few times. After five laps we had a break of five (Spurge, Pat Naughton, George Pappas just back from the Himalayas, and Nick Rathbourne) and that was it. I had a coupla attacks in the closing laps but I knew they would be pointless and they were.

The sprint was interesting: Spurge and I started at the same time, but Spurge managed to drop the chain off the big ring (he jumped in the 53x11!) and almost irreversibly injured himself. So that put him out of contention and Pat and Nick easily passed me to take first and second. My sprint needs some work 'cos it's nowhere near as good as last year yet.

Sunday, being my first official day of hols, saw me get up at a ridiculous hour (4:45am) and trundle north to Terrey Hills for what I thought was going to be a one day tour. I was almost late but they'd decided not to have the tour and just run a 9.6 km TT instead. Normally there is a really tough 44 km road race out to West Head and back twice afterwards. I would have preferred that to the TT, but anyway...

The TT course is reasonably tough. It undulates downhill for the outward leg but there is a nasty little hill right at the turnaround. Coming back is a grovel - it's more uphill than down and it's bloody hard to keep your momentum. I had a good ride going out in about 6'55 (4.8 km) but struggled a bit coming home. I've now realised my left shoe/orthotic is not at all correctly positioned and my foot was sliding all over the place, which was not good at all. I finished up with 14'24, which was 7 seconds slower than I did last year on what should have been a faster bike. But the winning time was 14'22 so I was second, which ain't too bad I suppoge.

We did get a bunch together to cruise down to Akuna Bay, which I haven't done for many many years, and then out to West Head/Church Point to satisfy our masochistic tendencies. That was good as it was a tres nice day and we still got our ride in.

On Sunday evening there was a Main side of the family gathering chez nous so we caught up with Jeff and Linda and Justine and Nick. Justine is also very pregnant with the Child expected sometime around Xmas, so good luck to her I say. We had much wine and Greek foodage, and no-one got food poisoning, which was a plus.

Luxury pet beds

Possibly the saddest thing I have seen this year is the Luxury Pet Bed shop on Parramatta Road, just before the turn-off to Crystal Street. Ma pointed it out to me the other night after we'd feasted at the Sushi Bar Rashai. Even though it's on a major road, it's in a pretty dead area for a shop and I can't imagine there'd be a lot of passing trade. But perhaps it wouldn't matter, because when you look through the window and see all these miniature beds for cats/dogs/other domesticated animals, you ask yourself "Who on earth would buy such a thing?". The beds are like real beds, with little iron bedheads, mattresses, pillows, and I'm sure you could get mini-doonas as well...

Ma said she's never seen anyone inside the shop. It's tragic really.

I'd better get back to murdering perfecting this Chopin Nocturne. Luckily it's a posthumous one.

The Aussie Aussie awards

Last night, being vrijdag, marked the annual galah Aussie cyclist of the Year awards, which were held this year at Darling Harbour Convention Centre, just a tad more interesting than the centre of the Dunc Gray Velodrome. It was truly a galah occasion, and it was like a who's who of Australian cycling, as we regularly remarked to each other.

The presenters were nearly all cyclists, and this was perhaps not the most inspired choice. After hearing Michael Ford and Ryan Bayley present a few awards, it became clear that good athletes don't necessarily make good public speakers. At our table, Mark Renshaw summed it up nicely, "We can't read, we can't write, but we can win bike races."

Nevertheless, there are quite a few articulate riders out there, such as Brad McGee, Stuey, Matt "You Can't Handle The Truth" White, Sara Carrigan, Oenone pronounced Eh-noh-nee Wood and Lindy Hou. And the suitably gormless Ryan Bayley's comment after he won the Aussie Cyclist of the Year was quite pithy: "Screw everyone who doubted us." Onya Ryan - tell it like it is!


Anthony Tan, Les Clarke, me, Kate Marley, John Stevenson and Gerard Knapp
©Lesleigh Russell

We managed to scrape up six of the eight Sydney-based Cyclingnews crew to occupy most of a table. Not bad going I reckon. Ash Hutchinson, the aforementioned Renshaw, John Stevenson's wife Lesleigh and Kate Marley's beau Nathan Rennie (top Aussie downhiller) rounded out the ten, and a good time was had by all. There was much grog consumed. I vowed early on in the evening to stick with beer, but the beer seemed to dry up and someone had advertently left an opened bottle of red wine in front of me. I looked on the label but couldn't see a year on it, so at least I could be assured that it wasn't past its use-by date. It's amazing how much wine you can drink with a shot glass.

Food-wise, it was a bit thin on the ground if you know what I mean. Three courses, all very small and round. We had smoked salmon with tiny round sliced potatoes, then round beef on a round potato cake, then a round sponge/chocolatey dessert type situation. Applying a bit of basic geometry to the meal, I believe that someone miscalculated the serving sizes. Especially for a bunch of cyclists. If they'd doubled the radius, the volume would have quadrupled and that might just have been enough. Oh well, at least there was round beer and round wine in round glasses.

I conclude that filling up the round holes in one's stomach with alcohol leads to a certain sensation whereby the room goes round and round. Especially when you close your eyes. And in the morning, it's more like, "Don't make any sudden movements or you're for it..." Round and round.

Parramatta Teams Race

The above wasn't the reason that I didn't race today at Heffron. Actually once I did get out to Centennial Park for a couple of hours, I felt really good for the first time this week. Nice day for it too.

But tomorrow is the famous Teams Race out at Parramatta Park, a major appointment for the Gallant Randwick Botany Lads who effectively have two teams of six in the 80 rider field. Not bad! My team consists of Jerzy Sowa, Pat Naughton, Shaun Higgerson, Chris Jenkins and Mark Robertson (and me). The goal is: DESTROY!! Or at least win some money. Hence, I want to be a bit fresher for it.

All going well, I should be dropping in to see the Josh/Anita/Daniel/? clan for afternoon tea and bikkies, 'cos they also live at Parramatta.

The Petersham boutique brewery

Being extremely environmentally conscious, Ma and Pa have installed a rainwater tank in our backyard just in front of the 400 square metre garage/showroom/warehouse/home of Bobbity (Dad's bike with the special Lancewood seatpost). Sydney is in its third year of drought, although you could have fooled me with the rain that we've had of late. It's a bit like Melbourne weather at the moment actually: Thursday it was 36+, Friday was 30+, Friday night it rained and Saturday/Sunday were 20-ish. Sorry, I had to get that in. My favourite site is www.bom.gov.au/weather.

The rainwater tank enables us to collect rain that would otherwise be wasted on the garden or the tree that fell down or something like that. So instead of using tapwater to clean my bike, I can now use rainwater. How environmentally sound is that??

The real reason it was installed was so that Pa could re-start the Petersham boutique brewery, which he has now done thanks to a brewing kit, beer barrel and hose. It may not be brewed to the original Petersham Trappist Monks' specifications, but at least we can be sure that it is fermented from the purest water and the finest quality ingredients that you can buy at the local Woolies supermarché. I'm not sure how long it'll take but they keep telling us the War will be over by Christmas so that's a date to fix in your calendars.

Stark reminder: Only 34 more shopping days until Christmas! That is, if you shop on Sundays like I do. I have been secretly building up a stockpile of Chrissy presents over the last few weeks because it always pays to Be Prepared like Baden Baden Powell, Der berühmt Pfadfindermeister.

Weevils are here again

The ever present mystery of where on earth all the weevil moths in our kitchen come from is still plaguing us. The theory that they all emanate from one particular cupboard which contains open, half empty packets of flour, is plausible but weak in our learned opinion(s). Instead, inspired by Michael Palin's travel doco on the Himalayas that we saw the other night, we have come up with a new hypothesis.

In Nepal (or Tibet if you prefer), the Buddhist monks throw roast barley flour into the air as part of some nefarious ceremony. It's obvious that weevil moths inhabit this flour, and being Buddhist weevil moths they are capable of Astral travel, whereby their minds and spiritual bodies roam free while their physical self remains stationary. It's clear that most of these Astral travelling moths find their way to our kitchen, where they inhabit the bodies of the dead moths that we kill each day. They then rise up again in a sort of pseudo reincarnation, only to be squashed by one of the Jones family in a fit of rage. Thus, the cycle begins all over again.

I don't know what you'd have to have done in a former life to be reincarnated into a weevil moth, but it's probably something pretty bad. Like voting for Dubya. It may be bad karma to kill the moths, but they're annoying buggers.

The "Rappo"

I've managed to race three times this week (Tuesday/Saturday/Sunday), finishing off with today's Anthony Rappo Memorial out at Eastern Creek. Tuesday and Saturday at Heffron were nothing spectacular, but at least A grade finally caught B+C grade on Tuesday so we were in with a shout for the Big Money. Lock it in, Eddie. But we only caught C grade on the laatste ronde so things were a tad dicey as we tried to get around 30-odd C graders. I think I got about 10th.

Saturday we only had 7 starters, although it was a decent quality 7. Pete "The Machine" McDonald spent the first half of the race attacking and the rest of us spent the first half of the race chasing. Then things slowed down; I had a couple of gos but Tony Iannacito (Caravello) attacked on the laatste ronde and stole the race. I thought it was pretty cool because he was probably the weakest guy in the group but because none of us chased, he won! Strange that the Randwick boys all chased me but not him, but that's club racing for you.

Today was somewhat better because we can actually ride as a team in Open events. We had about 35 starters in A grade and three of us from Randwick (me, Matt Lucas and Pat Naughton). Pat got in most of the early breaks that were brought back, but then after about 25 mins a bigger group went away with three Lidcombe riders in it, so I took the option of going across with Matt on my wheel. I think we had about 10 of us all up and we worked reasonably well, averaging around 43 clicks to put a 20 second gap into the bunch.

After about 45 minutes I was starting to feel it a bit and just before the hour mark, Jorge Libonatti attacked and split the group up into two lots of five. Matt made the front group so that was good and the rest of us were caught by a Klayten Smith-driven chase group. I didn't have to do any more work 'cos Matt was up the road but I wasn't sure if his group would stay away. On the last lap I could see it was coming together , although Jorge had ridden away for a solo win by that time.

Klayten had a dig on the hill with about 2 km to go, as I knew he would, but I still didn't want to go because of Matt. But Klayten caught and dropped that group and held the rest of us off to get second. I was involved in the sprint for third which meant I ended up 10th. I am sprinting like a hubbard at the moment, and I don't mean Rosealee...

Cruised back via Parramatta and not on the silly freeway today, thank goodness. We stopped at a coffee shop with Klayten, Nash Kent and a Parramatta guy. Nash shouted us coffee which was damned decent.

After Friday night at the Trinity and Wednesday night's soiree at home with Coas the Builder (who done up our house tres nice), this week has once again been a social whirl. Only two weeks until holidays too. Yay.

Sussing out Markov Chains

But first, the Club Champs report

4:45am was way too early. Had to have the 2 hour pre/post-midday nap to compensate. But I did get to experience the delights of Eastern Creek International Raceway Be There at approx. 7:00am for our Club Champs. It was only 51 km (13 laps) so it wasn't really long enough to extend beyond a crit. I remember the days when it used to be 100 km around Bargo. Now that was a good course.

Of eight A grade starters I managed a fairly modest fourth, mainly because I'd done several do or die attacks in the last half in an attempt to get away. Not today - the Others were plenty strong enough to chase me down, although the last attack with 2 km to go caused a few problems. Josh Marden was chiefly responsible for closing the gap and then he won the sprint so I can't complain about that! It's the Anthony Rappo Memorial out there next week and that'll be a bit more fun with teammates to work with and stuff.

We absolutely flew coming back, averaging 40+ along the freeway with a bit of a tailwind until we stopped in Leichhardt for een koffie of twee. No beer though - it was only 9:30am when we got back!

Sleep followed, then looking at houses that I can't afford in the Western Slurbs Courier, food shopping, i.e. very little of interest apart from an ice cream...mmmm...and then (ik denk) Sag Gosht.

The Axis of Weevil problem revisited

I knew I had forgotten something in the general coarse of the week (it has been very coarse). Dad and I discussed remodelling of the Axis of Weevil problem in our kitchen, which may involve remodelling our kitchen. I note that it could get complicated by the Axis of White Ants that has eaten a goodly portion of our back door frame.

The competing Axes may bring each other down in a cloud of wood dust and quick oats but the only way to determine this is by an accurate mathematical model. Such a model would have to know how to differentiate an inverse exponential function on the back of a bus ticket and also look suitably alluring in the kitchen. That's what models are for.

Before we get onto the combined model, it's first necessary to sort out the Axis of Weevil problem in a multi-step process. Step 1 involves throwing away the partial differential equations that were alluded to in an earlier blog. They are wrong, wrong, wrong, Jana. Wrong. PDE's have very little to do with Markov Chains, which can be used to model birth-death-catastrophe processes. In this case the birth refers to the birth of the weevils; death refers to when we kill them or they die of natural causes like being eaten by Lucy's deceased guinea pig Smiley (R.I.P.); and a catastrophe is when they take over the kitchen and eat everything, including the awful muesli that mum likes.

A Markov Chain requires using matrices and integration and stuff. It doesn't necessarily have to converge to a steady state of constant weevil population, although it could, if asked nicely. The input values have to be made up out of thin air. Something like 5 and 7, for the number of moths we kill and that are born from an egg on a mountaintop each day. We can plug this into our equation, which is left as an exercise for the reader to suss out, and that will give us the weevil population on day 2.

Of course this becomes rather tedious after a few days, as you have to put in different death and birth values. Instead, what we can do is make up some arbitrary matrix to describe how many weevils we will kill on average and how many are born, again on average. They key word is on average, except that it's more than one word. The solution to the equation can be found with the Viterbi algorithm, which again is left as an exercise for the reader. I won't bore you with such trivial details.

In layman's terms, the weevil moth population will vary a bit from day to day, depending on some different stuff.

The tricky part is when we combine this problem with the Axis of White Ants. We can rename this combined system the Axis of the Willing because the weevils are willing to take over the kitchen and the white ants are willing to devour our house from the top down. The combined problem becomes - in technical mathematical terms - a great big bloody mess that you wouldn't even want to think about solving unless you have access to NASA's superduperparallelwithonelattheendcomputer that they used to send Voyager to Uranus. I've never been to Uranus, even though our physics teacher always used to refer to perturbations in its orbit.

In other words, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

Particularly nasty weather

So they say. Heffron was called off today because of the wind! Unbelievable. I did about 25 laps with Shaun Ballesty and Dale Rockell occasionally on my wheel, and it wasn't actually that bad. I've certainly raced at Heffron in conditions as windy as that before. The real reason was that Helen didn't want to stand out in the wind. Dang.

Club championships tomorrow out at Eastern Creek International Raceway Be There. 7am start. Christ that's early. <Does some calculations involving simple physics and whereis.com.au> Need to get up well before 5am. Christ that's early.

The good thing is that I get back early so I can have a pre-midday kip. They're always handy. In fact, I've implemented a harsh new sleep regime. It involves going to bed at a certain hour and getting up approximately 8 hrs later. The getting up time generally depends on the going to bed time and beer. So far it's worked, and I can still get up between 5:30-7:00am without resorting to the alarm. It also means I don't feel sleepy in the arvo pärt.

Racing: only done two since the last update. Last Saturday was the Snow Wilson Memorial, and it was OK. I felt good but spent most of the race blocking for our Gallant Randwick Lads who had made the five (then four) man break. Unfortunately our surviving Gallant Randwick Lad only got fourth in a four man sprint, missing out on the fabulous $500 prize, which is close to (puts finger to lips)...1 million dollars in the new post-election monetary speak. I got 6th, thus just missing out on the $50 for fifth.

The other race was last Tuesday, which was significantly faster than the previous Tuesday owing to the fact that we were Organised. Somewhat annoyingly and despite going 2 minutes quicker(!) we didn't even get close to B grade this time. The buggers held us off by a good minute I reckon so we were left to fight it out for the scraps of first A grader. I had a go with just over 1.5 km to go, but this time my attempt ended in failure as Computer took it upon himself to chase me down and led the Others back up. So I got caught at the top of the straight. Of course, Computer blew himself up in the process and Steve Fitzpatrick (not his teammate) won the sprint. Somehow I still got sixth despite not actually sprinting. There weren't too many of us left at that stage, but.

Social Round

This week has been a real Social Whirlwind as I make the most of my limited time in the Antipodes. To quote Eeyore: "I have my friends. Somebody only spoke to me yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit bumped into me and said 'Bother!' The Social Round. Always something going on."

Last Sunday we had our first official Cyclingnews.com ride to the 'Gong, which was actually only a ride to Stanwell Tops because the coast road has collapsed. Oops. Expected reopening in 2006. So four of us (me, Gerard, Kristy, Kate M. and Kate's friend Leslie who was really only with us in spirit) dressed in our official Cyclingnews jerseys, saddled our velocipedes and sallied bravely forth or bravely sallied forth bound for Stanwell Tops. All of us made it there and back again without blowing up, which impressed me no end as the Other Three had only been riding 1 x per week. We even made it back to St. Peters for a total of 110 km.

On Wednesday I caught up with Josh at the Belgian beer cafe/bar/former school assembly hall at the back of Grosvenor Place in town. It was actually quite good, despite being a tad expensive. Belgian beer costs about 10 bucks a pop here, or about 6 euros. It's about half that if you buy it from a bottle shop - but even that is roughly three to four times the price it is in Belgium!

Fortunately, after four beers and a largish bowl of frieten met mayonnaise I was pretty much annihilated so it didn't turn into a really expensive night. First time I've had a De Koninck and a Gulden Draak too. Not sure if they really go together but it didn't really make a lotta difference. No comment on getting home.

Thursday wasn't a social event but it did rain. Lots. It started about 6:30pm when I was just gettin' ready to tool off home so I decided to wait. But instead of easing up like it would in België, it got harder and harder, and by 7:30 I had to call dad to come and get me in the van because Clevland Street was under about a foot of water! Dried up by Friday.

Friday evening was somewhat lower key as I was a bit beered out from Wednesday. So the Four Horsepeople of the Knapp Apocalypse (me, Gerard, Kate M. and another of her friends) trundled up to The Trinity for beer and food. Tried a Kilkenny this time, which is sort of a lower key version of Guinness and not a patch on any Belgian beer. Sorry, I'm turning into a beer snob now but what do you expect when you live in a country that practically invented the stuff?

It was Saturday today and it was windy. See above.

The End.

Blogging to win

I think I'm over my jetlag. Two nights in a row where I could get eight hours sleep, uninterrupted except for a ridiculously loud thunderstorm at 4:00am last night. The body clock is righting itself again, but I've just buggered it by racing the first of the Tuesday nighters at Heffron this evening. Normally at this time I'm very droopy eyed, but I only got home at 8:30pm, so it takes a couple of hours to settle down.

I won A grade too, which was a) rather surprising and b) rather nice, given the years of Tuesday night suffering I've experienced at Heffron Park. You have no idea of what it's like to be dropped in every race bar one in a single summer, and still come back for more. But racing in Belgium over the years has certainly helped the condition. That takes suffering to a new level, and it means that you have to have your base training right or you will crash and burn.

I think I managed a second in A grade down at Heffron last year, but this is definitely the first time I've won it. OK, it wasn't the overall win as C grade managed to burgle its way into getting a huge handicap and was probably still a minute ahead of us at the end, but we did catch B grade at halfway so part of the job was done.

For those who don't understand handicap racing, it's an inherently unfair system whereby the riders who have done the least amount of training and/or are slower, get the biggest head start on the riders who dedicate their lives to the Bicycle, living monastic existences, weighing all their food and bike parts, drinking no alcohol and eating negative grams of fat. It's designed to give everyone a "fair go" in the great Aussie battler spirit that seems to favour mediocrity above excellence.

But those are the rules and everyone who races on Tuesdays accepts them. The race is 15 laps, with B grade actually starting first, then C grade behind them, followed by A grade another half a lap later. C grade only has to do 14 laps, which means that A grade has to catch them and then lap them in order to have a shot at the overall. A grade generally starts with about 3/4 lap (1.5 km) disadvantage to B grade and 1.5 laps (3 km) disadvantage to C grade...in a 30 km race. Usually if A grade works properly it will catch B and C grade in good time so there are no arguments. It does tend to keep the pace high in A grade though!

As it was the first night of racing and not all of the big hitters were there (Jose Rodriguez and the NSWIS team par example), A grade was a bit ragged. The very strong north easterly wind was against us on the back straight and with us on the main straight, and this normally gives A grade a bit of an advantage over the other, less well organised bunches. But it was not to be. We were lapping at around 2'50 (2 km per lap), which is good under those conditions, and I think we got C grade the first time after 5 laps and B grade after about 8 laps. Liam Kelly and Stewart (Computer) Campbell were particularly strong, and kept attacking in the tailwind, to which the rest of us had no answer. They caught B grade first, but then we tacked on the back and it was a big bunch again.

With about 5 to go, I saw C grade was still less than half a lap behind us, so I knew we weren't racing for the Grand Prize this evening. There were a few more attacks, a little more subdued as everyone was a bit stuffed by this stage. On the last lap Spurge, Computer, John Sunde and a couple of others opened up a bit of a lead into the headwind on the back straight. I thought it would be prudent to bridge up to them, so I did (followed by the rest of the bunch). But as I got on the back, they all sat up and I knew that it was time...

Thankfully no-one got on my wheel straight away so I hit the finishing straight with about 30m or so on the bunch. I was a tad out of breath at this stage but committed, and I had a bloody big tailwind so I knew that would help. Somehow I managed to sprint and held the rest of them off by a comfy margin. My HR was 197 across the line, which was 4 beats higher than what I thought my max was. Always handy to know these things. So much for the 220 minus your age formula! Or maybe that means I'm 23...

Anyway, I earned the princely sum of $25 for my efforts, which will cover the last two race entry fees and leave me $5 spare to buy a beer. Hmmmm. I think racing in Belgium makes more economic sense.

I am starting to like the Ridley Damocles now.

Axis of weevil

In other news, I've been helping dad with partial differential equations for his uni work, and I've realised - contrary to my belief when I did 3rd year maths at uni - that PDE's do have real life applications. To whit, Dad has been trying to model the weevil moth problem in our kitchen using Markov chains. You see, no matter how many moths we kill with our bare hands each night, there are always moths left over that flutter around and are generally annoying. So there's some kind of steady state system involved, and the dead moths are quickly replaced by new live ones. The easy way would be to apply liberal amounts of weevil poison in all of our cupboards, but then we couldn't model the problem any more.

I thought of something else too, unrelated to the axis of weevil in our kitchen but fairly related to blood doping. You see, Santiago Perez, the rider who finished second in the Vuelta and repeatedly blew away climbing genius Roberto Heras in the last week, tested positive for a homologous blood transfusion. Same thing that his teammate Tyler Hamilton got pinged for. So when are the "I believe Santi" badges coming out? And why are people donating money to Hamilton to help his legal defence? He's a millionaire ferchrissakes!

So many questions...

The Land of Oz

Guess who's back, back again? etc.

I am now "home" in Australia for approx. three months in order to avoid about half of the Belgian winter. It's actually not that much warmer here at the moment, apart from a 30+ degree day earlier this week, but it is fairly dry.

The flight was somewhat different to last year. I did manage to get my allotted 3 hours sleep before setting off in the early hours of Wednesday morning to Gent Sint Pieters, bound for the airport. It's actually quite easy, as the train goes direct from Gent to the airport and it's only about 5 mins walk from my place. In 2002, I remember lugging all my gear to Gent Dampoort, which was 1-2 km from my other place, and the bike bag didn't work so I had to carry it. My shoulders were buggered for a week after that.

Even check-in was painless. I got there at 6:15am for my 7:45am flight, and had checked everything in by 6:25am. Oh well, that's one thing in favour of early morning flights. I could then take advantage of the duty free chocolate shop to stock up and spent a large sum of euros on the finest quality Belgian chocolate. Actually, it was probably only middle of the range stuff but don't let anyone know that because they might be getting some for Christmas.

Compared to the trip over in January, the journey home was painless. Everything was on time, the stopovers in Vienna and Kuala Lumpur were mercifully short and I slept a lot on the plane because there weren't too many good movies. The last one I saw was the best - it had Gerard Depardieu and Jean Reno in it, playing escaped criminals. Gerard was a bit of a moron though, and almost drove Reno mad. There were many antics.

I was still pretty knackered when I got home on Thursday arvo/evening, and couldn't even stay awake to do the Tour presentation. Same story on Friday - it was really hard to stay awake in the afternoon, but I managed to keep going until 10pm so I'm sleeping at the right time, but just feeling out of it for most of the day.

I put the Ridley together and went for a short spin on Friday and decided to race at Heffron today. I wasn't expecting a lot, even though I was fresh. My legs felt like jelly - no power in them at all.

There were 15-20 starters and a few new faces so I could hide a bit in the first half. But after we chased down the fourth attack of Luis Trueba, I decided to have a go and hared off the front alone for a lap or two, heart rate going through the roof. I was joined by three others (Luis, Jerzy and Josh Marden) and thought we had a good thing going, but alas it wasn't to be and the bunch caught up.

It got really hard with about 5 to go but we only managed to get the bunch down to 10 or so. Luis attacked again and when we caught him I had another go with 2.5 to go. I was hoping I could get someone to go with me but no, they just let me dangle out there for a bit. With one lap to go the HR was 2 beats below max and it stayed there. Eventually after Hector Morales (Uru) finally did a turn, Luis pulled Matt Lucas and Jerzy up to me. I got on their wheels but Luis sat up with 500m to go and we were caught. Jerzy attacked at the top of the straight and won, while Hector got second and Josh was third.

The speed wasn't that high but I still averaged 179 bpm so I think I have a bit of catching up to do. Probably by next weekend I'll be a bit more back to normal, and in 2-3 weeks I should be going well. That's the plan.

Jeez what a boring race report that was. Still tired - sorry!

We have a new garage too, and that's a miracle. Plus the balcony is being replaced and everything is being painted. She's lookin' good Vern.

The other bit of news is that this blog has had 1000 page views since its creation in May, 2004. That's actually not very many at all. I think we would do that on Cyclingnews in 30 seconds during the Tour...

eindelijk

OK, this better be quick as I have to get up in four hours to catch this silly plane. I hope I don't get an embolism.

Last week was busy. It was good to see Luce again though. We partook in much beer and stuff and went to a good vego restauraaaaa in town with Hedwig. We tried about 10 other places and all of them were booked out. Jeez. But this one was good.

I have acquired the Ridley Damocles, although not in Davitamon-Lotto colours, but still bloody nice - full Campag Record + Cosmic SSC wheels. All carbon, all the time. Testing this should be fun!

Today was an awesome day too - cool but dry, sunny and no wind. Very nice.

Cue Henryk John Gorecki...

Seven days, approx.

Not that I'm counting. Cue Brian Vaughan Williams...

<Begin obligatory weather mention>

It was stinking hot today too (14 degrees and sunny). I'm going to miss all this good weather when I get back to Sunny Oz next Thursday afternoon at 15:00.

</End obligatory weather mention>

I'm gearing up for the last week of my sixth extended stay here. Wow, that means the majority of my life for the last seven years has been spent in België. I must like it here, even though I Still Call Australia Home (cue Qantas ad). I am looking forward to getting back Down Under and living a life of sloth for two and a bit months, before work takes off again in mid-Januaraa.

This last week is going to be Intense, as my sister should be arriving tomorrow from London where she has been messing up the digital TV in Martin's place, not to be confused with the Sydney GPO. She will be staying for the week so it will be non-stop party action at Jeff's place. Also, Hedwig (no relation to Harry, Ron, Scabbers or any of the other Mötley Crüe. How do you pronounce 'Mötley Crüe' anyway?) is coming up for a coupla days in order to take the next step to becoming a Cyclingnews Jedi Knight^TM. Strong in the Force, she is.

Google is going to have a field day with all of this. People will be so disappointed when they search for "Harry Potter Digital TV Jedi Knight" and end up with Jeff's Bilgespot as the number one hit. Tough titties.

Today has been spent cleaning and making millions from the Internet, in that order. Millions is a somewhat nebulous term, and doesn't necessarily refer to money. Think of it as virtual millions, which can be converted into real millions by applying a simple conversion factor, namely 10 to the power of the temperature that Hell freezes over, expressed in Kelvin. NB: This temperature is somewhat lower than the temperature at which the Schelde freezes over. That should give you a Clue.

Having converted your millions into real figures, you can then go about investing them into goods. I recommend blue chip concerns such as Belgian beer, and lots of it. As an aside, I took all of my empties back to the supermarché today and funneled them all through the nifty little machine that you put beer bottles in. I had quite a few and they were weighing me down, but afterwards I felt light of heart and soul as I was given a bon for €2.00 (10 cents a bottle). I worked out with my third year University maths that I must have drunk 357 bottles in the last week or two. No wonder they were weighing me down.

The really cool thing is, you can use the bon to buy even more beer at the supermarché, to the value of the bon! It's a perpetual beer economy system and I reckon it's brilliant. If you're desperate you can also spend the bon on food-related activity programs, including muesli bars and ice cream, which form the bulk of my diet at the moment. Besides beer.

ObRideReport

Yesterday was Deinze sub-TT day, and I broke my record 'cos there wasn't much wind. Basically I go hard for two hours without going much above 160bpm. It's a good aerobic workout but because you're still a fair way off your threshold, you recover quite quickly. I was a bit sore today, but not drained. Door to door I did 70 km in 1hr49, with the middle 66 km in 1:41:30 - about four minutes quicker than last week, when it was admittedly a lot windier. Also, not having ridden very hard on Sunday helped.

Today I could manage four hours which was great, so I paid a visit to the Paterberg and the Koppenberg for old times' sake. The Paterberg is not too bad, because there's a gutter on the left that you can ride up without venturing onto the cobbles. The Koppenberg is a mongrel. It was repaved a few years ago and was relatively easy to climb, but now all the cobbles have separated again and it's almost as bad as it used to be. There's a bit of grass growing between the cobbles too, which would be a misery in the wet.

Today was dry and even using my 39x25, it was still a bloody grovel. I normally do it in a 42x23, and I really couldn't detect much difference between the two gears. Also, I've decided that in its current setup, the Flandria is not really suitable for cobbles. The wheels are Mavic Ksyriums which are great all-round wheels but they are too bloody stiff on cobbles. I'd use the Topolinos or just normal spoked wheels any day. Despite this, the bike is really good for climbs and I've been consistently faster on it than on my GT up all the hills around here.

But I'll have a new toy to play with when I get home - a Davitamon-Lotto Ridley Damocles. Probably one of the first in the new colours. Phwoar! I'm picking it up next Monday so I'll take it home and test it in Oz. It's a full carbon jobbie and it'll be the first carbon fibre frame I've ever ridden on. Tres nice! Now, what to do with the Flandria...

Doping is everywhere

Forget cycling, let's clamp down on those drug cheats in the music industry! And I'm not talking about regular pop music either. Oh no, look what the classical musicians have been getting away with for years in this New York Times article. (Sorry, you may have to register with the NYT to read this, but it's free)

This really opened my eyes. Luckily I didn't pursue a career as a classical pianist, otherwise I would have become embroiled in this dark, drug-crazed world. It gives "performance enhancing" a whole new context. Imagine if you knew Brendel's rendition of Beethoven's Opus 106 was drug-assisted. You'd feel cheated and swindled, wouldn't you? Admit it, deep down, you know it's wrong. What a farce, I tell you! It's got to stop. Just Say No.

And while we're at it, we may as well ban all drugs. Let the sick fend for themselves. Survival of the fittest and all that. If they can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and other well-worn clichés. Note: well-worn cliché is a cliché too.

I have sent an email to Mr. Brendel asking him if he ever used performance-enhancing drugs. If he doesn't respond (or is dead) then I'll brand him a drug cheat and burn all my CD's. I'll have to burn this laptop too, which will mean I won't be able to produce any more bilge until I get another one. Quelle tragedy.

What's more, no beer has been consumed during the course of the evening. Amazing, but true. I'm saving it all for Lucy's Visit.

Forgot

This was meant to be part of the last bilge but somehow it got censored by my delete key. Fancy that. My mind is like a sieve so what follows will not be a verbatim replication.

I noted that there was a local government election back in sunny Oz last weekend, which, unfortunately I couldn't attend. Get me out of here - I want to vote! I couldn't find the necessary authoritaa to sign my postal vote so I didn't. Sorry.

After reading some reports on the SMH, it appears that the existing government (Shooting Party) got back in with an increased majority. Oh well. The alternative (Silly Party) was not up to it, once again. Oh well. I would have voted for the Raving Loony Party anyway. They didn't get much of a look in either.

Please explain?

Training

The worthy burgers of the Schelde aren't too interested in going hard any more, as it's October and the cyclo-tourist season has finished. I don't blame them either! I had my "off season" in September but am now trying to bash myself into shape for the crits in Oz.

So today I set off after Patrick "De Witte" and a couple of others at exactly the same point as last week - at the very top of the hill, halfway between Gavere and Zwalm. The bunch did give chase and it was less than 10 seconds behind me when I finally caught Patrick. I sat up for a bit but Patrick had a better idea and did another turn, so I followed suit and we opened up a gap. That was the last the bunch saw of us until we turned around for the second lap at Zwijnaarde.

Patrick wisely stopped working at the foot of the Molenberg, leaving me to do a 40km TT with him tucked in safely, shouting words of encouragement occasionally :-) We picked up a few more along the Schelde - Jules, Karl and eventually Lucien. That was a long turn! But it was good training, as I could keep it about 5-10 beats below threshold on the way back. All up it was 55 km (first bridge -> Zwijnaarde) in 1:28:00, which is nowhere near the best time (about 1:22:00) but it will satisfy me. We weren't going hard at the beginning.

Tomorrow should be easier, if indeed there's a bunch. Last Sunday I had to do the whole ride solo, so I went a different way. I have yet to do the Paterberg and Koppenberg on the Flandria, but I will. It's really fast on all the other hills that I've taken it over. Oohlala.

Then Lombardy. Nice race! The Kid (Cunego) won, and is looking like the next big star. Basso was a little frustrated, and probably did too much work. He didn't have quite enough for a killer solo attack on the last climb. Boogerd rode well, given that he was sick for most of the week. Evans and Nardello...well what can you say? Two T-Mobiles in the break of five and they finish fourth and fifth. Admittedly, there weren't many kilometres to play with.

Bettini took the World Cup after psyching out Rebellin in the finale. Rebellin couldn't shake Bettini off his wheel so he cracked. Nice going Il Grillo!

2 weeks

Not that I'm counting. Cue John Rachmaninov...

The autumn weather has been good though: Beautiful sunny days, getting up to 20 degrees sometimes. I hope it continues for a bit longer! My sister Luce is coming for a Visit next week, having just flown across the pond to Londres on a plane. She should be able to experience the wonderful Belgian weather.

I don't think much of this Augustijn Grand Cru. It's probably off. What a waste of a 9% beer. I'll drink it anyway just in case it isn't off.

Back to beautiful sunny days and sleep. I should mention the Flandria again, because I'm really enjoying this bike. Been riding it lots, as per Eddy Merckx's training recommendation. The bunch is getting smaller though, probably because all the (alleged) dopers are being caught. Actually, Verhagen only joined the bunch after he was caught, and I haven't seen much of him lately anyway. Mr. Yates, J. has gone home, but hasn't explained his high testosterone levels to the Belgian feds yet. And now, Mario De Clercq has (allegedly) been found with growth hormones in his house and markings in his diary relating hematocrit levels to the taking of unspecified products! But they were supposedly fictitious and merely part of his research for writing a novel one day.

You see the lengths people will go to do win the sprint? I think they are all afraid - very afraid - of Guido, and well they should be! He was in very good condition over the last two months and that probably cracked De Clercq, who couldn't even bring him back last Sunday week.

I have thus decided to write a novel, maybe about my fantasies of winning the Schelde sprint against these guys. I have been writing notes in my diary, relating the amount of muesli bars, chocolate and beer consumed on the previous day to my sprinting speed. There is a clear, but totally fictitious correlation. e.g. three beers at 9%, 5.2% and 4.8% = a slight hangover, dehydration and 57 km/h.

Note 1: Augustijn Grand Cru (9%) needs to be washed down with Palm Speciale (5.2%) just in case it's off. I don't think it was, but I had to make sure. I now have Doubts about the Palm Speciale. If these Doubts continue, I will need to restock the Beer fridge. There have been shocking depredations in that department of late. I must check the fridge again - I could have sworn there was more beer in there five minutes ago...

Other stuff

Had lunch with the Elder Sunderlands today in a somewhat trendy little spot in Gent centrum. Took about an hour to get food due to having only one chef but that was ok because it left time for idle chatter. The decor was noteworthy - the bottom half of the restauraaaaa was all modern, but the top bit was original XXXth century with painted wooden beams and bare bricks and stuff. Interesting combo - on the one hand it looked as if the workmen had left it half done and gone off for a (slow) lunch break, but on the other it actually worked. So I now know of a place to have lunch in Gent where it takes an hour to get food.

Back to ogling train timetables from Gent to Zaventem luchthaven...

Today is Woensdag

Cue Carl Beethoven...

After many months of bureaucratic sluggishness (is there any other kind?) I became an officially legal member of Belgium today. That is to say, I got my ID card. The process started back in April when I applied for the thing, had to wait a month while the police came to check that I actually lived here. I do in body, at least. Then I needed to go back and sign a whole lotta papers before they at Dienst Vreemdelingen Bevolking gave me a temporary ID card.

Note: each time you visit the Dienst you need to take a number and wait for two hours because there are only four service windows, with generally one of them actually serving. I tried to go to the Belgian bevolking dienst on the other side of the building, which had 10 windows and zero waiting time, but I was ordered to go and wait with the Turks. I marvel at the efficiency of this place.

Anyway, I still needed to prove that I had a job, so that took more months because the Tour and stuff got in the way. I finally returned triumphant in September, employer's attestation in hand, and gave it to the worthy folks at the above Dienst. They were very generous in handling my query because I missed my number being called by about three microseconds and was frowned upon. It wasn't enough to get the final ID card though - I had to come back in a month, by which time it had all been approved.

So today I went back, waited for two and a half hours (it was actually half an hour after closing time by the time I got served) and paid €7 to get my final ID card. Woo hoo! I was so proud. Another week and I would have had to re-apply. What a riveting tale.

At the moment I am still tired but also bored. That's a bad combination, but doing nothing for two and a half hours this arvo was probably a good idea. I was going to write something else, but upon re-reading the above I realise that it will be even more tedious so I will refrain. On second thoughts...

Google and other search engines are now finding this bilge because there are now more than 35,000 words on it. Hell, that's not too far short of my Ph.D thesis, and it's somehow emerged in about five months of very part time beer-fueled contributions. I conclude, therefore, that my Ph.D thesis should have been a blog.

In a few weeks, you'll be able to type in "beer" and "Ph.D" into Yahoo!, Google or MSN, and this bilgespot will probably be third on the list. That's scary.

Four non-blogs

Jeez that was a crap band. Give me Caspar Carl Beethoven any day.

Enough of the pleasantries, it's time to put finger to keyboard again for the sake of the all powerful Bilgespot.com. It behooves me to state that the World Road Championships and the Madness of General Franco (the Vuelta) are now officially over for another season. That is a good thing, because four weeks of fun in the sun has been too much for my lobotomised brain cell to handle. I won't go into details, but I had to drink all of my beer one night when things got outta hand. It worked surprisingly well.

On the Monday After, I suddenly hit a complete black hole and found myself watching the end of 12 Monkeys instead. Odd movie by Terry Gilliam which really bakes your noodle with a time travel loop.

Today (Tuesday according to the Julian calendar) presented a ripe opportunity to go for a longish ride on my new Flandria CSS-1 bike with Campagnolo Veloce 10 Speed Phwoar and mismatching pedals. After much humming and har-ing I decided not to amputate both feet. Only time will tell whether I made the correct choice. Suffice it to say that this is a bloody nice bike to ride, and I barely had to make any adjustments to it once I hopped on.

I managed to get four hours in today for 140km, and for the first time in ages I felt good for the whole ride. After I left the rather modestly sized bunch at Zingem, I did a few hills and even some of the cobbles at Mater, although I cheated and rode on the bike path, as you do. It was such a cool ride, and I could even ignore the drizzle for the last 25km.

On to more pressing news. It has come to my attention that we are in October, and that means that it's only three weeks and approx. 2 days until I return to the sunny shores of Oz. Woo hoo! A ticker-tape parade will not be necessary, but a welcome home buffet at Charles Kingsford-Smith Airport would certainly go down a treat.

Speaking of airports, I saw The Terminal with Tom Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones, a relation of mine. They were in the movie too which was kinda cool. It was almost completely filmed inside an airport terminal set, and wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. One scene really cracked me up, and the effects of that can be seen here. I won't bother giving away the plot or the suspense will be ruined.

October weather has been kind so far. Despite a complete lack of sun, the temps haven't been much below 15-20 degrees. I remember a day in October last year when it was minus goddamn 5 in the morning and I had icicles forming on my nose. Oh well, there's still three weeks so give it time...

I will write more when it happens.

A new bike, sorta

Me new bike

Although I've been working at CN for five years now, testing bikes has not been one of my main departments. I think I've test ridden one other machine in that time, but now I'm being inundated with the bloody things. Today's inundation came from England, where they now make Flandria bikes (or maybe they always did) and I am now in possession of a Flandria CSS-1 with Campagnolo Veloce 10 Speed Phwoar.

Actually I suspect it's a bit of a dud because if you look closely, you'll see that it didn't come with pedals. So I'll either have to send it back or chop off my feet. I haven't decided on an appropriate course of action, but I'm leaning towards the latter.

Things have slowed down a little today (and today only) after the Madness of the World Champeenships in Bardolino/Verona. Having that happen slap bang after the Vuelta was bloody ordinary, and I've told the UCI that they can keep their Pro Tour.

Family-related trivia: On day one, a Slovenian guy called Brajkovic won the U23 TT. I'm not sure if he drives like one though. Sorry, only three people will understand that one.

Of course it was jolly good to see Mick "Dodger" Rogers winning a real World Championship in the men's TT after he was denied by the cheating swine David Millar in Hamilton last year. The sad fact is, Millar probably didn't even need EPO to win - he won by 1'25 and said he was taking it steady after he got the gap. But the upshot of it was that Rogers had to wait until a few weeks ago to be presented with his 2003 rainbow jersey, and so he only did one race in it! Real rude deal man. So I was suitably chuffed when he crossed the line 20 seconds behind Michael "Ich Bin Der TT Monster" Rich to win the bloody thing. And to hear the Anthem by Lake Garda was nice.

As for the road races, lessee: Probably Bettini, Freire/Flecha, maybe Stuey, dark horse Nick Nuyens, Argentine ant Rebellin or Mr perpetual motion Ete Zabel. In the women's race I reckon Cooke and Melchers will have a serious go of it and maybe one of the Litouwers, despite internal Ructions that are threatening to rip the team apart. And Oenone Wood, pronounced Eh-no-nee.

Not much has happened in the last four weeks due to Vuelta/World's, but I did manage to drag myself out of bed on Sunday morning for the final Berchem ride of the season, a.k.a. the Sluitingsprijs Putte-Kapellen. Hadn't done one for a month and my training has been fairly minimal in between, sickness included. Anyway, everyone was up for it including snelle Eddy, Guido, The Kid (Piet Stevens), Guy Callens and the usual bunch.

The decisive move was made after about halfway, before we got to the climbs, when Guido and Eddy attacked (again) on the flat about 5 km before Frasnes. I waited because every other time, the Others had started chasing and that would have been an easier way to bring them back. I mean, you don't let the two strongest guys ride off the front without a bit of resistance, do you? Yep. Oh well.

They had a good 30 seconds and were rapidly disappearing up the road when I decided that some sort of rearguard action was necessary. One other guy agreed with me and we hared off after them at Mach 0.0037. But he only did one turn before waving ta-ta and returning to the fold of the bunch. I looked back, saw that I was halfway across and there was no option but to continue. Urgh. Why did I wait in the beginning? Too Late Now.

I caught them in another few km and completely spent all my reserves in the process. Eddy and Guido dragged me up the climbs but I could still contribute on the flats. We went a different way for the final, turning right at Flobecq(?) instead of left and doing a long - and by that stage extremely painful - false flat followed by a climb. I swapped off with Eddy until about 500m from the top when he jumped with Guido on his wheel. That turned out to be the finish, but I had to let them go anyway. God it hurts so much when you're a bit unfit. You ride the same way but end up hurting yourself a lot more. Even on the way back to the café, I was seeing stars on the Hotonde when Eddy drove it to the top.

This time I actually stopped in the café for a few reviving beverages. I had a couple of cokes and a Konijntje, which is like an Affligem but with a bit more sugar added in the brewing process. You can only get it at that café, Guido said. It tasted good but I would have been ruined with more than one. It also made the ride home very interesting - for the first part Guido and I were still swapping off at 36-38 km/h, and I couldn't feel my legs. Then the beer wore off and the fuzziness turned into complete glycogen debt for the last 25 km, where I was on my own, getting slower and slower. Ooooooooh dear. I did make it, but was down to about 22 km/h at the end.

Monday was a good day to sleep in.

A week on

I feel approx. the same as last week but I am telling myself that things are improving. If I ride too hard, the sore throat comes back a bit, but I'm winning the battle.

Speaking of winning the battle, a Massive Congrats to Janelle Lindsay and Lindy Hou for winning the GOLD and Bronze at the Paralympics!! Youse totally rock, and it's good to see the Randwick Botany riders holding their own around the globe. Pete "The Machine" McDonald's win in the Grafton was also pretty cool (just a bit longer).

A tip for budding cyclists: Just Say No to Blood Transfusions if someone offers you one. Especially a heterologous one from an ice-cream eating rat or possum. Look what happened to Tyler.

OK, less than a week to go and then it's the World Championships. Who was the MAROON who designed the calendar this year? You don't squish it all together, you save something for the end. Oh well.

Gaan slapen.

Delay

My apologies for the delay in updating this 'ere Bilgespot. This past week has been een beetje hectisch en ik heb 90 uren gewerkt. Sorry for double Dutch again. Normally September isn't that busy, even with the Vuelta. But my main partner in crime, Chris Henry, left the week before it started. He told us back in May and it registered in the dim recesses of my brain cavity, but for some reason I just assumed he was gunna do the Vuelta too. Alas, no.

So a few weeks ago we had to fast-track all three of our Chris Henry Replacement Job Candidates and pull their names out of a hat. Actually it wasn't too difficult, because one of them made the mistake of ringing up Gerard at 4am one Sunday morning. Oops. Of the two remaining, one was German and one was an Aussie, so of course we chose the German :-) No nepotism here!

Thus, this week has been Training Week for Hedwig Kröner, who - I believe - is not related to Harry Potter. She normally lives in Saarbrücken, and occasionally in France, but fortunately her parents live in Brussels so it's not a big deal to commute to CN Central in Gent. After two days she still came back, so clearly I wasn't trying hard enough. Normally I am very trying.

The upshot of it is that it's been 12-14 hour days so I'm a bit like a zombie at the moment. It's taken me about 2.5 weeks to get rid of my cold as a result, but it hasn't been too bad. I crave sleep, but I refuse to sacrifice my short morning ride for an extra hour of zzzz. Mmmm...extra hour...maybe tomorrow.

It stopped raining too and we've had about 2 weeks of calm, dry weather, but now it's getting windy again and the "usual" Belgian weather pattern is returning. So I'll have something to grumble about again.

Current video clip: "We Are" by Ana Johnsson, from the Spiderman II flick. Ow.

The Seventy Gentlemen (and Two Ladies) of Verona

As you can see, I made the podium...

Act I, Scene I: Now is the August of our discontent

Let me start somewhere near the beginning. August will do nicely, as it's the time period After the Tour and I can complain about the weather. August started off quite well, following on from late July with a week of 30+ degree days. Being Belgium, this is as good as it gets and it was. When the weather finally broke, it rained for 17 of the next 18 days (I disquietingly keep track of these things).

Riding in the rain and cleaning the bike a lot became a completely normal thing, even though I wondered some times what the hell I was doing wearing leg and arm warmers in what is normally a Summer Month. I wondered the same thing for most of July too. I accept that the weather's going to be bad between October and March here, but the Belgian weather deity should go easy in the summer I reckon. I love complaining about the weather as there is nothing I can do about it, except perhaps drive a car more often.

Thus it didn't surprise me that while typing frantically on the Thursday night before the one and only Journo World Championships in Verona, I started getting that good ol' sore throat. Actually it did surprise me, because in the week before I'd managed to eat several cooked meals in a row. Maybe it was my body reacting to all those terrible health foods. "I want instant rice, dammit!" I could hear my stomach saying.

On Friday I went to the only chemist that was actually open near me (there are at least four) and stocked up on echinacea throat lozenges and nasal spray. I was also trying to eat enough garlic so that my neighbours would think I was Van Helsing. Armed with these mighty anti-sickness weapons, I merrily set off into the rain on Friday afternoon to Gent Sint-Pieters station to catch one of many trains that would eventually get me to Verona.

Act II, Scene I: Trains, trains and trains

The wheels threatened to fall off once I got to Brussels as my connection to Lyon Part Dieu was 25 minutes late. I calculated that would leave me just a few minutes to change trains at Lyon for Geneva, so I was hoping that the trusty TGV would try to make up some of the deficit on the way down through France. It didn't bother, and we arrived 26 minutes late, causing stress.

After sprinting with my bike bag in tow from one platform to the next, I made it in time and was Swiss-bound. It had stopped raining too, a novelty. The train to Geneva was pretty well empty, which I thought odd because I could have sworn that there was a convention happening there. Once I got to Geneva, I had to go through customs to get onto the next platform for the night train that would take me to Verona. The only thing I had to declare was that I had a sore throat, I was sick of traveling and I wanted to get there already.

The Geneva - Verona overnight train was my first experience at such a thing, and I won't forget it in a hurry. The Swiss conductor looked at me with a bemused smile on his face as I lugged my bike bag into the carriage. He told me that there were no more places for bikes on the train so I would have to keep it with me in the sleeping compartment. I thought that might be OK until I tried to manoeuvre it into the cabin, realising that it would take up all the available floor space and probably piss off my other three travelling companions. I eventually tied it to a railing in the narrow corridor outside, hoping that it would get stolen during the night so that I didn't have to drag it around any more.

The sleeping compartment supposedly slept six people, although I couldn't for the life of me figure out where the other two were going to sleep as there were just two seats and a bunk above each one. I was hoping it wouldn't come to that anyway, as it was crowded enough with four people. All (except me) were fluent in French, but one of them was actually a Londoner who had lived in Amsterdam for eight years and knew All the Languages. He obviously felt he needed the practice as he and his girlfriend talked non-stop until about 2:00am.

Having eaten my emergency box of muesli bars and apple somewhere between Lyon and Geneva, I was getting a bit peckish. There was apparently no dining car but we were able to get three bread rolls, butter and salami and water from the nice conductor, which made for a truly sumptuous repast! We were living like royalty on this train I tell you.

We rolled on at ridiculous speeds into the night and reached a mutual agreement to try and get some shut-eye, especially as the train was due in Verona at 5:37am. I was scoffing echinacea tablets, which were doing nothing, and snorting nasal spray like it was going out of style, trying to prevent my sore throat and headache from getting any worse. Fortunately it didn't, even when two Koreans who I thought were Dementors clambered into the carriage at 12:54am and took the remaining two sleeping positions. These were magically created by folding down the tops of the seats. One of the Dementors made noises about a lack of a pillow, so I generously donated my second one that I had stolen in the hope of being more comfortable. Besides, I didn't want to lose my soul on a train bound for Verona.

Somehow, sleep did claim me between about 2:00am and 5:00am which was better than I'd hoped for. In true Ian Thorpe style, I'd set my alarm for 5:17am in order to give me enough time to get myself up and out of the carriage by the scheduled arrival in Verona at 5:37am. But when we reached Brescia at that time, I knew something was amiss and that we were running late. 40 minutes late to be exact. Jeez, I thought Mussolini had fixed all that?

Armed with two stale croissants and some orange juice (our Official Breakfast) I finally disembarked in Verona Porta Nuova at 6:20-ish. After some searching I found the bus that would take me to Bussolengo, arriving there at 7:30-ish. It goes without saying that I missed the stop right outside the Tower Hotel, so I had a pleasant early morning stroll through the streets of Bussolengo, bike bag in tow, feeling just a tad under the weather. Fortunately, the Tower Hotel was impossible to miss. It was the only multi-story structure in Bussolengo and with its glaring mirrored purple windows, stood out like a sore thumb.

But I wasn't complaining once I got inside, expressing enormous relief to the receptionist who informed me that there was a room ready for me and I could go up there after leaving my bike bag in the garage. It was the nicest hotel room I'd ever seen, although my judgment was possibly impaired by last night's train trip. I saw two beds, climbed into one of them and was lost to the world until midday.

Act III, Scene I: Awake! Awake!

Ooh, looks nice

Feeling sub-human now, I put the bike back together and prepared to go for a bit of a cruise. I'd printed out the parcours and was curious to check it out, so armed with a series of Internet maps, I didn't even get lost between Bussolengo and Veronello, where the parcours was situated. It was 9.8 km along some of the smoothest roads I have ever ridden on: there was exactly one pothole along the entire course. The signs told me where to go for the Journo World's and I also noticed signs for the real World Championships in October. Some of the time trials go along these roads, which would explain why one part had been re-asphalted recently. It was a bit sticky in the hot sun, but I preferred that to the Belgian 15 degrees, mud and rain any day.

Apart from the road quality, the parcours was very nice. There was a series of short climbs just after the start/finish, none of them particularly hard on their own but the cumulative effect could be interesting. The first one was only about 300m but it wasjust steep enough to take the sting out of your legs. Then there was a slight drop before the next "climb", which was more like a drag with a steeper pinch at the top. That was followed by another downhill, then across a bridge over the autostrada before turning left onto the second sector of the parcours. This part was not easy: about 1 km long and all steadily uphill at perhaps 2-3 percent. It would be enough to make a difference, given what came before.


This way for journo's

After the top (3 km), there was a gradual descent then another up/down/up to a roundabout in Cavaion (km 5.6), a nice little town overlooking Lake Garda. Then it was a kilometre of flat into a cross/headwind before the final part of the course, which was pretty much all downhill. The first part was gentle but fast enough to hit 50 km/h without trying. Then a sharp left hand turn onto the new asphalt through Calmasino, then another left hander onto the final 1.5 km, which was very slightly downhill. All on beautifully smooth roads. Bliss.

I headed back into town with 45 km on the odometer, now starting to feel very ordinary again. But there was no time for rest, as we had a big night planned!

Scene II: A night at the opera

At 6:30pm Italian time (about 18:45 CEST), the various journo's and their wives/girlfriends/partners that were staying at the Tower Hotel bundled into a bus bound for Verona for an evening of Culture™. First up was a welcome by the Mayor in the City Hall of Verona, where many important people spoke and were presented with various gifts of honour. This was a big thing for Verona and I was suitably impressed, annoyed that I didn't bring my camera.

After that we had a rather pleasant outdoor meal in the piazza opposite the amphitheatre, where we were going to see Rigoletto later on. Given that we paid a ridiculously low two-figure sum for the whole weekend, I guessed that there must some sponsorship involved. After speaking to one of the Italians at dinner, I was informed that our main patron was the president of Mondiali Ciclismo 2004, Giovanni Rana, a big (both literally and figuratively) pasta producer who owned the "Tre Corone" restaurant that we were dining at. The pasta, filled with some sort of potato and egg mix, was superb. I just wished that there were seconds! Alas there were none, but carbo loading is for wimps anyway. This was a meal to be appreciated for its aesthetic quality, not its calorific value.

After bolting down dessert (hey, we were served last), we were herded off to the amphitheatre for a bit of a look at the opera. Tickets? Sorted. Thank you Verona. The opera was Rigoletto, a tragedy by Giuseppe Verdi. A tragedy means that the wrong person dies and in this case it was Rigoletto's daughter Gilda. Sorry to spoil the plot. With the full moon rising over the amphitheatre just as the music began, it was a magical performance.

The somewhat extended intervals meant that it didn't finish until well after midnight, and by the time we were bussed back to Bussolengo, it was after 1:00am. I'm actually used to that with my work hours, but tonight I was dead tired and very grateful to crash into bed again. The sore throat/headache hadn't got any better, but at least it hadn't got worse.

Act IV: Scene I: A day at the races

I set my alarm for 8:10 am, Jeff Jones style, and instantly regretted it when it went off. I'd had far too little sleep in the last week but I had to get up that early in order to eat breakfast, let it digest, then eat lunch at 11:00. My head felt as though it wasn't there and for one of the few times in my life, I really didn't want any breakfast. I forced it down, felt no improvement, and staggered back to bed for two hours. That helped and I felt better by 11:00 for lunch, but still not hungry. It was one of the least enjoyable plates of pasta I've ever eaten, even though it would normally have been quite nice. I even had only half a cup of coffee. I rarely get nervous for a race but this one was an exception.

Then it was time to get ready and load the bikes into the trailer for the bus ride out to the course. It was only 10 km out there, but we being lazy journalists... I also spotted the defending champion Andrea Agostini and Italian legend Francesco Moser outside the hotel and they were looking the business. Today wasn't going to be easy.

We drove out through wine country towards Veronello and I realised that most of the parcours went through vineyards. It was a beautiful day; sunny and 31 degrees, with barely a breath of wind, and I was definitely looking forward to donning my brand new Cyclingnews jersey and doing battle with the Italians on their home turf. There were plenty of them at the sign on, which seemed to take for ever, and I noticed that most of the Italians were wearing the azzurro jerseys as worn by the Italian national team. It looked pretty formidable but I figured that a) at least they were riding for different newspapers, and b) being Italian, the co-operation might not be perfect. All up, there were about 70 men and just 2 women racing. And the women's field was twice the size of last year!

It was time to get changed and I saw that I had been given number 1, which was a bit unnerving as it's normally reserved for the defending champion. Oh well, I hoped that it was a premonition of things to come. I warmed up for 10 km and the legs felt good, so I was eager to get started. We had a minute's silence on the line for the Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni who was killed in Iraq (many of the Italians were wearing black bands today) and we were waved off.

Scene II: Battle in Veronello

You can read a description of what happened in the race here. I really don't like referring to myself in the third person but I guess I was in a good position to know what was going on in the race, and no-one else would have caught the details. I will add a few things from a personal point of view:

Although classed as flat, the course was not so. The Dutch and Belgians weren't impressed, as they know what flat means. The accumulation of sharp hills at the start of the lap, ending with a kilometre long drag, was sufficient to keep the pressure on, and it was a hard course for a peloton to organise a chase on.

My pre-race plan was to wait until the start of lap 6 before attacking, but I quickly realised that I would have to get into a break first in order to narrow the odds. I was very nervous after missing the three man break on the first lap which had Riparbelli - who I'd marked as being a danger man - in it. But Agostini wasn't there and he was an even bigger threat, so I forced myself to be patient. At the start of lap 2, he sprinted up the hill in some ridiculous gear in pursuit and I threaded my way through the damage behind him. He closed the gap well before the top and I realised that he was the strongest guy in the race. It's good to know these things.

We had a pretty nervous second lap after that and as expected, the attacks started again on the third lap climbs. It was still early, but the gaps were starting to appear and I decided along with about 10 others that this was as good a time as any to make a selection. We rode pretty hard for the rest of the lap and had the peloton strung out in pursuit about 10 seconds behind all the time. That was good, because on the fourth lap we could resume the attacking with the peloton already on the rivet, and by the top of the climb there were still about 10 of us, but with a bigger gap. I was doing a lot of work at this stage to ensure that the pace didn't let up, because a lot of people were sitting on. A few kilometres later (on the flat) I helped to get it down to six, and that was better.

Agostini was not pulling hard turns but he was definitely very strong. On the fifth lap he attacked on the flat halfway around the lap and it was interesting to watch as he powered away behind two TV and photo motos. The Belgian Bart de Schampeleire was on the front and losing ground because the Italian Riparbelli was on his wheel - of course he was not going to come round with the only other Italian up the road. I was in third wheel and saw it was a good chance to go after Agostini so I jumped as hard as I could. I felt sorry for Bart, but hey, the Belgians taught me that move! I wanted to get to the finish with the least number of riders possible, preferably one. Unfortunately Riparbelli towed up the French guy (Malle) just as I caught Agostini...and then we were four.

The break was still working OK so I didn't want to attack on lap 6. I guessed that the others would be more tired on the last lap and it would be easier to get a gap. Malle was definitely struggling and sitting on, but we couldn't drop him. Riparbelli wasn't as strong as Agostini, and I thought that perhaps I could get rid of those two on the final lap. Believe me I tried! Agostini put in a dummy attack on the first climb, and I went over the top pretty hard. He was onto me straight away but I kept the pressure on for just a bit longer in order to make the other two chase harder. We rolled together over the next couple of hills and then on the last 1 km drag, Agostini attacked again. I countered as hard as I could, all the way to the top, heart rate very close to maximum. But they were all on my wheel and I knew that that was probably my last chance.

Agostini gave me another opportunity with 3 km to go when he went on the descent. Riparbelli was in second wheel and let the gap open up, while I was in last wheel. I waited until the gap was big enough and then jumped from behind - it wasn't too hard to close the gap but Riparbelli was again towing the French guy back up to us. I caught Agostini just before the sharp corner with 1.5 km to go and I executed my last premeditated tactic, jumping out of the corner with everything I had left to hopefully get a gap on him. He was too strong of course and was onto me immediately. We had (finally) gapped the other two and I rode hard for a bit longer to see if Agostini was interested in going all the way to the finish. Of course he wasn't and there was no way I was going to tow him to the line for second place, so I had to ease up.

We were into the final kilometre and when Riparbelli and Malle (the shadow) caught up, Riparbelli countered which surprised me. I was happy though because he didn't have the kick to get away and Agostini nailed him, with me on his wheel. He slowed and Agostini went to the front for the last 600m, me glued to his wheel. I was in the perfect position, aside for the fact that I can't sprint. It was like a track sprint - we were both out of the saddle, pedalling slowly and watching each other carefully with the occasional flick back to the other two.

I knew I had to wait until 200m to go to jump, but Agostini was confident and went from 300m out. I reacted but this time he had given it full gas and immediately gapped me. There goes the jersey, I thought, as I watched him cross the line with arms raised. I gave it full gas too and thought that I might have second place, but Riparbelli eventually wound it up to come past me with about 50m to go. I was at 193 bpm across the line so I knew I had nothing left. And as far as I was concerned, there wasn't a lot of difference between finishing second and third.

I was disappointed not to get the jersey but at the same time happy to be on the podium. I was also very happy with the way I rode - definitely feeling no effects of illness - and how the race went. I really enjoyed the battle with Agostini: we were both prepared to attack each other until the end and that made for a very satisfying race. It was like a high speed game of chess. Taking an optimistic view, I would say that we were more or less even on the attacking front but he clearly had a much better sprint than any of us. Not having Riparbelli there as a "semi-teammate" for Agostini would not have changed who won, and I have to credit Riparbelli for hanging in there and having enough to get past me at the finish.

Overall it was the best organised race that I've done, which shouldn't surprise me as the same organisers are in charge of the real World Championships. We had full road closures with police escorts, a timing moto, a TV/video moto, a photographer moto and Shimano neutral support, just like in "real" races. I could have done with a few more Aussie-piloted motorbikes to attack behind ;-), but it was a completely and utterly fantastic experience to race that way.

Getting flowers from Mr. Rana, Il presidente

Scene III: The spoils of victory

Unlike most races, we were all instructed to have a shower and get changed before the official presentations. While it would have been a little more spontaneous to have the ceremony right after the race, I quickly understood that this would not be a five minute post-race affair. Suitably freshened up, we all headed out to the large tent set up next to the Veronello sports complex and arranged ourselves in various tables. I sat with the Dutch contingent and indulged in a post-race white wine (ooooohhh dear) and waited for the action.

The prize giving ceremony was fairly long winded, but none of us were in a great hurry so that was OK. Firstly Francesco Moser was awarded as the winner of the Consultants (ex-professionals) category, and he received a trophy and flowers and a few kisses. We moved on through the Women's category, which was twice the size of last year in that it had two finishers. Hats off to Samantha Profumo who had finished with Moser and won her category ahead of Slovenia's Lucia Bosnik. Then the Over 50's category, where our table took first and third with Peter de Groot and Bennie Ceulen, and finally the Under 50's, which included me.

I must say that it was very nice to be on the podium at a World Championship, and we were all endowed with weighty prizes. We each got heavy trophies, a large coffee table book on Lake Garda and flowers. Agostini got the nice green rainbow jersey (green is the colour of the press accreditation at the Tour and many other races) and a digital camera. The president of the AIJC, Jean-Yves Donor, was present as well as representatives of the organisation. Tres bon, even though it was difficult to keep hold of all our prizes on the podium!


Dutch love cheese

The buffet got into full swing after that and there was more prize giving. Everyone's name was put into a large metal hat carried around by two...rather odd looking chaps, and we all took turns in drawing the numbers out, which meant that everyone got a prize. I ended up with an Italian watch which will go nicely with my Credit Lyonnais watch, but some of The Others weren't so lucky. Somehow our table "won" two enormous chunks of parmigiano cheese, and even the Dutch were looking somewhat dubious about taking them home. We asked some of the Italians how much they were worth and were informed in the region of € 100-150! Anyone want to exchange for a jersey?

Epilogue: The journey home

After another night of 4 hours sleep I began the long trip home, which occupied all of Monday. No sleeping compartments this time (I could have done with one) and my stores of echinacea placebos were running low. 16 hours from Bussolengo to Gent - via Switzerland, which was nice. Next time, I'll make sure I get a flight.

[Tuesday, Gent time: Belgian doctor to Jeff: "Boy, you're sick. That'll be 18 euros."]