Jan Ullrich

A sad retirement, I think. Here's what I wrote about Der Kaiser on the Procycling blog.

Formula three and a half

I just saw someone from the motor racing industry try to argue that Honda's new 'green' formula one car was the best thing since sliced bread. It wasn't environmentally unfriendly at all, and it would completely offset its carbon footprint somehow.

It's a car.

Move over Cacophonix

That, as they say in the classics (Ronde van Vlaanderen), was a solid week. It started on Monday, as many weeks do. I went along to the Ba'ath Storytelling Circle, which happened to be in the Raven. How convenient.

There were about 30 of us there, a few of whom told stories. There were amusing real life tales, like the guy who tried to climb Mount Olympus one December, but found his way stopped by an inkblot of snow. Then there were more fictional yarns, and some were even accompanied by music. In fact, there were at least three former or current "Bards of Bath" there. Good to see the tradition is still alive, and it was all a lot of fun.

Wednesday saw us (four or five from work) continuing our tea and cake tour of Bath, landing at a French place in the Guildhall. Good crepes, except we should have had those on Tuesday. And a nice frothy cappuccino. The evening was a mini-drinks night at the Future pub (the Lounge), celebrating the 39th birthday of Pete, one of the publishers. Unfortunately, I went there straight after work, consumed many Leffes and a Kasteel Cru on an empty stomach. Needless to say I was cod ordinary on Thursday morning. I would have liked to have slept it off but I was too hungry. And I needed a ride in the rain to get rid of the hangover.

That sort of worked in that it stopped the pounding in my head, but it wasn't until I got into work and ordered a milkshake-sized coffee from our cafe that things started to improve slightly. Faded again before lunch, but a triple Americano from the Italian ice cream place (which I declare to be the second place to get good coffee in Bath) plus an Anadin tablet finally got me on track. The afternoon was surprisingly good as a result. And it carried on into the evening for the second week of my writing course. We learned about believable character creation and it gave me a lot of things to think about.

For some reason, I declined the invitation to have a drink after class, and another invitation to go out with Robin from WhatMTB, who was having a night out in Bath. Maybe next week.

Felt good on Friday. We are making some progress at work and it was fun to see where everything was at by the end of the week. My sense of déjà vu was working well and I went to the Lounge again for drinks with one of the Future Istari. It's good when board members are there, because you don't have to mortgage your wallet to buy a Leffe. This time, I had the sense to have dinner before (3 Ryvitas) and after (a Schwarz burger) and it made the difference on Saturday.

Which brings us up to the present time real life situation. Went out with Chippenham for the club run and it was a good sized group of about a dozen. We had to ford a few streams (it's been raining here, amazingly) and we fell apart a few times, but got to the end intact. With about 2 km to go, I was last wheel and a few attacked for the finish. I was a bit stuck, but waited until we had a clear road on a slight downhill, and tried to jump across. Hit 60km/h and thought that would take me up to them pretty quick, but there were two guys out in front who I couldn't catch before the end. Oh well, good training.

Tomorrow's a 170 km ride doing a recce of one of the stages of the Tour of Wessex. That should be good, as I think we will have a tailwind.

Next week, John and I are planning a trip to Belgian to watch Het Volk. Unfortunately, I'll be bike-less.

Welsh mud

Yeah
© Jeff Jones

Today was the day I went mountain biking. In 18-odd years of riding a bike, I've spent about two weeks in total riding off-road. That includes UK national bike routes. I'd have nothing against riding on those if I had a 'cross bike or a full suspension Yeti 575. Purely by coincidence, I was able to access one of those through work, as there are an unbelievable number of bikes floating around our office. As I found out, the 575 is amazing bike - somewhat of an improvement to my old GT Avalanche.

There were four of us: Sean, from John's Bikes in Bath, his mate Jim, John S, and myself. We loaded up the kit at the civilsed hour of 8:45am and Sean drove us to the Forest of Dean, in Wales. There we met Jim, who it turned out had had a bit of a big night, involving four bottles of wine and just one other person. He was able to ride fairly well, considering.

After fine tuning my machine (a bit of eyeballing of the seat height and fore-aft cleat positioning) we set off. I was immediately in trouble, trying to figure out how to ride through mud and over slippery tree roots, which there are a lot of in the Forest. Pulling my foot out, trying to get going again, not having any idea of how this bike handled. Fortunately, no-one was in a great hurry and they waited for me several times until we reached a hill, where I could comfortably keep up.

As John explained, the trick to riding on this sort of terrain with a proper bike is to just point it in the direction you want it to go, and let the suspension do the rest. So easy is it. Panic do not. That is why you fail.

The bike was that good that somehow, I did not manage to fall off. The closest I came was putting a hand down to stop myself getting covered in mud. Still, whenever we did any form of descending, I was well off the back. It's not easy to unlearn all your road habits about keeping your weight firmly on the back wheel and outside leg pointed down.

Towards the end of the ride, I was getting the hang of it a lot better, to the point where I could keep up on the tree root sections and wasn't too far back on the downhills. Of course, we weren't doing anything like racing speeds, but I was happy enough. You can do some ridiculous things on a mountain bike that are just impossible on a road machine. And despite the rear of the bike swimming around in the mud, you just keep going. You need more concentration, and you definitely need your top end power, but the adrenaline rush and the kick you get from riding somewhere completely different keeps you fired up.

I'll do it again.

Postscript: I have to say that despite not being a car lover - hell, I've never even owned one - Top Gear is a bloody good watch. I can't believe they converted a Reliant Robin into a space shuttle and actually launched it. The landing ... did not quite go according to plan.


John and Sean unload
© Jeff Jones
A brand new Yeti 575, for my riding pleasure
© Jeff Jones
Setting off at the Forest of Dean
© Jeff Jones
John and a slightly under the weather Jim take a breather
© Jeff Jones
My muddier bike
© Jeff Jones
John, Sean and Jim after the ride
© Jeff Jones

Brian dump

I survived Valentine's Week (Month?) in the UK, which was no mean feat. They really force it down your throat here, and the commercial guilt factor is huge, whether you have an Other or not. Still, the overall effect was cathartic and I feel quite good now.

Writing class was interesting, especially the concept of going back to uni after 10 years. There were eight of us, split evenly between male and female, plus the tutor, who is a bloke by the name of Kevan Manwaring. Most of them were a fair bit older than me, save for one, who was wheelchair bound. And he had already written 135,000 words of his novel, so I don't think he needed the same degree of help that the rest of us did. The other interesting thing was that three or four of us come from journalist backgrounds, and another three or four are from scientific backgrounds. I am both. The intersection of that Venn diagram. We all have different ideas, so we'll be able to critique each other throughout the 10 week course.

I did learn stuff too. Like drawing up a proper plan to finish your doorstop, and doing 'writing exercise' each day, to keep yourself in shape. Like 20 minutes each morning just writing whatever comes into your head. OK, I get enough of that at work, but it's not quite the same. Updating the blog is a great way to do this. Or not.

Went out with Will this morning for four hours through the Cotswolds. It was a bit misty up top, and I took a wrong right hand turn about 500m before we were going to descend off the Cotswolds, so we missed out on doing one really nasty hill that I wanted to do. But it was another solid ride - good for this time of year. I'm going MTB riding with John and Sean from John's Bikes tomorrow in the Forest of Dean. First time in 12 years that I've ridden off-road. That should be fun.

I am now at the Kindling Cafe in Widcombe, at the southern end of Bath. It's nice and cosy, and the hazelnut muffin is very good. There are other Australians here, and one of them is piercingly loud, like a mosquito in your ear. I should have asked for an extra shot of coffee. Coffee: 7/10 but has potential - froth and chocolate are good; Muffin: 8/10; Ambience: 7/10, but would be 8 without the loud Aussie chick.

Started reading the Divine Comedy, by a certain D. Alighieri. It's a good yarn. One for the kiddies.

Bath time in Bath

I finally got to see the Roman baths and the abbey here, thanks to a visit by Lucy+Pete on the weekend. Worth it, I must say. The baths are amazingly extensive. They were excavated and restored in the 19th century, and the whole city centre is a superimposition of Roman and Georgian architectural elements. The abbey is pretty cool too.

We had a nice dinner on Saturday at Hudson's Bar & Grill on London Rd. And not a bad lunch at The Raven (second time in two days), although I think the Raven beer was a mistake. Why do I never learn?

The rain has returned.

Lucy prepares to set out
© Jeff Jones
I can be a paparazzo too
© Jeff Jones
Bath abbey
© Jeff Jones
Bath abbey inside
© Jeff Jones
The stained glass window in Bath abbey
© Jeff Jones
Captain Arthur Phillip was from Bath. But he also went to Australia
© Jeff Jones
Lucy is protective of her hot chocolate
© Jeff Jones
Putting the Aquae back into Bath
© Jeff Jones
A bit of the gorgon's head statue
© Jeff Jones
The Roman baths wot Bath is famous for
© Jeff Jones
Looking up at the Abbey from the baths
© Jeff Jones
Luce and Pete contemplate a bath
© Jeff Jones
Me and Pete
© Lucy Jones
Steaming! This comes out of the ground at 46.5° C
© Jeff Jones
The Pump Room, Bath's social nexus
© Jeff Jones
Bathwater from the source
© Jeff Jones
Lunch at The Raven. 'Nevermore' would have been the appropriate response to 'Should I drink that beer?'
© Jeff Jones
Pulteney Bridge and the mighty Avon
© Jeff Jones

Snow business

Snowy Bath. OK, it's not that snowy.
© Jeff Jones

Finally, it snowed here and England is officially buggered again. But they won the cricket, so it's not all doom and gloom.

I set off into the snow on Thursday, with camera and a complete disregard for the weather. It was snowing when I left, and I managed 15 km on the bike path to Bristol before the snow started getting too deep to ride on in a straight line. So I stopped, took some pics, and went home. I did it again on Friday with John, but it was sleeting instead of snowing. It was cold.

This was about as far as I got - the outskirts of Bristol
© Jeff Jones
The snow was getting deeper here
© Jeff Jones
Ice, ice baby
© Jeff Jones
Ice in the gears
© Jeff Jones
Extra proof of insanity, if that was needed
© Jeff Jones
Snow on the hills
© Jeff Jones
It was good riding weather on the way home
© Jeff Jones

The snow (actually it was a fire, but I'm sure it was the snow's fault) almost brought my company to its knees on Friday. Shortly before 12, the fire alarm went off, so all of us in Quay Mansions very slowly made our way to the fire exit. By slow, I mean I had time to deliberate whether to take my bag, scarf and umbrella, before just deciding on the bag for some reason. And I was still first to the fire exit.

I remarked to Matt C that it would be funny if the fire was at the bottom of the stairs. As it turned out I was almost right, because the over-warm electrical room that was causing the trouble was right next to the exit. There wasn't a real fire (I just threw that in for effect) but we still had to cross the road and assemble in the car park. It was probably safer to stay in the building than cross that road and risk being cleaned up by one of Bath's Park and Ride buses.

After 15 minutes of shivering, watching four fire engines come and do their thang, we were told it would be at least another half an hour before we could go back in. There was only one option: go to The Raven for a few pints, bangers and mash. A very productive two hours followed with the MBUK crew. We returned to work in a somewhat merrier frame of mind, especially as our building hadn't been razed to the ground.

The good thing is that, despite a cancelled train, Lucy and Pete are coming this evening. That means we can go to the pub again.

Cold

Finally, it's cold here. Minus four this morning, according to the BBC, and who am I to argue with them? It felt like it too, as I went out for a morning 45 km constitutional with John. Lots of frosty bits on the bike path, and we didn't venture onto the road much. It's meant to snow tonight, so hopefully I'll get some noice pics tomorrow. It goes without saying that we'll be riding in it.

It's been a social whirl this week, for some reason. Pretty much every day except Monday has involved drinkypoos of some sort. Oh well, it's good for the constitution and all that. Monday was good despite being alchoholvrij, because I now know how to subedit. And by a fortuitous coincidence, I no longer have sleepless nights.

Speaking of which... I had to stay up later this evening because I only had three pints of Heineken and a packet of chips (called crisps here) for dinner. That is not sufficient for a growing lad of 13 and I had to fill in the gaps with chocolate.

I am pleased to learn that uncle Piers is also writing a novel, so I will be among good company when I finish my doorstop. The novel writing course starts next week. Feuer frei.

Mudslide

It had to happen, and it required a greasy mud slick on the road to do it. I took a fairly minor spill yesterday while descending into the aptly named Slaughterford.

I was riding with John, who was a bit behind me, and it was my idea to go this way instead of on the main road, because it was more "interesting". But even before we hit the descent, both of us nearly lost it on a straight, flat bit of road because of the mud. This wasn't just dirt washed onto the road, it was soft clay. It's worse than riding on ice - I'm serious. We even passed a farmer with a load of dirt, ready to dump onto the road.

We started the downhill and were only descending at 30 km/h. It would have been suicidal to go any faster. But that meant we also had to brake at regular intervals. I was in front, approaching a very slight corner, when my front wheel decided that the coefficient of friction was lower than it needed to be, and it slipped out underneath me. I followed with an unplanned extra 1m of descending. Full credit to John, who managed to stop without suffering the same fate, although he has had a lot of experience as a MTBer.

I ended up with some fairly minor abrasions, no damage to the bike, and a hole in my leg warmers. And covered in mud. A bit stiff on Friday, but not that bad. Slaughterford has been purged from any training route in the future.

I expected it to be a lot better than it was, because it hasn't rained for over a week. But in talking to the Others, I realise that the roads are still quite slippery from a combination of salt and dew, which brings all the crap to the surface. I've noticed my back wheel slipping a lot recently, and I thought it was just my tyres (now changed for some Hutchinsons). But no. Rain is actually better, because it washes all the crap away. Cold and dry is best, then icy patches, then the damp dew/salt combo, then semi-hard packed mud.

TV quality has improved since I got digital. I can now watch Friends and Little Britain.

Pete and Lucy have got a flickr gallery now at: www.flickr.com/photos/peteandlucy/.