The human cost of the Olympics

What are the Olympics worth? I've been reading a few analysis and opinion pieces on this subject and have found that gold medals are bloody expensive.

Britain spent £235m of lottery money on its gold medal bid over the last four years and came home with 19 golds. You do the sums. And because it's lottery money, it doesn't matter that Britain is heading into a recession. People here love their gambling.

Australia spent less than half that, but it was government money, and finished up with 14 golds. Worse than Athens and Sydney, but not actually that bad.

So on that count, Australia is ahead and the Aussies (of which I am still one) should hold their heads up with pride. Good onya, youse all done good. The rest of the country can get off its collective arse now and actually participate in sport.

But the Brits (of which I am also one, but not as much) did much better than they have previously, unless you go back to the silliness of the 1908 London Games where they won 56 golds. Britain is not renowned as a sporting nation so the populace has been doubly amazed. Jolly good, our gallant British lads showed those bounders from the Antipodes for once.

Specifically in cycling, they cleaned up, winning 8 of the 18 golds on offer. This was despite BMX top fave Shanaze Reade's inability to keep her conveyance in a vaguely upright position, which cost her gold. Rule number one of bike racing: don't fall off.

Drilling down further, Britain's cycling golds only cost £2.19m each whereas Australia's cycling golds, being nonexistent and all, cost somewhere in the vicinity of an infinite number of dollars. A lot more than that if you use the Zimbabwean currency.

I admire the Brits approach. They concentrated on track cycling (luckily Nicole Cooke had enough talent on her own to win gold on the road) because there were a lot of medals to be won at better odds than in the road, BMX and mountain biking, and significant improvement could be gained through technology. Of course they had great riders, but I'd argue that Australia's and France's trackies have similar ability on paper. Pretty much no-one else cares about track cycling except maybe the Germans so we can ignore the rest of the world.

Fast bikes and fast kit gave the British team a material and mental edge over everyone else. It always helps when you know you've got the quickest bikes. They spent years developing their stealth machines and went outside the industry to do it.

But Australia, with the exception of Anna Meares, didn't even come close to matching the Brits or anyone else. Beaten by the Danes and the Kiwis in the bloody team pursuit bro. Shame. Everlasting shame.

There wasn't too much wrong with their kit because it looked fast, so it must have been. Therefore and with a little inside info, I conclude that the coaches basically botched it and most of them should be sacked.

Not that it actually matters, because there are better things to spend money on than on winning gold medals. Like a big weather magnet to move all the rain from the western end of the UK to the bits of NSW and Queensland that actually need it. That's what I want to see for 2012.

It took me a while to mention the weather in this blog, but that's because I went for a ride today on completely dry roads. 172km in 5:20 - about 20min quicker than I did for a similar ride on this day last year, but I guess I was on my TT bike. It's the last long ride I'll do this year, 'cos I've got races coming up again, starting with the Swindon Hardriders event next Sunday.

In other news, I found a much cheaper flight with better dates to Oz thanks to Lucy Power and her Trailfinders tip. And I got conned into switching energy providers by the Home Advisory Service. It should actually save me a bit of cash, because I'm overpaying with EDF, even accounting for the recent exorbitant rises in fuel prices. Problem was, the HAS kept trying to convince me to sign up for their premium service so I could save quids on other areas like my nonexistent mortgage, but computer said no.

Then another mob called me up to do a random survey. "One minute, just one minute of your valuable time sir." Five minutes later, I was trying to explain to them that "I don't think so" means the same as "No", "Negatory", "Not on your bloody life" and "You're dreamin".

I hate these companies more than anything else on the planet so I've unplugged the phone. Anyone who actually wants to talk to me knows my mobile anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Not particularly august bilge

...and an improper use of 'august' at that.

The rain is still extant and very much part of August, as it was part of July, June, May, April, March, February and January. There's a certain patter(n) here. See if you can spot it.

I'm looking forward to sunnier climbs once I get to Australia at the end of the year. There remains one minor hurdle: booking the flight. I tried to overcome this last night with the aid of the Internet. An hour later, I had found a flight from London to Sydney for just under 1300 squid. I didn't need that other kidney anyway. But just as I was on the brink of booking it, I tried one more site...

I plugged in my dates and was pleasantly surprised, and yet strangely suspicious, that there was something available for £800. I had to ring a number, which I did, and was informed that it may not, in fact, be possible to get something quite that cheap.

"What's been your best price so far?"

"1297 quid"

<pause, much tapping of computer keys> "How about 1360?"

"Err...what about if I go earlier or come back on a different day?"

<pause, more tapping of keyboard> "Yes, I've found one for 1297. But you'll have to go on Friday morning."

"Damn, I have to work then."

<pause, repeat shenanigans for about 20 minutes. In the meantime, I've found one for £1254. I tell this to the guy at the other end>

"Sorry, 1360 is the best I can do for you. If you can get one for 1254, then book it. Goodbye."

Turned out I couldn't book it as it no longer existed. Dang. I thought I should feel bad for wasting the guy's time, but I didn't because he was actually wasting mine. False advertising to say you've got something for £800 between date X and date Y when you don't and never bloody well did.

So I went back to the £1297 option, which looked good. I got through to the tricky part where you have to get your credit card out and type the numbers in. In the end it was a classic case of "computer says no" because I'd exceeded my paltry limit by buying something bike related, possibly a tyre.

Back to square one, but at least I'm a tyre ahead.

The great wheel turns again

Sunday's Severn RC 25 did go well (more or less) and I won in 56'00 from Rob Lyne (56'54) and Simon Haward third in 57'45. The weather wasn't kind, but I've come to expect that. The usual stiff sou'westerly was blowing and it chucked it down just as I started. It was therefore appropriate to pootle along the A38 humming Rammstein's "Bestrafe Mich".

I got to the turn onto the circuit (12km) in under 14 minutes - faster than I did earlier this year, then had a horrible time navigating all the corners on a dodgy tyre. I just had to hope that the time I was giving up wasn't going to make a difference in the end. Back on the A38, I got to the Slimbridge roundabout (26.5km) in 33'40 - about the same as earlier this year, despite taking about 10 minutes to get around the roundabout. Fortunately I had a bit more for the slog back into the headwind and finished in 56'00, a good 50 seconds up on my April time on arguably a worse day, and six minutes quicker than I did in this event, my first open, last year. Having a TT bike and no mechanical problems helped. All up I averaged 327W, which is more or less what I've done in my last three 25s. I'm hoping that'll come up a bit in the next four weeks.

Last Wednesday I did the club 10 (in 21'48, but Ben broke the course record with a superb 21'25) followed by the last Castle Combe of the season on Thursday. We averaged over 45 clicks for 51km but only caught the other two bunches on the last lap and it was a bit of a mess. I wish I'd done more Castle Combes now.

I may do a road race this weekend in Wales if I can get a lift, otherwise it's Big Miles(tm).

ObOlympics: Nicole Cooke, despite taking the J Jones approach to cornering, was brilliant in the women's road race. I just love this photo.

Nothing, really

Which means I have to start with a weather report. Warm and sunny (yes, true) for a week, then showery and not quite as warm and sunny. That brings the "days it has rained" count up to 34 out of the last 48. Jolly good.

And now to the increasingly irrelevant Tour de France.

El Tour finished with Sastre, C. coming good in the last few days, meaning Evans, C. was forced to settle for second again. I suspect that was Evans' best chance to win the Tour, as next year Contador and Leipheimer will likely be back, and Andy Schleck looks like he's coming along well.

In the end, Evans was too tired to claw back the time on Sastre in the final TT. He had the aero advantage over Sastre, but was underpowered. In fact, I thought Evans was much stronger last year. It didn't help that he had a poor team and that CSC had an extremely strong one. But still, sometimes CSC's tactics favoured Evans because they kept the pace steady in order to eliminate Others. Evans could have done with a good climber to pace him up Alpe d'Huez. I wonder how much Lotto paid for Popbitch?

I thought it was a decent Tour. Only four positives and the final winner wasn't as scrutinized as Contador was last year. The time gaps were pretty close coming into the final week too. I guess there could have been more attacking by the favourites, but it's not so easy to attack when you're on the rivet.

Turning to an even more irrelevant subject (the one that overpowers this Bilgespot like the smell in my garbage bin - more of that later): my own cycling. Note: this has nothing to do with recycling.

I've made an interesting discovery recently, after looking at David Millar's power output in the Tour's stage 4 time trial. It surprised me that it was that low (400W), given he weighs 77kg and yet it was so fast (49km/h for 36min). Alex Simmons crunched the file and determined that Millar had a) paced it very well and b) had an extremely low coefficient of drag and frontal area (CdA of 0.21-0.22).

I asked Alex to do the same for my file for the Chippenham club time trial I did a few weeks ago. It's a flatter course than the Tour stage, but on dead roads. I averaged 356W for 21'41 at 44.3km/h but I only weigh 70kg. Comparing power/weight, there's not a gulf of difference there unless Millar's numbers have been scaled down.

Interestingly, Alex found that my pacing was slightly better than Millar's, as for once I didn't go out too hard and I finished off strongly. But where Millar absolutely kills me is aerodynamics, as Alex estimated my CdA to be around 0.26. In other words, if I could get as aero as Millar, I would knock a massive 1'10 off my 10 mile time for the same power output. Hell, I'd happily settle for half that. I should be able to gain ~15-20 seconds just from improving my equipment. The rest is position.

Training of late has consisted of longish rides on the weekends with the occasional tempo session during the week. I'll start racing a little more in August, with the aims of doing well in the next hardriders event at the end of the month, followed by the British TT champs a week later (I'm in Masters B category and actually have an outside chance of placing), then the journo worlds, then some other events including a 50 and a couple of hill climbs.

So far, so good. I did the WTTA open 10 on the U7B (a lumpy single carriageway out and back that I've ridden on in the Dursley club 10s) on Saturday and won it in 21'40, beating Rob Lyne (21'52) and Alistair McChesney (22'42). My colleague Robin was 6th in 23'03, but he didn't have the best of days as he's been going a lot better than that in club events.

Next up for me is the Severn RC 25 on the U18C next Sunday. It was the first open time trial I did last year and I was an unknown unknown. So it's kinda cool that I'm starting as last man off on number 60. It's hard to say whether another win is on the cards, as there are a few quick guys on the start list. Andy Sexton (wot sold me my Planet X) has been on fire in club races recently, doing a 20'10 for the Severn 9.4 and a 21'16 for the Dursley 10 on the U7B. If he can carry that over 25 miles, then he could well be the man to beat. There's also Rob Lyne and Simon Haward. We shall see.

Finally, to that old housewives tip of putting a pinch (or half a tin, in my case) of bicarbonate of soda in your bin to cut down the smell. Take it from me, it doesn't work. Well, not if your garbage is as toxic as mine. I blame anaerobic digestion. I'll have to invest in some yellow hazardous waste bins, like I had in Gent.