and Sunday's race wasn't too awful although hills are something I will 110% have to get into and vigorously too!
The decision to go with the road bike (1.5kg lighter than the TT bike) was, for me, the right thing to do as every time the road tilted upwards I was passed by the guys who started after me, although I was then able to claw back some time once the road levelled off again.
I would have liked 2 things to have been available..a toilet closer than 5km away and a coffee van in attendance afterwards!..that aside, a very good, honest, tough TT course.
And today I am testing a loaner Trek 7.8 TT bike since my current TT bike is getting a bit old.
Generally speaking this blog is more of a diary but today I'm incensed enough to go political.
UCI and it's affiliates rant..my own opinion
While searching for lightweight accessories for all my bikes I hit on Walser bikes and especially their TT bars, bar 2 of which weighs in at 1/2 the weight of my current Teschner track TT bar. So a rapid fire email is sent off and the reply sets my hackels rising since the UCI (insert irritable sigh here) are now legislating on the size of TT bar elbow pads and so "bar 2" is now illegal for UCI races. FFS. grinds teeth
Then I read that Jan Ullrich who has been out of the racing scene for years has now been banned for 2 years and this includes Gran Fondos...again...FFS. So years after the time he "sinned" he is being punished yet again despite the fact that Alberto Contador's 2 year ban is applied retrospectively and he will only sit out of racing for 8 months. I guess one can argue an amount of clenbuterol so tiny it's laughable against an acknowledged long period of doping but...Ullrich's doping was done when it was the "norm" whereas Contador's was not..... I'm sure I read somewhere that if you took Ullrich's tour win away from him you'd have to go as low as 10th to find someone who has not been convicted of doping......
The decision to go with the road bike (1.5kg lighter than the TT bike) was, for me, the right thing to do as every time the road tilted upwards I was passed by the guys who started after me, although I was then able to claw back some time once the road levelled off again.
I would have liked 2 things to have been available..a toilet closer than 5km away and a coffee van in attendance afterwards!..that aside, a very good, honest, tough TT course.
And today I am testing a loaner Trek 7.8 TT bike since my current TT bike is getting a bit old.
Generally speaking this blog is more of a diary but today I'm incensed enough to go political.
UCI and it's affiliates rant..my own opinion
While searching for lightweight accessories for all my bikes I hit on Walser bikes and especially their TT bars, bar 2 of which weighs in at 1/2 the weight of my current Teschner track TT bar. So a rapid fire email is sent off and the reply sets my hackels rising since the UCI (insert irritable sigh here) are now legislating on the size of TT bar elbow pads and so "bar 2" is now illegal for UCI races. FFS. grinds teeth
Then I read that Jan Ullrich who has been out of the racing scene for years has now been banned for 2 years and this includes Gran Fondos...again...FFS. So years after the time he "sinned" he is being punished yet again despite the fact that Alberto Contador's 2 year ban is applied retrospectively and he will only sit out of racing for 8 months. I guess one can argue an amount of clenbuterol so tiny it's laughable against an acknowledged long period of doping but...Ullrich's doping was done when it was the "norm" whereas Contador's was not..... I'm sure I read somewhere that if you took Ullrich's tour win away from him you'd have to go as low as 10th to find someone who has not been convicted of doping......
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