Counting Down the Days

Since my vicarious racing team is sucking old man's balls, I need to take matters into my own hands and transport myself to the race course to get myself silly drunk and do a Belgian drunken lounge to try and encourage my virtual team riders to either try to ride their bikes or get their arses off the course and stop embarrassing themselves any further. This is still another 16 sleeps away, so I have plenty of time to get my plan together. Unfortunately I will have my family on tow, so I probably need to park somewhere on one spot rather than see the race at 15 spots between beer refills. Anyway. We'll fly to Amsterdam on 28th, meet up with some friends, rent a car and drive down to Oudenaarde to see the race. It should be OK.

I have not been updating my blog for both of you readers, and I must apologize for that. Full-time job does take its time and limit the time available for spare time activities. In other words....I'm lazy as foock.

What else....I got my man cave finished and LED screen hung on the wall. Who cares if some cover plates are missing!? I also have my trainer set in the basement, but since I insulated 50% of the walls, it's getting bit too warm for training down there. I could probably start some sort of shotty DIY blog soon. It's a good space for training though and I have my trainer set-up for the next two weeks, so I can get my 10 hours of winter training in.

Now pardon me. It's my weekly 45 minutes of alone time for enjoying my beer and listening to some old fark music.

p.s. I will post some RVV photos soon.

Altona, The Jewel of The South, But Not Too South

It's like being a kid in a candy shop, on Christmas, with Mickey Mouse. Altona Southern Cross is just a big kid version for old dudes who like to inflict discomfort on themselves. OK, there are bunch of young lads who appear to have good time inflicting discomfort on old dudes as well.

It's always a spectacle in Altona and this year was no different. 233 racers and the prize ceremony at the curling club equals good times. The attitude towards sports seems to be completely different from Winnipeg and the town actually welcomes bike races and racers. In some places, actually engaging in sporting activities is considered a good thing, and in others it's more about watching others perform sporting activities.

Anyway, the racing was good, as always. Didn't really feel too too awesome, which has been the theme lately, but managed to hang in there and didn't lose too much to Chris "the wunderkind" Prendergast. Some snow would have helped the old legs, but no luck this time. Dave C was up there for a while, but got gapped in the sand I guess. The young guys are quite fast, which is good for the sport.

Altona also has its own version of Roubaix velodrome showers. But the recovery nutrition is very familiar, maybe too familiar...