An amazing thing to watch.

Three years in the planning, masterminded by Rod Elligworth – an old club mate from the Witham Wheelers in the 90s – who’s gone on to be a cornerstone of British Cycling.

You pulled it off guys. Bloody well done.

Via http://her0inchic.tumblr.com/post/8822196864/a-boy-left-his-bike-chained-to-a-tree-when-he-went#

Via http://bikerly.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/10-steps-to-better-cycling-2/

He will be the first Australian to take the top spot in the Tour.

It’s been an fascinating race. Three weeks of twists, turns, attacks, heroics and crashes.

For the first time in many years there hasn’t been one rider to have the everything their own way. The Schleck brothers have both had a dig. But I couldn’t help feeling that, apart from his magnificent effort up the Galibier, Andy could have been a bit more decisive in the Pyrenees. More committed efforts rather than shadow boxing and riding up the road looking backwards. We won’t talk about his lack of time trialling ability which, after all, was what lost the race for him.

Contador looked rather uncomfortable at times. Plagued by a knee injury early on, and loosing time behind a crash in the first week, even when he attacked up the Alpe D’Huez he didn’t have the bounce and spritliness that he has exhibited in previous tours. Whether it was down to a lack of steak dinners or, more likely, the fact that his commanding performance in the Giro D’Italia had taken a lot out of him.

Thomas Voeckler will finish this tour as a national hero in France. The spirit he showed in the mountains, covering moves on his own and turning himself inside out to defend the yellow jersey will go down in Tour history. He defined Rule 5 for the nine days he had that jersey on his back. It’s just a shame that he’ll finish one place away from a podium spot.

The title, however, will go to Evans. I’ve been critical of him in the past. His treatment of the press in post-stage inteviews hasn’t endeered him to many fans. But over the past three weeks he’s ridden flawlessly. Covering attackes on his own, not moaning that he didn’t have any team mates around him and being consistently strong in the mountains. All topped off with a perfect performance in the time trial today to take second on the stage behind the TT machine Tony Martin.

Cadel Evans is a worthy winner of the race and a sportsman that Australia can be proud of.

The Pillars of Italian Cycling from MovePress, LLC on Vimeo.

Direct from Canyon in Koblenz, Germany; it was really well packed and came 90% assembled. All it needed was to drop the wheels in, put in the seatpost (saddle already attached) and bolt on the handlebars.

The bars were perfectly wrapped in nice thick black tape and the gears and brakes adjusted, ready to ride. They’d even put 80 psi in the tyres and supplied a 4mm allen key torque wrench to ensure correct tightening of seat post and bars – lovely germanic attention to detail.

A quick 20 minutes with the tape measure to set up the position (963mm from pedal axel at bottom of stroke to saddle top) and it was ready for the first ride (post to follow)

Incidentally, the box it came in is such good quality that I’ll be keeping it to use if I ever want to take a bike on a plane.

I plumped for a Canyon Ultimate CF SLX 9.0 Pro (and breathe) due to them having a great spec for the price. And, if the frame is good enough for Philippe Gilbert, I’m sure it’ll be absolutely fine for me on my weekend warrior blasts down to Box Hill.

Unboxing pics to come when it arrives – later this week if the UPS tracking is to be believed.

Since vowing to ride my bike more I thought having some sort of target(s) would help inspire and motivate me. Though, to be honest, I enjoy riding my bike so much that riding for the sake of it is enough in itself.

However, at the beginning of this year I set a target of 5000 miles to be achieved by 31 December. That sort of annual mileage would have been a doddle 15 years ago. However, the realities of grown up life (wife, full time job, DIY etc) have made me reassess that to a more realistic 3500.

I’m using a couple of tools to track this.

Google docs to house a simple spreadsheet of dates, distances and time. And Cyclemeter iPhone app to track the longer rides which, when sync’d to DailyMile – the Nike+ for the rest of us – gives a range of great statistics and a heap of data.

(Diespeker Wharf and back is my commute)

As of this writing I’m half a mile shy of 800 miles – about on track for the year.

A nice by-product of these extra miles is weight loss. Since hitting my 30s calories consumed (esp. through alcohol) don’t seem to evaporate as easily as they used to when I was 25. Since Christmas I’ve shed about 8 pounds. A pound per 100 miles? Seems like a nice round number. Let’s see how long it lasts.

They’re scans from slides so recognition of any of the riders is difficult. Having said that, I wasn’t even a twinkle in my dad’s eye when he took these so I’d be hard pressed to name anyone if they were digital SLR sharp.

Click to see them full size. If you can recognise anyone, leave a comment.