Name these puppies
Isobel can and does lose herself in story books, devouring Jacqueline Wilson and similar. Alex is a capable reader but he prefers cartoons, comics and even catalogues. (Yes, he’ll read a Nintendo DSLite games catalogue from cover to cover and memorise everything it has to say about Super Mario.) He also invents characters for use in his own cartoon strips. Last night, when we went upstairs to tuck him in, we discovered he’d been drawing dogs.
They don’t have names yet.
I like the one with the waggly tail
but this one’s my favourite.
Constitution Hill
The Welsh stage of the Tour of Britain finishes in Swansea. Soon after 1pm the leading riders hurtle through the city centre along Kingsway, which is where the race will also finish, but not before they’ve taken on a couple of steep climbs. First Bryn-y-Môr, near where Dan lives, then Constitution Hill, which is where I plan to be watching.
… the leading riders will face a last few metres of flat before the road veers upwards and onto over 300 metres of steep cobbles that lead them up onto the Swansea skyline.
Hills + cobbles? Ouch!
Further research indicated that Constitution Hill featured in the Keith Allen’s sensitive, wry evocation of a Swansea youth, Twin Town. The road is now closed to traffic after too many idiots copied the Lewis twins’ driving stunt (seconds 7 to 17 of the YouTube montage above).
I rode up Constitution Hill on Thursday, on my way back home from Swansea station. The train was 45 minutes late, spoiling my plans to meet the family at Parc Abertawe in time for Toy Story 3. I needed to do something to vent my frustration. It’s a tough little climb, tougher than it looks from the bottom, especially if you’re carrying a rucksack with a 15” laptop in it, but the view from the top over Swansea bay is stunning.
Sketching skeletons at Bristol Museum
Skeletons have interesting lines, corners and shadows, which is why I like drawing them. Here’s a sketch of the Moa skeleton at Bristol museum, which you’ll find just around the corner from the spiky plant-eating scelidosaurus and opposite the camarasaurus leg. (Courtesy of the BBC, here’s a panorama)
Gower Triathlon, 2010
My wetsuit is designed for warmth and durability. Getting it on and off is a struggle, and any extended swim turns into a battle with wet neoprene. Contrast this with a triathlon wetsuit, which is flexible, taut and sleek, the sort of thing a porpoise would look good in. I had no intention of spending money on a triathlon wetsuit, though. What’s the point in forking out when I might not even like triathlons? Besides, not having a proper wetsuit was a good excuse.
Michael ruined that strategy. He turned up last night with a Foor Quantum F3 racing wetsuit. It’s too small for me, it might fit you, give it a try in the bath, he said. Caveat emptor and all that. Good luck tomorrow.
TdF 2010, Stage 15, fear and respect
Yesterday I wrote about the failures and disappointments which made the opening week of this year’s tour so compelling, and complained that the action had dropped when it should have peaked, in the mountains. Having shaken off the field, Contador and Schleck seemed unable to get to grips with each other. That all changed on stage 15, though again failure and disappointment underpinned the racing. Schleck sprang away from the elite climbers on the Port de Balès, with Contador in hot pursuit. Schleck’s chain came off but the momentum of his attack continued — now carried by Contador and a few other elite riders.
We’ve already seen Schleck doesn’t have the team support Contador does; but he looked cruelly exposed on that mountain road, struggling to re-fit his chain. It took a couple of goes. He had to fend off a motorbike. He needed help from a couple of spectators to shove him back on course. By then, the leader on the road was Contador.
At last we were treated to the sight of Schleck racing uphill. He tore up the road. He nearly caught Contador, but the Spaniard was lucky to be in the perfect group for a super-fast descent. At the end of that descent, the end of the stage, Contador had the yellow jersey.
Schleck was furious. He is furious. I think he’s also wiped out, physically and emotionally. Anger fuelled his final climb up the Balès but a tankful of anger won’t get take over the Tourmalet.
In an interview afterwards Contador was asked if he was afraid of Schleck. Fear? No, he said. Respect, yes. Contador lost a lot of respect for attacking when the race leader suffered a mechanical failure. Maybe even self-respect. He was jeered on the podium. He toughed it out with the press, claiming he hadn’t known about Schleck’s chain falling off. Later on, from his hotel room, he posted a public apology on YouTube.
What if Schleck’s chain hadn’t come off? I think Contador would have caught him. Schleck was already looking back to see who was where. He needed to face forwards and give it everything. I also thought Contador would attack on the final Pyrenean stage. He’s been holding something back. I thought that he was too classy to accept winning the Tour by beating the clock in a time trial.
Now I’m not so sure he would have attacked, when defence and a decent time-trial would have sufficed. He will attack, if only to regain some respect. Sadly, I doubt Schleck has enough left.
TdF 2010, Stage 14, Pyrenees
The first week of the Tour is normally a prelude to the real action — someone unexpected wears yellow, sprinters stretch their legs, commentators and journalists clock up a few words, everyone looks forward to the real race. This year has seen a first week like no other. Looking back, amazingly, it’s the failures and disappointments which stand out:
- Cav’s failure to contest the opening sprints
- Armstrong’s poor luck and subsequent inability to follow the leaders (and now look how far he has fallen!)
- Frank Schleck’s broken shoulder, meaning he won’t be there for his brother
- yellow jersey Cancellara cancelling the sprint finish at the end of stage 2. How could he do that?
I could go on. If this opening week offered so much drama, what would we get when the route hit the mountains?
The story unfolds. Unimaginably, Andy Schleck beat Contador in the first Alpine stage, and in the next stage the two of them toyed with each other briefly then teamed up to demolish any wannabes. Now we’re in the Pyrenees, where the tour should be decided. Yesterday Contador and Schleck reached stalemate, again, like a joke with no punchline. Come on guys, this race deserves better!
(On the subject of Armstrong, has he really cracked, or is he trying to drop so far down the GC that he’ll be allowed a break-away stage win?)
TdF 2010, Stage 11, sprint battle
What battle? Understandably lost in the controversy is the fact that Mark Cavendish has roared back into the form he had last year. He leapt away from the pack and took the stage comfortably. No, the real battle was 500m from the line, fought between Cav’s lead-out man, Mark Renshaw from HTC Columbia, and Julian Dean from Garmin-Transitions. You could see it coming — there’d been barging and shoving on very a fast run-in. Everyone was wound up tight. Dean cut across Renshaw. Either Renshaw had to back down, or he had to force Dean away, or there’d be an almighty pile-up. Renshaw was furious. He lost his head. He used his head, butting Dean three times with it. Then — and this did not look good — he cut in front of Tyler Farrar, the Garmin-Transitions sprinter.
All this happened in a couple of seconds, at high speed. It did look brutal. At least no one got hurt, but the judges came down hard. Mark Renshaw has been eliminated from the Tour.
A sprint finish is all about the individual who gets to the line first, but it’s also all about the team. Cavendish always stresses his wins are team victories: the HTC Columbia train sets him up, he just has to finish the job. HTC Columbia had already lost one rider, Adam Hansen, on stage 2, evidently without too many adverse effects, but can they do without the world’s best lead-out man, Mark Renshaw? More importantly, how will Cav respond? He’s hot-headed and impetuous. I hope he doesn’t do something stupid.
TdF 2010, Stage 9, dancing climbers
The best climbers seem to dance up the slopes and today, on the Madeleine, two of the very best performed a wonderful pas de deux. Schleck flashed, Contador darted. The elastic between them pinged and sang. Might their rivals not take advantage of this energy-sapping flirtation? What rivals! A gruelling stage had already unravelled them. Contador and Schleck stopped playing and chased home. The race is between them now.
“If I attacked one more time I would have dropped myself,” said Andy Schleck afterwards, but he looked as if he’d just stepped out of the shower after a good night’s sleep, rather than completed a mountain stage of the world’s toughest race. Bring on the Pyrenees. Contador is too classy a rider to win the tour in a time trial. He’s getting stronger. Watch him attack!
TdF, 2010, Week One
So, a rest day today, after a week of quite literal thrills and spills. Yesterday provided a fitting finale.
Remember last year, that final mountain stage on Mont Ventoux? It was meant to decide the general classification but by then Contador, already in yellow, had enough of a lead to ride defensively and cover the attacks. Andy Schleck couldn’t shake him off. The stage was effectively neutralised. Yesterday, on the first Alpine stage, it looked like Schleck hadn’t stopped at the summit of Ventoux at all. There he was, still poised on Contador’s shoulder, a fresh-faced skinny executioner kitted out in white. This time Contador didn’t look so clever. Schleck may not have taken much time out of his rival but he beat him convincingly.
TdF, 2010, Stages 0 and 1
Chapeau, ITV4, for the live coverage, even if I can’t see myself getting to watch much of it. The prologue stage has definitely whetted the appetite. I’m pleased Cancellara won. “My body worked at 100% for exactly ten minutes,” he said. It’s almost unthinkable that another expert clock-racer, Brad Wiggins, could drop almost a minute over such a short course, but he did. I’ve read Wiggo’s In Pursuit of Glory: The Autobiography — one for the fans, I think, but one thing I did take from it was how accurately Wiggo can calibrate his form on the track. He knows how long it takes for him to ride a kilometre in a covered velodrome to within a second. A wet road in Rotterdam is less predictable, and Wiggo wanted to avoid trouble. Cancellara has more panache and his bike-handling skills are sans pareil. So he won. Can’t wait to see him attack the cobbled roads in stage 3.
Another hardened campaigner got going when the going got tough. Armstrong took a chunk out of Wiggins and other GC rivals in the prologue. He also got the first strike in against Contador (let’s not forget that he lost 22 seconds to the Spaniard over the same stage last year). I’ll bet he rattles Contador some more on the cobbles on Tuesday.
I was looking forwards to the highlights of Stage One this evening, especially when it became obvious it would end with a bunch sprint. About time to see Cavendish stretch his legs. Except it didn’t happen like that. Cav has had a rotten run-in to the Tour this year. Always volatile and unpredictable, he’s turning into very a loose cannon. He tumbled on the final bend taking out rival Oscar Freire. Last year no one got close to Cav. And this year other riders would do well to stay away from him. With Cav down the other riders had to improvise the final kilometre and they made a spectacular mess of it, staging a mass pile up instead of a mass sprint. Quelle horreur!
Owl spotting by bike
Matt Burns spotted a barn owl on a bike ride earlier today — the first wild owl he’s ever seen.
Barn owls hunt by stealth rather than speed. They fly silently. A well oiled bicycle moves quietly too, making it a fine mobile vantage point for wildlife spotting. Some years ago, I spent a short while working at a serviced office in Hartham Park and my daily commute included a bike ride from Chippenham railway station. Sometimes I took the Bath Road (passing the place on Rowden Hill where Eddie Cochran died in a traffic accident) but usually I took the more rural Chippenham Lane. We were only in that office a year, I think — it wasn’t a great location — but in that short time I saw a family of tawny owls learning to fly. There must have been five or six of them, arranged on branches at various levels of that tree. I saw them several days in a row, and then they were gone, flown the nest. Thanks to google street view I’ve made that journey again and I’d say this is the tree. There was less ivy on it back then.
Mad March hares raced and tussled in the surrounding fields.
Mumbles Triathlon 2010
I enjoyed watching today’s Mumbles triathlon. Conditions were perfect: bright and warm but, at 07:00 in the morning, not yet too hot. No wind, no waves. Swansea bay looked at its best. I knew at least three people taking part but had trouble identifying them. Everyone looks much the same in a wetsuit and swimming hat. I also spotted a cyclist I see on the train. The leading swimmer went like a torpedo. He also swam the triangular route directly, cutting between a couple of boats moored offshore. Everyone else followed a curving line back to the slipway. Then it all got a bit confusing, because the event combined a short and long sprint, and I couldn’t tell who was in which event.
Triathlon - not for spectators
So, I’ve been to see a triathlon. Certainly the event impressed me. Equally it left me in no hurry to participate. The combination of three disciplines and punishing weather conditions exposed endurance athletes as stubborn masochists. Why would anyone do that to themselves? As Richard’s acerbic blog entry Triathlon — more boring on TV than Handball? points out, a triathlon boils down to averages and costume changes. However, as lima comments:
you people are so damn stupid. have any of you ever done a triathlon???? I doubt! So please shut the f… up!!!!
The Gower Triathlon goes right past my house. It’s a popular event, so popular, in fact, that when Mike told me about it they’d already sold out; but when I checked the website I found they’d just allocated 100 more places. I took that as a sign and signed up. Only a month to go now. I can cycle and run, and I reckon I can cycle and then run. It’s the swimming and transitions which scare me. I’m off to watch the Mumbles triathlon tomorrow morning and see how it’s done.
1997 Bath Triathlon
I can remember watching the 1997 Bath Triathlon. The breaking news that morning, there’d been a car crash in Paris. Diana Spencer had been injured. She’s dead, Mel said. The sky was heavy. Rain during the week had the river running fast and high. In went the wet-suited competitors. The current swept several away immediately and over the three lap course several more succumbed. The survivors clambered out, struggling to unpeel wetsuits on the move, fastening shoes and helmets with damp fingers, then off on bicycles straight up Bathwick Hill. The rain started. It was one of those summer storms when the sky tears apart. Gutters turned into streams. Rain drops hit the pavement and bounced back up again. The cyclists jammed on their brakes coming down the hill. Spoked wheels threw up plumes of spray. The shower ended abruptly. By now everything was soaked. The event should have ended but exhausted runners continued to trudge round the city centre. They didn’t look like athletes. They didn’t look like fun-runners. They looked beaten.
The Rider, Kilometer 61-67
The Rider is Tim Krabbé’s account of the fictional Tour de Mont Aigoual, “the sweetest, toughest race of the season”. It’s a short book weighing in at around a page for each of the race’s 137 kilometres. I’m reading it as slowly as I can.
The central character is a rider named Krabbé. The other characters make up a fictional peleton — Barthélemy, Kléber, Reilhan, etc. — and their interrelationships build with the rhythm of the stage, overtaking, falling back, regrouping. Lebusque punctures at 55km, but I’m sure he’ll be back. At 61km the first descent starts. Krabbé reflects on the downhill specialists.
In the 1977 Tour de France, the Frenchman Rouxel was the best downhill man. During a descent of the Tourmalet that year, he bridged a gap of four and a half minutes — in terms of distance, more than five kilometres!
Rouxel says: “I love going downhill. It’s like skiing. You have to stay loose the whole time, never lock your knees — they’re your shock absorbers. You have to stay down on your bike, to keep your centre of gravity as low as possible. Sure, sometimes when I’m doing ninety and both wheeels leave the ground, it gives me goose bumps too.”
