Cousins...

Narrow boat day hire

Could this look more typical English pub?

Sunset

Poole harbour

Rapha Cycle Club - Stage 16

Etape 2010 - Photos

Le Geant de Tourmalet

Tourmalet recce

This is the top at around 2100m in a rare moment when the clouds and mist disappeared. Took this about 50m down the hill from tomorrows finish line. The last few kms are steep! Yikes.

Mavic fine tuning

Etape: So maybe the hire car needed to be bigger

"We're all going on a summer holiday..."

Last day in the office today.

Virgin to London tomorrow. I fly to Toulouse and drive to Pau on Friday, a little bike ride on Sunday. Watch Stage 15 on the way back to Toulouse on Monday, then fly to London. Tuesday and Wednesday in town, down to Dorset for the rest of the week, then up to Leicestershire to see my family and introduce Milly to her nephews.

Back in Tokyo at the end of the month. Got a nice ring to it that.

Bike is packed and am all set. Looking forward to L'Etape. With Johnathon and Dominic alongside it should be an excellent day out. Hope the weather is kind.

As you can see over to the right, everyone has been extremely generous and the Tyler Foundation are tremendously excited at the response. If you haven't donated, there is still plenty of time. Thank you again.

Posting will be light for the rest of the month, photos when I can find internet access. Cheers.

Disco Hair

"Jeremy and I would get sporadic emails like “So Murdoch evidently FIRED someone today in the cafeteria after coming out of a meeting, on the spot, after he caught the guy (someone in marketing) wearing a shirt that exposed too much of his chest. No joke. Evidently, it was the guy’s second warning.” As well as “Happened again. This time he asked Sal who said it was okay for me to have ‘hair like I am going to a disco’ (Rupert’s phrase). This time he got my last name.”" Rupert Murdoch, Neel Shah, and the Short Pants via Kottke

Really worth reading the whole thing, very good indeed..

The Dark Arts

Unfortunately I will not be able to attend this seminar in dark arts and magic being held in Hong Kong. Merde.

Drive it like you rented it

I'm in the process of booking hire cars.. random pricing.. www.carrentals.com seem to be working ok though.

Bye Lance

End of an era. Many, many great memories of watching the powerful US Postal and Discovery domination of the TdF. An amazing athlete whatever the accusations. Bad luck for sure yesterday. It would have knocked the rhythm and the confidence. I was very surprised to be urging him on up the slopes of Morzine, yet the body language said it all. He was done. The peloton has moved on and I am pleased. We haven't heard the last from him in this Tour I know, but I will miss Lance.

World's Largest Skateboard

Berner Shimano - more porn

Euro289.00 from Berner
I obviously really need this.. wonder if it fits Di2?
via Bianchista

BMC Impec porn

gallery

Market commentary

"Elsewhere, stocks are doing their own thing and doing the apeshit dance even as credit is once again largely ignoring all the insanity conducted by a few short circuited computers." zerohedge

Travelling

Off to the UK very soon (and France, lest you forget).. it's a shame this luggage is still only design concept.



destroyafteruse

Never ask how...

xkcd

Buy a coat

“I’m saying: ‘Winter is coming. Buy a coat,’ ” he said. “Other people are advising people to stay naked. If I’m wrong, you’re not hurt. If they’re wrong, you’re dead. It’s pretty benign advice to opt for safety for a while.” A Market Forecast That Says ‘Take Cover’ - NYT

Calls for the Dow to drop to 1000.. best bear yet.

"This time, he said, “If I’m right, it will be such a shock that people will be telling their grandkids many years from now, ‘Don’t touch stocks.’ ” The Dow, which now stands at 9,686.48, is likely to fall well below 1,000 over perhaps five or six years as a grand market cycle comes to an end, he said."

267.81mph

"With output bumped up from 1,001 horsepower to 1,200 horsepower, torque swelling to 1,106 pound-feet and a revised aerodynamic kit, runs of 265.9 and 269.8 mph for an average terminal velocity of 267.81 mph and a new world record for a production car.

The first five production Super Sports will sport the same black and orange finish as the record car and all production models will be electronically limited to 257.9 mph to protect the tires." autoblog

One last climb

Two weeks today is L'Etape du Tour 2010.

Having missed a ride last Monday with Dominic suffering from a slight fever, we decided to have one final training session today.

Both of us had imbibed far too much alcohol last night at different dinner parties, but we met as agreed in Nishi Azabu at 7am. Dominic's attempts to make life as hard as possible had included port after his dinner and then a mere 4 hours sleep. Your author was far more sensible and had managed 6. Without the port.

We started this ride in the gathering heat and humidity on Sasago Toge. A beautiful, yet sweaty climb today. Descending we joined Route 20 then turned right and rode along the Fruit Line to the base of the Yanagisawa climb.

We had both last been here in early May, coming from the other direction, training for the Itoigawa 'race'. We toiled up with the sun beating down, but it wasn't long before we were under cloud that was collecting at the summit. We refreshed ourselves with Cokes and refilled water bottles at the top in the fog and rain showers.

The descent was, to our surprise, amazingly scenic, with clouds of steam coming up off the road  - not so much gazing around I guess on the climb up last time. I suggested a "short cut" to Kosuge, so we turned right at Tabayama and covered the 8km via a quick 200m climb, with far too many steep sections for comfort.

Down into Kosuge and then up the back of Matsuhime.

We could see the clouds at the summit ahead and sure enough within the last few kms we were getting rained on. Quite a lot. The peak appeared amongst fog and rain, we caught our breath and then headed down to Otsuki gingerly peering through fogged up glasses.

Arriving at the station at 15:56, the 16:01 Shinjuku express seemed a step too far, but my intrepid companion said 'let's go for it, you'll thank me later' and never have bikes been rinko'ed so quickly. On the train with exactly no minutes to spare - they actually held it for us - we settled into our seats, wet, bedraggled, tired, sore, cramping but filled yet again with a great sense of achievement.

Roll on France.

Where do all the bikes come from?

Y500 coins. About 800 at last count. Adds up.

Fly the Panda

Bye Hong Kong

Fish 'n chips at the Mandarin Oriental HK

The olive bread isn't my first choice for a chip butty, but it'll do.

Hot & sunny