the hat did not help

Well, reality has a tendency to be... ehh... reality!

Sitting on airplanes and doing bug testing late nights is not the best build up for any championship - herewith accepted in a blinding flash of the obvious.

Or rather during about 40 minutes of self inflicted corporal pain worthy of any Opus Dei member (heh, had to add that in these Da Vinci Code days).

Up at 6 in the morning, one hour drive into our beautiful back country at 1000 meters above sea level for a 23 km hilly time trial (300 meters accumulated elevation).

Already when warming up I sensed a lack of a certain something, a body willing to get going beyond mere plodding along - could not get my heart rate above threshold.

And lo and behold, so it was during the race too - lazy bastard I am - soon went into a "heh, not going to win anyway, let's enjoy the scenery" mode. In addition - yesterday's pizza and morning coffee really wanted to get out... contemplated how to manage some manly aerodynamic puke without loosing seconds but relied on gritting teeth and much swallowing.

Not a grand day on the road, pretty scenery yes, and birds chirping etc. Fourth place in the championship, about 1.5 minute worse than former years... well, well :)

Here I am, still with some hope on my way out.

And here's a bonus, my view to Cannes harbour today with all the film festival fans anchored off the beach - the biggest white one in the middle is the 138 meter Rising Sun belonging to Mr Ellison... gives you an idea of the sizes of those dots in the image!

[Click on the image for a bigger one]

Suspect those guys had no issues with yesterday's pizza on the sun deck...

Comments

[Thomas Otter]

nice aero position though, and the helmet looks really cool. And unlike mr Ulrich, you don't do it for a living...

Maybe we should organise a ride up Ventoux or Alpe d'Huez. It seems there are a lot of bloggers who ride. make some sort of donation to a charity for the pleasure of 2 hours of serious pain.

[sig]

Thomas, what a splendid idea! Mt Ventoux is one of my favourites - and a definite must for any cyclist!

Will do a post when back from Reboot! And if anybody has some experience in organising charity rides, please pitch in!

I'll organise the rest...

Hamish, you're on, Sarah, ditto! (BTW, might be showing Sarah the way up Col de Vence on Sunday in fact :) )

(Gonna start to train Hugh for next year ;) ...hehe)

p.s. Mt Ventoux from bedoin is 21 kms, 1609 meter elevation, 7.63% on average - and the record is just under the hour...

[Thomas Otter]

Brill.

Hopefully doing Grand Ballon and the Ballon d'Alsace in Alsace on Sunday. nice bit of history attached to those...

Enjoy reboot.