Insulin and embrocation

An inspiring story

2012-02-29T17:03:00.002-08:00

Thanks to Jeremy who entered my competition from the UK. His story is really inspiring and exactly he sort of thing I've been looking for. It's the sort of straight up no BS hard work, dedication and devotion which we can all learn from. It's also an ample illustration that you don't buy success, you go out and earn it. Thanks to Extreme endurance we're going to try and get some prizes to Jeremy. After his story you'll see my review of their latest product, a lactate buffering pre race drink. I hope reading about great achievements, great people and great products gets you through the wednesday blues. if not i suggest you indulge in some of these bad boys, and some insulin, about 4 units should cover it.

Jeremy's story

I've always had an interest in cycling, and for many years had ridden for pleasure & commuting to work. I thought that I was 'ok' but had resigned myself to never being world champion because I was a big bloke. I was pretty content with that.
Then something happened to pretty much turn my way of living, and whole view of just how I live upside down.

In Sept' 2009 I was diagnosed as a type II diabetic. My doctor & diabetic nurse were pretty good, but made it clear that I needed to make some changes or things were going to go downhill fast. The first thing I changed was obviously my diet. lots of changes, and even now I find this aspect really hard. The second change was to give up drinking. I'd always been a pretty social bloke, loved a pint or two with the lads etc. The thing was that this had gotten to be a bit out of hand, so again big change.

The third part of the plan was to get a bit more serious about biking. I dragged the work bike out & committed to commuting + a few extra loops and weekend longer rides.

I had an old steel Colnago frame & forks in the garage that had been sat waiting for a rebuild, and whilst I wasn't in a position to lavish it with a dream build, I decided that it deserved to be back on the road and getting some more miles into it. over the spring I collected up all the parts I needed, and slowly put it all together. compromises were made for the sake of practicality, but it was going to be my 'best bike' so I tried to do it justice. The final touches were a white saddle & white bar tape. Something the old roadies I knew reserved for the best bike.

In the mean time I'd been increasing my mileage and fitness, and at the same time shedding weight.

From the first trip out on the rebuilt bike I knew I'd done the right thing. Bright, crisp day, climbing up through a wooded valley in North Devon, feeling fit, bike all working perfectly, I could barely fit the grin in with out loosening my helmet strap!

Now as the year comes to a close, I don't ever want to go back to how things were. I've lost about 3 1/2 stone, completed a Triathlon in the top 1/3 of the results table, quite happily ride out on a Sunday morning for 70 or so miles at a decent pace with club cyclists.
I've bought bike kit with an S on the label. Never thought that would happen. The Colnago is truly a joy, and will get upgraded as finance allows.

I've been following you on Twitter and it was good to know that there were diabetics out there racing and getting on with life. Not something i'd ever had to think about before, but an inspiration to someone dealing with the lifestyle changes that i was going through.

At my last check up everything was heading in the right direction. Weight down, Blood Pressure down, Cholestrol Down Hba1C down. I'm intending to keep it that way!

It means so much to me now to be fit & well and to of rediscovered a love for life, including cycling.guess that this is as good a time of year as any other to reflect on the past 12 months.

extreme endurance xecute

As we know, i'm a little but fussy about what i eat. especially what i eat an hour before i go out and ride around in circles as fast as i can chasing people wearing spandex covered in pictures of candy . normally i don't really eat for 4 hours before a crit, i just cut my basal and use gels/ mix as needed. The combination of nerves spiking my sugars and a stomach which is missing a piece thanks to privatised helathcare, food doesn't really seem like my friend at that time. Also crits happen in LA, and so do chicken and waffles and you need to work up an appetite.

However recently Justin from extreme endurance contacted me about xecute, despite the name it will not get you headless (i'm wondering if the next product in line is energy gellotine?) nor will it leave you for dead. Rather it promises to buffer lactic acid by giving your body a source of lactate to start digesting before you do so by riding as hard as your little legs will allow. clever.

i'm not going to go into the science, you can check it out here but long story short, i've used this for 2 races. both crits, both hard. i drank it 90 minutes before both races and, despite it's chocolate flavour (which is nowhere near as chalky as many "chocolate" drinks) it seemed to clear from my stomach pretty rapidly and didn't leave me bloated or sick. In the races i noted a difference, as always in the early season i was running a bit high, but i didn't feel the same leg burn i normally do. It seems to give me a better range of sugars to play with. if i have perfect control this means i also have a better ability to clear lactate, this means my legs hurt less. or, i can make them hurt the same amount but i'll go faster. yeah that sounds like a better idea.

It's not like this stuff will turn a donkey into a racehorse but it made this donkey a little more Thoroughbred. I've tried a lot of sports nutrition products and (as you may have noted with the sponsors on previous teams) i tend not to blog about them unless it hink they're worth your money and they are the sort of thing i would put in my own body. This stuff passes both those tests, it also tastes like chocolate. so try some, and in the comments section, tell them you're type one, or that i sent you and see if they don't hook you up....

happy Wednesday

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

mis en place

2012-02-21T20:07:00.000-08:00

one of the best things I learned when working in a professional kitchen was the art of "mis en place" using free time to make things easier when you need to be fast later. The least useful thing i learned was "no you haven't hurt yourself that's just a burn".

It's my rest week this week and I've been getting up to some fun and games in the kitchen making quinoa energy bar bites, going to the farmers' market (Yup that picture is actually from our farmer's market, it's AMAZING) and chopping and freezing lots of fruit and veg. I've cleaned the bike, mixed up some secret recovery potion. Checked over my lancets, insulin, pods and needles (not that i can get any more if i am running out!) and generally got my ducks in a row.

Mis en place works mentally as well, i'm concentrating on getting my thoughts in order, establishing what i want to achieve every day, in training, in life and with my diabetes. Trying new diet and insulin approaches. intervals and wattages and meeting new people and ,making new links, just like the mis en place I learned at the restaurant this gets easier the more you do it, you chop more peppers and fewer fingers.

Chopping things up into little chunks like this makes it much easier to see progress. if my goal is to talk to my dad twice a week not once, or to wake up below 120 i can see progress and i feel great. I think it's important to have goals, and work towards them and to celebrate the accomplishments you make each day. otherwise we can easily loose sight of the small victories along the route to a destination we may never reach. i'm working on a pretty exciting diabetes/social media project which i'll be sharing more about soon but this process of goal setting and achieving along the route to a bigger goal. like chopping things up into bite size pieces and combining them to make a great dish is a key part of it.

I've been beavering away at a few projects which are coming to fruition. one of which is my diabetes stories project which I'm going to publish a few entries of over the coming weeks, thanks to everyone who entered. i've made some very cool sponsor connections (expect reviews soon) oh and i've been pinning numbers onto zebra pattern lycra. Because i've got all my apples chopped and it's time to start Bakin' !

retul'd and ready

2012-02-15T19:14:00.000-08:00

This is what perfection looks like. the fit isn't bad either

Yesterday, whilst bouncing about from car breakdown to thunderstorm, i managed to fit in a bike fit with the good people at San Diego Sports medicine. First of all i want to point out how incredibly kind Trina was today. My car died en route to the fit, leaving me stranded. Trina stopped by and collected my bike, took it to the studio and allowed me to get my car into the garage and then ride the road bike over there and complete my fit session an hour late. Pretty sure that's above and beyond the call of duty.

Anyway, as you'll know if you're a regular reader I've suffered from a fair bit of spinal injury in the past. Being as i am a fan of walking upright and being, as i am unwilling to stop doing silly amounts of bicycling I've become quite the fan of bike fit, indeed it's fair to say that i consider a good bike fit to be THE most important thing to spend your money on in order to improve your cycling experience. I can, from experience, tell you that you can be riding a $14,000 dollar bike and it will not feel as good at a $1,400 bike if the latter is better fitted to you.

The guys at SDSM have a great tool called Retul, basically it tracks the different points (and on me these points are rather pointy) on your legs and ensures that, when correctly positioned, these points track in a straight line and you're not wobbling about (because whatever the weebles tell you it's not cool) . The computer then assesses your position and spits some numbers out at your fitter, but this isn't so much a science as an art. the fitter has to take into account your flexibility, riding style and indiviudal foibles in order to trun the ranges generated bu the retul computer into a position that works for you. This is where having an experienced fitter comes in, when you've watched the person fitting you destroy the field in the women's pro race the week before you don't really need to worry too much about her not knowing about the real world of bike fitting where the rubber meets the road.

after Trina had helped me sort my saddle and perfect my pedal position I had a quick word with Greg, as an acupuncturist, Physio and formidable bicycle rider in his own right greg is another great resource. I have world class tight hip flexors and, judging by his ability to identify this and poke me in such a way that those tight muscles really hurt I'd say Greg is something of an expert on the subject. He gave me some exercises (one of which is called the pidgeon, but looks nothing like the dance of the same name) which should help me get into my TT position better.

I was also able to touch base with local legend and doctor to the stars Dr Allan Richburg. he's helped me with a lot of injuries over the years, not least diagnosing a burst appendix on the infield of a velodrome (unlike my primary "care" physician who missed it with the benefit of a laboratory behind her). He's also responsible for sticking Chris Horner together when he breaks. He's also done some work for some of those rugby players who dress up like power rangers but i can't remember their names.

So, if you're in Southern California an you want to be more comfortable on your bicycle, need some tips on what sort of frame or bike would be best suited to you. or indeed if you've hurt yourself and want to get back to riding as quickly and painlessly as possible i really couldn't think of a better group of people. And if you get really lucky, Trina might even fit you so well that you too get to practice your victory salute.

one hell of a day

2012-02-15T18:51:00.000-08:00

I've had a mare today or to be more accurate things have conspired against me but people have conspired to make it all ok.

This morning i woke, to the happy hullabaloo created by a blackberry in full song and bounced along with my merry routine of brewing up some revolution roasters coffee and locating my thermos coffee mug thing which allows me to bring above body temperature beverages along in my bottle cage without risking a potential groin scalding or, far worse a coffee stain on my top tube.

Anyway, i set off to school happily touting my caffeine and coconut milk combo. Rocking out to some hardcore NPR i made it to about 2 miles from the uni when it all started to go a bit pete Tong. Sadly this doesn't mean NPR started playing dance tunes, but rather it stopped playing at all when my car engine, and electronics all cut out, in the middle lane of the motorway. arse.

i made my (less merry) way onto the hard shoulder where i called work and got someone to go and tell my students that, much to their disappointment, they wouldn't be enjoying another riveting role play of the gupta caste system today. My friend Matt Bigos happened to be driving by and stopped, being more mechanically inclined than I he correctly identified that my car wasn't going anywhere. The nice people from the highway patrol towed me into a local car park, where my friend/coach/fashion guru Jesse Eisner popped up with some coolant and a coffee. Another friend, Trina, came and took my mountainbike out of the car and took it to the fit studio. more on that later.

having killed an hour (and resisted the temptations of the bakery) at whole paycheck and taken full advantage of the free refill coffees the tow truck arrived and took me to my friends at SDPE, the guys took the audi into it's happy place (their garage) and they're currently looking her over. Here's hoping i can get to arizona this weekend!

at this point i was already late for my fit so i hit it pretty hard in order to get there in time, i'll blog on the fit tomorrow, long story short it was great, wonderful people, great space, good results and a great mix of science and art.

fitted and comfy i set out to burn off some tension on the roads of san diego. it looked pretty windy out there but i was (for the first time in over a week) experiencing what is, in the finest tradition of literal translation, often referred to as "good sensation". i made my (merrier) way out east at a cracking speed and, a bucketload of watts later, having spotted horner headed the other way. I turned at the high point of my ride to descend to the south before turning east to go home. the wind was definitley in my face, i had beene xpecting that. what i hadn't been expecting was that it started bouncing down with rain and the wind was aiming for a new 1 hour max power reading. I made it home, somehow i'd only eaten a bread pudding slice and a chewy bar since my pb and pumpkin sandwich at 9am. needless to say, i was so cold that i had been ignoring how low i was and i ended up palming (i really suffer from reduced circulation in the cold) some dextrose into my chattering teeth during the 30 minutes it took me to get my shoes undone before i could get into the shower.

All in, things didn't go well but, if people hadn't been there to help it could have been a lot lot worse. Now to take the wallet beating for the tow truck and getting the car fixed, anyone know anything fun to make out of oats, eggs and tuna?

hot (and tasty) pockets

2012-02-13T21:41:00.000-08:00

I seem to continually get asked what i eat out on the bike. I've blogged about this before (not here) , but rather than referring people back to that I thought i'd update it a bit. What i'm doing now is a little different. I'm not going to give you a full nutrition lowdown but rather a few sample snacks which you probably hadn't thought of.

first off let's get down to the science; you want carbs, some easily digested protein, salt and maybe some rapidly digested fat. You don't want frankenfoods, artificial sweetners, processed fats and excessive fructose - that knocks about half of the commerical bars avaliable out of the frame.

here are some ideas;

peanut butter sandwiches with: bannana, pureed pumpkin and raisins (and honey and cinnamon), applesauce, just pb honey and cinnamon, pb and nutella pb banana and nutella, all of the above with almond butter.

baked sweet potato with almond/ peanut butter and honey and cinnamon (do you see a theme here?)

bean burritos - great at the top of a climb in the cold

and my latest greatest invention; savory bread pudding;

4 cups bread (i used a mix of hawaain and old bagels)

2 cups coconut milk (MCTs)

4 eggs

1/2 cup hard sheeps cheese or parmesan

some chopped up ham , raisins and sea salt

heat the milk with the bread until it's all soaked up, mix in the rest of the goodies and bake at 350 'murican degrees or 180 euro degrees until set. sprinkle with crystal salt and honey, devour! i promise that if you make these once you will thank me forever.

i'm also a big fan of liquorice and ginger sweets (yup i'm living up to national stereotypes here and plugging allsorts) as i feel they help to settle my stomach.

In the bottles i am a massive coconut water junkie, but i also like green tea with honey when it is cold. and maybe even some kombucha.

and post ride, you can't beat a tomato juice, and a big bowl of Greek yogurt, blueberries honey and granola. or a taco and a beer!

with all that said, there are still times when i'll hit a shop and grab a snickers or a payday and a juice or even a fizzy drink if i need the sugar boost but it's about moderation. i like to take real food, good food and if i need sugary crap, well in California it's never far away! It makes pleasant change to stocking up on syrups and inflammatory fats in sports branded wrappers and thinking i am helping my body go faster.

I was going to include a pic of a mid ride sweet poato but it looks like a passing dog left it!

the real dirt on mountainbiking

2012-02-10T21:45:00.000-08:00

so.i've been practicing riding bicycles on gravel and sand and rocks and through water and in other places where it is both generally uncomfortable and impractical to ride bikes. It's fun. In the process i have fallen off a few times, punctured my ego many times and my skin once.

anyway, i thought i would share with you, my dedicated readers, what i have learned from my brief foray into riding dirty in socal;
1) in a 3 hour mtb ride i did not pass a single piece of sheep poo, or indeed a single sheep, nor was i, at any point told to "slow down" by someone in knee high socks - this all confirms my suspicion that "we're not in Wales any more jimmy". Sadly this also means there were no welshcakes.
2) cacti, are spiky
3) disk brakes are mega, mega is an adjective (and for that matter so is gnarly)
4) the cut off jersey makes you feel faster (and scar bigger), the mountain dew makes you feel like you fit in (the high blood sugar makes you feel like you don't), the beer afterwards, that just makes you slower
5) mountain bikers are really nice, they'll give you advice and they very rarely come flying up the inside of a corner screaming "inside" in much the same way that i imagine Kamikaze pilots used to shout "Banzai"
6) as far as i am aware, there is no "zone 2" on the trails, this is good, very good
7) tubeless wheels are great (hello road bike wheel manufacturers)
8) i'm not an expert in camelbak operation, in fact i seem to be an expert in creating "camelbak blowbak"
9)that wasn't a trail, it really was a drainage ditch
10) when you get lost off road, nobody can hear you scream (and worse yet your phone can't find you on googlemaps)
11) embro is frowned upon - this is not cyclocross (although i imagine frites are shared between the disciplines)
12) yes, that bottom gear looks ridiculous, so are some of the hills
13) it's a whole different diabetes game (more on that another day)
14) you can't run your road position on an mtb, no way
15) mountainbikers are winning the "how many gears does your bike have" race, their bikes also have suspension. no child will ever be 10% as impressed with your roadbike, children don't get aero, they do get gnarly

all day, all night

2012-02-04T21:55:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since i added another installment to my long series of "stupid things James does". I've decided to remedy that this week, having scanned the San Diego area for bovine threats and come up with nothing and dismissed the idea of swimming with Shamu. I've decided to take on a new challenge. And no, i'm not talking about the spontaneous colony of bacteria and yeast which is currenlty festering it's way into a delicious beverage in my kitchen. Although i think they might be the most twittered about microorganisms on the planet. I've gone and entered a 24 hour mountainbike race. in 2 weeks. Did i mention that i don't own a mountainbike?

now i do have some previous with long, solo races and anyone who was at sea otter will recall my glorious "oh shit the brakes on this bike aren't the sides i'm used to" cartwheel. rapidly followed by my "oh shit i'm in road pedals and i'm actually STUCK upside can you please roll me over my course marshal" experiences in the fat tyred world. That said, i think it will all be OK because, well, it normally is, right?

(ADDENDUM; i just watched 24 solo, great film, now i'm really really scared)

Tomorrow the MTB training begins, thanks to kerry i have a top of the line pronghorn MTB to ride, thanks to Scott i have a lift thanks to gordon i have the brakes the correct way around, a good espresso in me, a jar of embrocation and one of the best friends a boy could have on this side of the pond. Oh and thanks to emily, i have someone to keep me sane in between now and then.

Whilst we're ont he subject of people who've helped me, i got the chance to help someone myself the other day. Dan,s car had broken down so we pushed it into velohangar and i drove him home. I realised just how nice it is to be able to do something for someone. i also found straight up the best coffee in the county at Revolution roasters.

anyway more importantly the trip to Arizona gives me an opportunity to do what i like doing most (apart from amateur bullfighting and eating) 'betes advocacy. Arizona has some pretty serious political issues, not leats its provision of healthcare. i don't want to get into public policy again but suffice it to say you shouldn't be broke because your sick or sick because your broke. and you certainly shouldn't be TAXED because you're sick.

In the USA in general and certain parts of it in particular, diabetes advocacy doesn't tend to speak Spanish (with notable exceptions). because in general, speaking Spanish doesn't pay the piper. Seeing as this piper didn't get paid anyway, it's my desire to help my brothers and sisters' with my condition however i can, in whatever language i can. A big issue that I'm trying to conceptualise a plan to deal with is the lack of brotherhood between diabetics over the world. i share a lot more with a diabetic in Malawi than a non diabetic in Milwaukee or Middlesbrough. And yet, we don't see people getting together to donate supplies to the people in Africa and South america who are often testing less than once a day (sadly this is also true inside the USA). This year i plan to try to do my bit to change that, everywhere i go i want to meet people and talk to them, to see what they need and how i can help. I'm fortunate enought o get to travel to race, and i want to leave more than a hole in the ozone layer a result of that travel.

I'll be logging my experiences in Arizona, both riding through the night and speaking in the day. As illustrated above, people are good, they want to help each other. nobody leaves someone suffering when they can see it, we just need to extend that notion to people we can't see. hopefully some of these stats will help you see a little more clearly what we're playing against
http://www.worlddiabetesfoundation.org/composite-35.htm
http://www.diabetesmine.com/2012/01/important-things-to-know-about-diabetes-in-the-developing-world.html

until next time - i have 3o papers to grade and my red pen is already running low. stay safe, ride fast and be nice

t shirt time

2012-01-18T09:05:00.000-08:00

There comes a time in every man's life when he gets fired for wearing a t-shirt (frankly anyone who has seen me sans t shirt knows that that is far more offensive). What distinguishes the good men from the great men is a) whether the t shirt in question was pink and b) what he does with said t shirt.

After a lot of negotiating with various companies I've come up with a few t shirt designs of my own, the idea being to boomerang all that negativity in a positive direction; namely diabetes research and giving to an organisation that ACTUALLY benefits diabetic people. so you can improve your fashion credibility, decrease your laundry frequency and maybe your donation will be the one which helps find the cure.

thanks to my people at diabe-tees.com I've come up with a few designs. I'd like to get your feed back in the form of email (james@insulinandembrocation.com) on the design and we'll begin taking orders very soon. all the profit generated will go to the JDRF, there will be no BMW driving business class flying CEOs here. the same is true for all the products from diabetees and they can print their (awesome) designs on any apparel. I'll be getting a few, I'm all about owning the 'betes and what better way to say that your pancreas isn't getting you down then plastering the message across your chest? And what's more, the shirts come in a “ very slim and narrow cut” so maybe they might actually fit my t-rex upper body?

anyway here are the t shirt mocks - feedback, via email or comments appreciated

learning to love riding

2012-01-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

it's my first week back at school. i'm not sure if it's the new shoes, the shiny lunchbox or the bigger kids stealing my multicoloured biro or the getting up early but something seems awfully familiar. It's been a year since i had to do anything other than ride a bike for a living and, oddly i'm enjoying riding my bike now more than ever.

i've been commuting to Uni, right now i'm using my colnago but i'm working on a commuter bike from the junk boxes of various buddies, it's truly a monstrosity, i don't think any two parts are technically compatible. i'm getting up early to ride to uni and riding home by longer routes at night as well as hitting the gym in the day as time allows. on the weekends i'm trying to knock out 8-10 hours and to investigate the tail end of the winter seasonal stouts

there's something really refreshing about riding from A to B as opposed to riding for 300k or for 6 hours. it's nice not to look at your watts and its always rewarding to ride a beater bike past a guy on deep dish carbon wheels. it's about finding out what cycling is about which is being outside, pedalling and enjoying the view.

on the negative side my office is not going to be the nicest place to be a the end of the week as the laundry piles up, and the porridge oats, nuts and raisins in my cupboard probably don't make the basis of a varied diet.

big things are coming for team traveller, stay tuned and expect some announcements in the next week or so and please, please get over to pleasefund.us and contribute to the project. we've had hugely generous donations so far and we're working on incorporating our team stakeholders into the process of deciding our calendar and race schedule but no donation is too small, it's about having a stake in the sport and investing in the riders as people and the future of the sport, not the riders as products and clinging onto the past (treating people badly is the same, no matter whether you wrap it in funky golf socks or not).

so stay tuned and stay smiling 2012 is going to be great

Hungover and happy

2012-01-02T08:50:00.001-08:00

Well it’s international hangover appreciation day here in San Diego (in that the number of hangovers is appreciating, not that anyone is enjoying them). This means a few things, one that there will most likely be a run on bacon for that all important breakfast. Two that the grid will see excess electricity demand as EVERYONE hoovers up after the night before and three that I have a US visa again. As of 12.01 am on the 1st of January. I’ve got no problems being in the US and team type one’s p1 visa has no prejudice on my right to remain, exciting hey? If it means I can do 100 miles in shorts on New Year ’s Day, and get a Taco Gobernador afterwards, I’m happy.

Appropriately I began 2012 upside down in a pile of my friends, and strangers on a sofa. I think I’ve spent most of 2011 in the same way, it’s been disorientating and at times confusing but being surrounded by great people, having fun, trying to make a difference and make new friends has made it all a great experience. My world might have turned upside down but it was the people I met who put it the right way up again, and now it’s more stable than it ever was before.

2011 has been a topsy turvy year to say the least. I am not a big one for looking back as there is so much future to look forward to, and we can actually influence that. But I do want to take this chance to say that I have had the most amazing year of my life. With all its ups and downs aside this has been a wonderful experience. For every one person who has hurt me (and especially one particular person) there have been a dozen who have helped me. I’ve learned so much about the fundamental kindness and humanity of people this year and I want to thank each and every person who has helped me. I lost a job, a house, an awful lot of money and lots of things I owned and I gained a vocation, a home, very little money and a lot of things I needed.

So if you’ll allow me; if you’ve sent me an encouraging message, fed me, let me sleep on your floor/sofa/bed/in your barn, passed me a bottle, bought me coffee, fixed my bike, given me insulin, given me sugar, dragged me across a bullring, published my story when someone threatened you, driven me somewhere, sent me peanut butter, taught me about wine or beer or bank accounts or visas or passports or marriage or fishing or growing up, baked me a cake, and indeed if you’ve just sent me your best wishes prayers and greetings or just smiled at me as I went by. Thank you. Oh and if you fired me from your cycling team; Thank you. I’ve really have learned a lot and it’s down to every interaction I’ve had. It would have been easy to give up, to stop riding bikes, to stop trying to help other people with my condition and to lose faith in people. But it’s thanks to the support of everyone else that I haven’t.

2012 is shaping up to be a great year. I’m hugely excited about my new team, I hope I can take just a small fraction of the positivity I’ve received and pass it on. If I can, the world will be a better place. Whenever things get difficult, and they will. I feel that I’ve a great reserve of fortitude to fall back on. All my friends all over the world have done so much for me and I owe it to them to succeed. I hope I can catch up with more of you in 2012, I hope we can share a meal and conversation as well as morals and compassion.

Stay tuned for more updates on the team, on how you can get involved, on the schedule and on the adventures we’re planning. As always, get in touch if you’ve any ideas/questions/burning issues to raise. For now, bon any nou, feliz año Nuevo, bonne année and happy New Year. I hope it brings all of you health and happiness.

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:On a train to la

Catalan kindness

2011-12-11T06:55:00.001-08:00

A study in Catalan kindness

Mechanicals always suck...

Imagine you’re coming back from a five hour ride, it’s gone well with no back pain and you know there’s an olive oil fair in town that you want to go to to sort out Christmas presents for every female over fourty that you know (first press oil, soap, candles, glass jugs – these are a few of my (grandmothers’) favourite things). There’s an exceptional beer in the fridge (brewdog Tokyo since you’re asking) and the wind is behind you. The ride was fun, you met great new people and rode with equally great people you already knew. Sweet eh? You’re booking it a bit because, well Salou is a crapshoot at the weekends. You ride over a speed bump, out of the saddle and the bike makes a rather alarming CRACK. You think to yourself that you really ought to strip it down soon as something seems loose. Then you hear a tinkle, and you look back as you sit down. Noticing your SLR lying in the road you abort the sit down movement just before receiving 3 inches of carbon where you really don’t want them and pull a U turn. Things have gone from sweet to sour.

An hour later I’ve ridden fifteen k standing up, I’m in decathlon where we’ve drilled out the bolt which had snapped in the middle of the seatpost, taking the thread with it. The seatpost has straight up fused in the frame so you can’t get it out. I use carbon assembly paste but apparently you only need to put clear coat on a post up to halfway, the loer part had swollen inside the frame. And we can’t find a bolt to replace the broken one because Italians like to use really obscure thread diameters (7mm anyone?). Half of the staff in Decathlon is stripping bikes looking for said bolt. But it’s not there. Not in the fishing reels we looked over either. After 90 minutes we’ve hacksawed out the old bolt, drilled out the other end (in the seatpost and forced it down into the frame) and I still can’t find a 7. So I set off home, with my necklace holding my saddle to the toptube! Despite 3 members of staff wasting over an hour, 2 hacksaw blades, numerous bolts and a lot of sweat, I’ve not been able to pay them a thing. It seemed like there was nothing to be done, my luck was out and with tomorrow being Sunday and two more holidays this week, I was unlikely to get this fixed for a long time.

Whilst riding home, bmx style, I stop at a second bike shop, wala Tarragona. The mechanic is an ex pro track rider, we chat as he looks everywhere for the 7mm bolt he remembers seeing the other day. We find it and celebrate with high 5s – until it turns out to be a 7.5mm bolt. Fortunately, one thing pro track riders have over me (well one thing most adult males have over me) is upper body strength. Anti seize and biceps are applied to the post and it came out, success. The till gets shut down while we reboot the pc to find my cyclefit documents – a lifesaver. As I was doing this the mechanic set about stripping my mechs, cleaning my chain and sorting out the shifting on the new cassette I’d put on that day. The bike was remade and I was about to be on my way, when I realized that, typically today was the day I’d forgotten my card (in my defence I had to get up really early to meet a group ride). No worries they said and sent me off home, I left my sunglasses as a deposit. I returned and paid a grand total of twenty Euros. Less than the cost of the post.

I made new friends who I’m going to ride with soon and shared stories of life on the road. We discussed the wind, the local climbs and the reasons why anyone would put a triple on a road bike. We talked about teams, my track riding friend had hurt his knee and his team decided that was a great reason to hurt his bank balance as well, I can commiserate. We wondered what would happen to our friends on Geox and what would happen to our country in the economic crisis. Ultimately I wasn’t the highest value customer, I got about 24 man hours of attention for my twenty Euros but that’s exactly what made Saturday such a high value experience. We’re all the same as cyclists, we all love riding our bikes, even if some us have wider tyres or even silly straws on our handlebars. It’s what we share that makes the sport great, and it made me really happy to see this embraced. These guys could have turned me away, charged like a rhino or laughed at my plight but they didn’t. They saw a fellow rider in a fix and sorted me out, they went above and beyond their commercial relationship with me and became friends. Don’t get me wrong there are places in the US that would and have done this for me but there are also places that wouldn’t. This is the bank of Karma paying out, and I’m going to make sure I put in some more deposits next time I see another rider punctured by the roadside or struggling in the wind. You should do the same, we might be in crisis here but our karma account is definitely in the black.

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Calle de Ramón y Cajal,Tarragona,Spain

Beating 'betes with bikes

2011-11-30T13:21:00.001-08:00

I promised you more but you didn't expect it this quickly did you? Well it's a double blog day today (let's face it you weren't paying attention at work anyway). This is less of an update from me to you and more of me asking you to update me on your great achievements and adventures.

With the help of my good friends at Extreme endurance I'm starting a bit f a competition. We want to hear from you; if you're a diabetic and you've used endurance sports ( even the sleeveless ones) to turn around your control, the send in your story.

Not only are you in with a chance of wining some cool schwag from xe and team traveller, you'll also get to serve as an inspiration to others. I know what it's like to not have control and how it feels to take that power over your life back. It's bigger than any race you'll ever win. sometimes it's hard for other people to realise just how big of a victory it is. So now is your chance to claim your moment on the podium. This is going to be an ongoing contest with different prizes and featured athletes every month. That gives you the chance to be inspired and to inspire others.

Send your stories, and pictures to James@insulinandembrocation.com and get ready to claim your fifteen minutes of fame (or at least exposure to the very small fraction of the globe who read my blog!)

Can't wait to hear from you

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Planning for positivity in 2012

2011-11-30T07:45:00.001-08:00

Last Sunday i found myself sat outside a cafe in Miami Platja (not that Miama beach) with one of the guys from Geox (know how he feels) and a couple of local racers. Sipping our coffees, and laughing as the older guy's kids ran around trying to chew on a putty textured energy bar it felt good to be alive, to be in Catalonia and to be with such welcoming people.

The conversation quickly turned to next year, the Christmas lights are up now, the caganers are out and that means it's nearly time to buy a new calendar and start riding a different bike. We all quizzed each other about whether we'd tried various brands of pedals, what we thought of the wheels we'd be riding next year. The local guys laughed at us with our worrying aboutbeing given free bikes and gear. As they pointed out their sponsorship obligations extended to drinking the coffee that the cafe owner wouldn't charge us for.

For me next year is a bit different. i'll be riding with team traveller and bringing together a lot of my own sponsors and supporters. This is a bit different to team situations i've been in before. for one things i've spent months sending emails and there is more work to come. Cash sponsorship has been impossible to come by in this economy and that's going to make travelling and racing tough. I only want to work with companies i respect and who are aligned the same way I am. What's important to me is to keep spreading the message that diabetes doesn't have to be a limiter on your ambitions and that nobody, anywhere needs to loose limbs, eyes or loved ones for the want of test strips. I want to get out there and spread that message and i'm not going to partner with people who don't share that vision. By staying true to my ideals, I might not be banking the dollars but I firmly believe that putting Karma in the kitty pays back much better in the long run.

In 2012 i'm going to step up my diabetes advocacy, i' currently talking to a few people about the possibility of a not for profit foundation. I've seen too many diabetics suffering needlessly in the US and abroad and too any "charities" helping themselves to your donations. I want to use my racing and the friends and contacts i have both online and all over the world to make a real difference. As this project takes shape and grows, i'll keep you updated but if you want to help. get in touch, and expect donation links and news to be on here very soon.

I want to take this opportunity to speak about one of the sponsors i'm most excited about working with next year. You'll have noticed that when i post about nutrition, i'm not posting about my nutrition sponsor, or i wasn't last year. that was because i'm not really prepared to tell lies, especially in this area as it could impact someone's dietary decisions and bloodsugar control.

Well this year, given my own nutrition choices i'm going to be working with extreme endurance they make a range of really solid nutritional supplements, things I'd be using anyway, things I'm happy to put in my body. They didn't approach me for sponsorship i approached them. the chief reason why I approached them is their eponymous lactate buffer. Lactate is a big issue for me and indeed for everyone and I am really excited about this. if you're one of those pancreas functioning "normal" individuals you go above LT when you lack oxygen to burn the glucose in your blood. but the only variable here is oxygen. for me the glucose moves as well, so if glucose goes up, the level at which i lactate goes down. and i am bathed in the burn at 200w. we all make lactate and it's one of the determingin factors in recovery, the quicker you can get it out, the quicker you can get back to training, and get stronger. endurance sport is about recovering faster. be that about recovering from a Saturday ride to play with your kids on a Sunday or recovering from a 200k stage for a time trial the next day.

This means that clearing lactate is huge for me. You can look on the link above to see how extreme endurance works. What i can tell you is that it does. What i can also tell you is that they are 100% my goals. to this end they've agreed to hook up my readers with a discount and make a donation to helping diabetics around the world. I think that's pretty cool. you have two chances to get faster; one you'll be buffering more lactate and two you'll be floating on a cushion of good vibes knowing that every time you make a purchase, someone, somewhere gets to test once more that day. i've got some more products and sponsors who are also part of the scheme to share with you in the coming weeks, so hold off that Christmas shopping!
-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Carrer Sant Roc,Vilabella,Spain

food glorious food

2011-11-15T00:07:00.000-08:00

It probably has not escaped your attention that Allen Lim has published a new cook book, with about as much launch hype as a Lady Gaga album, and suspiciously apt timing given that we're approaching the "gifting season" (also known as credit card debt month and coinciding with children pressuring parents into buying crap they dont need and will never use in December) you'd be hard pressed to miss it.

Anyway i've decided to launch my own antidote to such blatant commerical high jinks; the Catalan cooking corner here on insulinandembrocation.com - i'm pretty sure i've got lim licked. I have taken the offseason as a time to sample new foods and not worry too much about macronutrients etc. just keeping my weight under control and my blood glucose nicely in the zone. One of the cool things about racing is all the travel and the great local foods you get to try.

My friend Emily came to stay recently and was impressed with my predilection for Octopus, squid and other cephladops. there's somethign about the little legs that i really like!

Anyway in an attempt to share with you some of my adventures in real food cooking and my longstanding aversion to any food which comes in a rectangular package it hought i would give you a little run through of last night's dinner:

Pies de porc amb mongetes
righto; i'll try to avoid sounding like jamie oliver as much as i can here. First thing you do is soak your beans (sounds euphemistic eh?) for 10 hours or so. I used the big white ones, but you can pretty much freestyle your legume selection.

10 hours later, you've ridden, stretched and had a thouroughly fulfilling day now you're ready for a thouroughly filling meal. So you take your big pot and put in a few glugs of olive oil. 2 choppe dup carrots, an onion and a red pepper. and a lot of garlic. and you cook that on a low flame until it looks suitably brown. then, you break out the big guns; 2 pork feet. in perhaps the oddest cooking experience of my life i made sure to give these little fellas a good shaving before they went in the pot (and yes, that was the last time I used said razor blade). once youve cooked those a little bit add your beans back in (drained obviously) 1 litre of stock, 3 bay leaves and a big branch of rosemary and let it cook for 2ish hours.

once you're done you have a surprisingly yummy concoction. I really like long cooked onions and carrots for some reason (i think its a childhood thing, all those warm stews on cold days). the pigs feet give everything a really nice gelatinous quality and are quite tasty if you like the texture they have. Theyre also damn cheap! you might want to skim off the fat before chowing down as well. Then crack open a good beer and youre away!

seriously though, if we have the temerity to kill another sentient being for food, the very least we can do is appreciate, sit down and enjoy it and make damn sure to use all of it. It's neither good karma nor good recession bustin' frugal practice to let this stuff go to waste. so go out there and make yourself some hearty peasant food (tis the season after all) - i bet if you ate liek this for a month you'd save up enough to buy a Hardback feedzone cookbook

this time last year

2011-11-12T09:29:00.000-08:00

about a year ago, i sent this email. a lot has changed since then...
hey ****, I did an athlete day here in the Bronx, New york today, i just wanted to say how much all this stuff means to me. Today was pretty tough, i saw lots of people missing legs, arms and eyesight but they all really look up to us and that's cool.
i don't know what the procedure is but it would be really cool to get some kiddie kits out here for the younger kids, i spent a couple of hours with one girl today just persuading her to take her insulin again. i gave them some of my tt1 stuff but it would be cool to have something to give them if i come back. I said i'd give them a jersey if they could get better a1c scores (like single figure a1c scores) - is there anything we can do? i even had a little 5 yr old kid ask how he could join the team!
anyway i just wanted to say thanks, today was pretty special

This stuff meant an awul lot to me, and there ar elots more emails like this. I've got nothing to hide an nothing to prove but i was looking for an email address and i came across this in my old emails. It makes me sad not to be able to go and visit those kids again. for one thing i have a few more spare kits for them now!

chesnuts and change

2011-11-06T12:32:00.000-08:00

This is a funny time of year to be a bike rider; the season has been long and hard and you'v got time to recover. But at the same time the last race was already a month ago, and you haven't ridden much since. Your mind goes back to the parts of this season which you'd like to improve upon and part of you wants to get out and train harder than ever. you feel tired from not riding, your body isn't used to the lack of endorphins and you stop feeling hungry. The evenings close in and the trees change colour.

I like the connection to the seasons that being a bike rider gives me, i feel that's doubly true living where i do. as the nights draw in the children man the street corners, hunkered over old oil barrels roasting chesnuts which they wrap in the days' newspaper and sell,along with a tot of moscatell to keep the cold out. The time for sipping cava in the sunshine and eating salad because you daren't turn on the cooker is gone, anellets of almond- meal and sugar are the pastry of choice for all saints day and coffee isn't served with a glass with ice any more. The vineyards have changed too, in april they were verdant, bright green and luscious, through the hot summer they became yellow, barely hanging ontot the dusty mountainsides, now they're all shades of red and orange. getting old and loosing their hair, in a month they'll be bare.

There are fewer tourists here now, taking my paseo after dinner i noticed fewer crowds. the streets have been returned to the local people. there's a knowing familiarity in the way people nod to each other. the market still bustles, but in the dark at 6pm it has a different aura, the stalls like little beacons, each with a crowd. there's less shouting and nobody's trying to sell you a photograph of a paella and a menu in english anymore.

training changes with the seasons as well, like nature intended we eat a little more, sleep a little more and move a little less. i don't need my mixes and gels at this time of year. i head out with a jacket and a scarf, a pocket full of roscos and leave the SRM at home. i like passing the families out gathering mushrooms, stopping to pilfer the last of the oranges which never quite got ripe enough to pick or the apples which have sprung up outside of the orchard. When i get back the recovery dirnk isn't a priority any more it's about a warm shower, a cup of tea or hot chocolate and then a hearty meal.

i do miss the sunshine, and i find it hard to summon up the enthusiasm to train in the rain, but perhaps thats not a bad thing. i'm trying to listen to my body, and to nature. it's been around for a while and it's had soe time to work things out. also it's responsible for producing roasted chesnuts which are downright spectacular.

some culture in Catalonia

2011-11-06T12:11:00.000-08:00

with it being ealry November and me having a fairly crippling spinal injury (not to make light of those with really crippling spinal injuries, thats like calling a cold cancer) I've not been doing much bicycling recently. After a bit of time in the UK after Tobago i'm now back to Catalonia. my favourite place in the world. I always miss it when i'm gone and nothing feels as good as driving through those big roman pillars and leaving France (even though technically i'm already in Catalonia before then).

With the dirth of lycra time i've been getting in some other activities. to keep myself from turning into a ten ton monster i've been indulging my tight clothing fetish in the water. As i mentioned in a previous post swimming is straight up boring but i have discovered that this only applies to pool swimming. you see pool swimming is to sea swimming as turbo trianer is to cyclocross. once i found this out I embrocated up (yes i really did) and nipped out into the sea. I think the fact i decided to sport compression tights for warmth may have caused a few odd looks (along with the inevitable omnipod stares) but i've never been one to let that bother me and swimming in the sea was fun, just one caveat. when you're really tired, the waves DO NOT carry you in, so you get the interesting additio of a "life or death" interval as your final effort - perhaps unwise given my past history of unfortunate mishaps.

Fortunatley I was joined for a week by my friend, super soigneur (and as i turns out talented speed-reader) Emily Baker . i like having people to show around my little town and especially when i havent got much else to do i enjoy seeing the sights and visiting all the cultural installations that Tarragona has to offer. A trip to the roman ruins was particulairly fun, i posted abotu a million pictures (like a real british holidaymaker) on google + for anyone interested.

We also took the chance to go and watch a local castellers competition (which we missed by a slight margin of 8 hours, arse, but fortunatley we watched a live video on the local tv station). This is another of those peculiar catalan traditions which looks bizzare to anyone who doesn't "get it" i mean grown men forming a huge human tower, which a small child then climbs up. It's not safe and it doesn't really achieve anything - but then neither does bicycle racing. It's a tremendous feat of organisation and strength and isn't without its dangers (someone died in 2006).

I've also been back to uni, studying for a term at the Universitat Ramon Lull in Barcelona and reading ridiculous amounts about Catalan Sport in the 1930s. While in Barcelona i always take the opportunity to pick up some beer, i'm thinking of posting a beer review blog soon. Although i'm pretty sure you can't get any of them outside of catalonia.

other than that i've been pounding the keyboard trying to sort out sponsors for next year, which isn't proving easy. the economy really seems to have hit rock bottom in the us and purse strings are being tightened. The prospect of being without equipment sponsors next ear is pretty worrying but i'll keep trying, i want to work with companies ia m proud to be associated withand i feel that in the long run that approach will pay dividends.

so ciao for now, i'm off to drink more beer and do more begging!

erection envy?

2011-10-30T05:53:00.000-07:00

as we all know, the best bike in the world is the one that fits you (or the one you get paid to tell everyone is the best bike in the world...) anyway, if this is the case then my bike just became even better thanks to the intervention of the gents at cyclefit uk.

since my latest attempt at maiming myself in Tobago i've not been able to ride without back pain, an mri revealed a bulging disc in the l2/l3 region of my lumbar spine. not nice. so, under strict doctor's order's im not riding hard until December and i've been sent to get a fit. cue a few well placed phone calls and tweets (thanks to my friend tom who is a cyclefit (and aquafresh) sponsored rider) and i'm on a train to London at a time normally reserved for testers, jet lag sufferers and those weird people who like to watch birds through massive telescopes (i mean feathery birds here, i dont think stalkers get up that early). After a brief encounter with the metropolitan police (apparently launching a full on attack on the commuters via the pavement isn't cool with them) i made it to cyclefit in time to bask in their luxurious shopfront and browse the 100 pages of pretension that make up Roleur magazine before commencing my fit.

To say these lads have all the gear is an understatement, they broke out video cameras, fitting rigs which move as you ride (which allow you to make changes without forgetting how the old position felt), gnoimeters, footbed making vacum devices, thumbscrews (ok maybe not thumbscrews but i'm pretty sure i saw something that looked like one) and most valuable of all, years and years of experience at the top of their game. we looked at all kind of parameters and ultimatley moved my bars up quite a bit, my saddle up and foreward, changed my footbeds, dewedged my feet and concluded that in the near future (i.e. when i have enough money) a new saddle and narrower bars would be nice.

my approach to dealing with my back injury has been to get the very best people to give me their best advice. my doctor is from the uk institute of sport, the fit is one of the best in the world. it's one thing freestyling your recovery from a broken collarbone - i've tried that and now i can't wear backpacks or lift much with my left arm. it's another deal taking risks with your spine. i want to be walking when i am 40, not crawling. i'm not going to persist in riding with 13cm of drop if the cost of doing so is my long term health, i've always said i'm diabetic first and biek racer second and the same applies here. and when i have the good fortune to benefit fromt he best avliable advice, even i am not stupid enough to ignore it! If you're wodnering why i'm going to such pains to justify myself her eit's because my bike has a stem which resembles massive erection and like anyone going out in public with such an appendage, i'm a little self conscious. Ultimately nothing looks stupid if you're going fast enough and the goal is to go fast, not to look good creeping.

i managed to get out for 4 1/2 hours yesterday, 3 mountains and one particularly vicious dog-pursued interval session and i've no discernible back pain today. in fact i'm getting much more pain from carrying around a heavy messenger bag when i go to Barcelona with all my books- so if anyone has a better idea please share it below.

also NB this is my 100th blog post and I am once again, injured, just like the first one! I may also be eating baked goods, plus ca change...

oh and hea don over to @cyclefituk on twitter to find your optimal position for riding ;)

Water, baby

2011-10-21T11:54:00.001-07:00

In an effort to maintain something approaching form while my back is being stupid I decided to make a return to the pool tonight. After three and a half years of absence I had not missed the headdom (swimcap for those dictionary fascists out there) the goggles (can you say panda eyes) or the laughing at my tanlines. I have been manfully preparing with a thorpedoesque diet in the time since the season has finished but oddly that didn't help.

It appears that since my fleeting Oxford university tri club flirtation I had forgotten a lot of the vital bits of knowledge I once held about swimming, and so after one hour of splashing about I present my expert guide;

Things I now know about swimming

As a cyclist you will excel at the following aspects; wearing tight clothes, lacking body hair, posturing, pushing off the wall, breathing. As for the rest, you're buggered. Especially the swimming bit.

Skinny men sink.

Swimming in the Caribbean is more fun than in evesham leisure center

It is possible to half wheel someone in a swimming pool

It is not possible to check your bloodsugar when you keep getting things wet.

Swimming makes James hypo, fast.

It is not possible to eat a dextrose pill whilst swimming.

If you train with multisport athletes (see how nice I was there?) they will take this to be revenge time.

Just when you're about to catch someone they stop, always.

My hair is not swimcap compatible, the swimcap is wrong, my hair is not.

Swimmers go straps over hats, this is like sunglasses over helmet straps-vital insider knowledge. I don't think they embrace though and I'm not sure on colour matching of shorts, goggles and hats.

People will mistake omnipods for: bail tags, iPods, nicotine patches, heart rate monitors and pacemakers(?!)

Swimmers train at odd times, like before breakfast and at dinner time. Looking at a few of them they don't seem to let this prevent them from consuming said meals.

Swimming gets dull fast

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Outside the municipal leisure center

Back to being broken

2011-10-16T10:55:00.001-07:00

Well I’ve hurt myself again! I must say this one could be a bit more grave than previous injuries, indeed its probably the underlying cause of all the niggling issues I’ve been having this season (well, that and the fighting bulls of Valencia). I’ve just got back from a couple of days with my dad, just being boys. Going to the pub, watching the rugby, walking the dog etc. it was nice, it reminded me of what I used to do at weekends before I started to spend them in lycra.

Two Sundays before I was sitting on a curb in Tobago, drinking a “vita malt” (which I won’t be doing again any time soon, it tasted like what we feed the horses smells ) and hurting after the uci 1.2 tobago cycling classic. My left leg had been feeling weaker and weaker since july and in Trinidad and Tobago it was almost useless. When I got up off the curb my whole lower back seized up and I couldn’t get my leg over my frame to ride back to the car. Not good.

Fast forward 10 days and I had flown home, making ample use of the rum as painkiller method, and taken a week off the bike. I started to train again with the goal of getting my legs back for a race in Costa Rica but it felt bad on the bike, like my position was way out and I wasn’t transferring any power, like I was hunched and contorted. I put in 2 five hour days, each ride thaking about 6 hours thanks to constant saddle and cleat tweaks but it still didn’t feel right. On Thursday I saw a doctor, in the modern era of mris and CAT scans I had expected him to immedeatley refer me to a machine but no. he poked me with a pin and, to my surprise, I couldn’t differentiate between a pin and a peg on my left hand side.

After an examination we sat down. In my experience, when a doctor starts his address with “now young man” and continues by fetching the skeleton on wheels, things aren’t going to end up with a paracetamol and a lollypop. Sure enough he reckons I’ve been bulging my l2/l3 disc and restricting nervous activity in my left quad for a wee while. I’m off for an MRI on Monday and seeing him again on Wednesday. HE told me to prepare for the worst, I might not ride for several months. I know what injury can do, I stopped rowing at oxford in 2006 with a herniated l5 s1 disc just before lightweight selection, probably not the worst thing in the world as it stopped me becoming a manorexic “boatie” but at the time it was pretty tough to deal with.

In a way I’m relieved, I thought I’d just turned into a sloth, at least I know what was wrong now. So in that sense I can look forward to healing and coming back faster. But I’m also pretty bummed. I might miss the whole ‘cross season without ever getting muddy (actually I’ll go and watch just to throw snowballs at the other racers like they did to me last year). I’m going to have to reassess goals on Wednesday, including my diabetes management. Thankfully I’ve go the pod so I can experiment with basal rates to suit inactivity. I won’t have the pod for much longer (thanks to the kind people in Georgia who would love you to believe they exist to do anything other than cream off drug money) but at least it’ll be there for this transition period. It also lets me party it up with my custom “big night out” basal program.

I’ve also been feeling emotionally tired recently. This year hasn’t been great. Not financially, nor with my family. I use the bike as a way of coping but suffering so much off the bike seems to cut into my ability to hurt on the bike. I hate myself for not giving my all, but some days I’ve already spent my beans staying up all night worrying about money, or my family, or where I’m going to get insulin. It’ll be nice to have a break, but I hope I can find something else which gives me the release that riding my bike does. That said I’ve been pretty lucky to have had the help of some great people and travel to some cracking places. This always perks me up and gives me something to look forward to. I also genuinely enjoy the chance to help people. I’m constantly aware that as a diabetic in sport I serve as an example to kids who, like me, are told what they can’t do, not what they can. If only for that reason and not for the many other reasons I have and haven’t given. I’m going to do everything I’m told. And heal as fast as I know I can ride, that way the awesomeness can continue in 2012.

On the more positive side this gives me more time to work on the team traveler project for 2012, although it does seem like free money is hard to come by in a recession. I think time will prove that the market has substantially undervalued our awesomeness. In fact, in a recession the awesomeness necessity quotient (ANQ) is in direct negative correlation to the unemp0oyment rate, so the more people who lose their jobs, the more they NEED men in lycra to come to the rescue. This theory has a pretty strong empirical basis, I mean batman and spiderman didn’t hang about in suburban LA did they? Nope. Grotty urban decay necessitates fast men in lycra. Strangely I’m struggling to find anyone who backs my ANQ theory, or agrees that the 21st century FDR wears zebra print skinsuits, but I see this as a work in progress. Opinions are formed over a lifetime and cannot be changed overnight.

So there’s an awful lot up in the air, I’ll update more when I know more. Any tips on battling the bulge are welcome. Right now I’m off to my little sister’s birthday party via the garden centre. I’ve decided to begin the offseason dressed as Bill (of Bill and Ben the flowerpot men fame) and I need a hat.

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

In pain on a plane

2011-10-04T08:20:00.001-07:00

Well I'm on a plane again, earlier than expected and less comfortable. I'm coming back after the uci race in Tobago. I haven't been riding very well for various reasons, some of which it wouldn't be very professional to go into on a public site. While I was away my Sugar management wast always optimal, often this was my fault. I always tell kids with diabetes to take control of their own situation nd never rely on threes who will never fully understand "your" condition I was guilty of ignoring my own advice.

I was also guilty of ignoring the tips I give to beginner cyclists, chiefly listen to your body, don't brake in the middle of a turn, don't attack in the first k of a long race and don't make a prick out of yourself descending in the wet. I'd been feeling pants all week, coming down twice didn't help but I was riding at the back where it's sketchy as I didn't feel like my left side had any connection to push through.

In the uci race on Sunday I marked a very early move ad went way to deep for my bad legs. Come the first long climb I was lathered lactate and paying off my oxygen debt. I tried to float but guys were loosing wheels left right and center I ended up going full gas to stay within sight of the caravan, and descending like a nutcase to get back on. Eventually I paid the price for taking risks and went sideways across a corner, I kept it up but my back was in agony. My whole left side seized up in a familiar pain. In 2005 I herniated a disk rowing at Oxford and this felt like the early stages of that injury, I rode around to get finish but back at the end I couldn't even swing my leg over the bike!

Now I must say the beautiful corse and wonderful people of Tobago made this suffering about as pleasurable as was possible. The 2k 23% climb and 3000m of climbing and descending did not! As for the mudslides, off road sections,goats, chickens and cows well,variety is the spice of life.

Talking of spice the food was really impressive. I'm a devotee of saltfish buljol (especially with bake) and just about anything made with coconut. And i can honestly say I've never even seen some of the fruit on offer. I've also eaten far far too many bad pb and guava "jam" sandwiches when in a country with such great fresh seafood and fruit. A great part of traveling is trying new food so stocking up on basics which are neither that healthy nor that unique always seems a shame. That said when you can eat your fill you shouldn't ever complain. Lots of people can't.

Last night I sank a few beers, listened to some steel band music and reflected on an enjoyable I'd slightly hectic trip. Though about the future and the past. Later I spent some time with Ronnie who might just be the best driver and mechanic ive ever met. When I get flustered I make a knob of myself, I've never met someone who more exuded calm and warmth. I was exuding warmth from the inside as we shared a glass of rum before I left!

Today I rode in the back of a pick up truck to a boat to a bus to another pick up to a rum shop, a velodrome and an airplane to take me home.

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Piarco airport

criteriums, doping and the tolpuddle martyrs

2011-09-17T09:59:00.000-07:00

Well today i managed to bury my pedal in a 180 corner, end my race and completely screw up the calibration on my SRM. In my opinion the course was dangerous. a speedbump, a 180 turn and then back over the same speedbump. it wasn't about who was strongest but who got unlucky and got the course tape blown into their front wheel or happened to hit the lip of the gutter wrong. I chased like a prick for ages but never got back on. I'd been at the back on the first lap and after a couple of vueltas one member of the biggest and best team in the race took it upon himself to eliminate himself and all the riders behind him. i got back but it cost me all my pennies to do so.

I've raced 2 such criteriums in the past two weeks and the same guy has won both, this would be acceptable if he was a monster sprinter but he's not. he won both with a HUGE gap on the field. It's embarassing for everyone, if he's really that strong he should be racing the pro tour. now this would be ok if i hadn't overheard riders before the race discussing "4mg of that one 100mg of that one" etc. now it's possible that they were talking caffeine, electrolytes or glucose but it's also possible that they weren't.

the problem isn't with the individuals, the people doping or the course designer who is doing his best given a limioted budget and little help from the police or the town hall. I know the organiser and he is a great guy, he has a diabetic kid. He's incredibly kind, he does his best to help people pay to get to races and to put on a good show with good prize money. his races are fun, people come out to watch and to ride. The problem is with us as riders. Quite simply what we need to do is grow a pair and assert ourselves.

When someone laps the field two weeks in a row we need to ask how that's happening. if it's because we all ride like 5th cat muppets then that's one issue but if he's climbing at 600w over and over then we need to ask how. If the races were doing continue to be abandoned due to the failure of the federation or the government to support them then again we need to make our voices heard. Not so long ago i'm pretty sure riders would've sat down and demanded a safer course. Either before the race with the police or even on the start line. Now we're happy to race at all as more and more of the road races here are abandoned in favour of urban circuits.

The problem is one of initiation, just like the intial trade unionists what we need is martyrs. If you've been reading this for a while you'll have noticed that i haven't exactly enjoyed the best employer-employee relations with my former team. If i was unionised they wouldn't be able to do that. It's happened to bigger boys than me as well. Trent Lowe suffered at the hands of the argyle clad lie that is Garmin. Radioshack and Leopard trek seem to intent on merging despite the fact that they will have to terminate the contracts of riders who thought they had secure jobs. I can still remeber the pedaltech and linda mcartney sagas from years back. In short riders are the proletariat in this sport and while we continue to act in a disparate and divided manner we'll continue to be treated as the lowest of the low and people will continue to take advantage of us.

If you ask most of the fans, or peopel at the UCI what the major problem is with this sport they'll talk about doping, but i would contend that this is a symptom and not a cuase. The moment we unite and give a big f**k off to the people cheating in our sport, we'll be able to deal with doping. Only when it becomes the case that lower tier professionals are not over-raced, over travelled and under paid will it become the case that doping does not make economic sense for those "small fish" just looking to feed their families and pay their mortgages. When cyclists don't have to sacrifice an education, and a pension. When professional cycling has a before and after, then maybe riders will be more inclined to look into the future and see the costs of doping. right now, all they see is the present and the short term benefits are undeniable. especially when you have a wife, two children, a mountain of debt and no other job prospects since all you've done since you left school at 16 is pedal around.

I'm sorry if this comes across as ingratitude, i cannot stress enough how much i appreciate those people who put on races. I make an effort to thank the organiser personally every single time i pin on a number. you wouldn't go to a dinner party without writing a thank you letter (i hope) and this is the same gig, just more lycra and fewer candles. SO i'm not ungrateful but I am angry, i'm quite willing to be shipped to the proverbial penbal colonies like the tolpuddle martyrs to make my point clear. I'm lucky, i have job prospects outside this sport and those are where i will ultimatley find myself in years to come. but it takes a lot more than one distinctly average cyclist to make a difference, it takes a critical mass of riders to unite and to refuse to be exploited. Much like the most lumpen of proletariats we have nothing to generate income but our bodies and without unity we're worthless. If we can show unity we can put an end to the necessity of doping in the lower ranks and to those who practice a different form of doping, those for whom doping isnt about survival or paying th ebills but about winning, and when its about winning, then it is cheating. We need to stand up to the cheats, to those who make a profit from the suffering of others and to those prepared to sacrifice indivuals for their own ends. Indeed one might say "cyclists of the world unite, you have nothing to loose but your chains".

niche marketing

2011-09-11T10:48:00.000-07:00

just dusted this one off from from the ipod archives!

It's become something of a trend that I write blogs on planes. Normally this is for lack of anything better todo but that's not the case today, because today boys and girls I got on the plane and turned left. It's a pretty small chunk of people who get to do that, ever, so thank you omnipod.

It also got me reflecting on the niches which some of us occupy in this sport. I mean some riders show an extraordinary capacity to do it all, and to be sure even the biggest sprinter can probably climb faster than you. but still for a sport which itself occupies a small area of the world of sports.

Racing in Belgium has made it abundantly clear to me that months of mountaineering in thirty plus degree weather and eighty plus degree humidity in Spain make you good at climbing mountains in the heat and don't serve as preparation for riding on the cobbles in the rain. Breaking your ribs also doesn't help!

Our sport takes in a huge variety of climates, disciplines and specialities. Not just in the racing sphere either. You can rise sportives, time trials, social rides, on road, off road. Sprint races, climbing races, long or short, hot or cold, day or night.

Different race are approached in different ways as well. The Americans tend to flow trough the corners, French nocturnes are much the same whilst the Belgians will slam on the anchors and then sprint out like they're running from a bull. This makes the back of a kermesse a savage place to be. In Belgium the first and second laps are the fastest, after 30 minutes half the race has been pulled and The break has rolled. By contrast the anglophones tend to roll into things with a more civil start.

Obviously this gives us the classic cliche that there's something for everyone. But it also means that the further you go down your little branch of the river the harder it is to paddle back out. You have to change your weight, your bike set up, your diet and nutrition (and in my case glucose control). Spain seems to be a pretty deep channel, just watch the vuelta when it ventures north of the Pyrenees. There seems to be a unique species of skinny and somewhat sketchy climber which I can fit into very nicely. A little Bit like this business class bed.

So now finding myself in belgium, battered and bruised. Changing my saddle has helped a lot but changing my legs will take a bit longer. Even the doctor told me that at70kg and 190cm I'm not built for the Benelux. But with some hard work and a couple of weeks behind the derny and racing the kermesses I can at least turn some cash.

So find your niche by all means but realize that the further down the branch you swing the harder it is to get back to another branch but to get to the top of. The tree, that's what you have to do.

Beans, bikes and brain training

2011-08-31T13:44:00.001-07:00

Well I rode 190km today, not hugely unusual but it did take us nearly 7 hours. And we stopped for lunch and we talked a lot and we didn't go hard and we waited for everyone at the top of the climbs.

The funny thing was this was the perfect ride for me today, exactly what I needed. I was surrounded by the people who'd been about when I first emerged on the cycling scene as a skinny yoof with no idea what I was doing. These guys taught me how to fix a puncture, how to drink on the bike, how when and what to eat. What to wear and how to wear it ( apart from our hideous dayglo yellow team kits which looked more like we were digging up the roads than racing on them). They're all different ages, classes, genders (well I suppose there are fewer varieties of gender and we didn't have any trans gender riders so technically not ALL) and backgrounds and all we share is a real pleasure in rising our bikes. Some of us are elite bike racers, others are just cyclotourists and I'm pretty sure some of the latter ride more than the former. Mark said he'd done 300 miles in three days this week and he's been doing that kind of nonesense for longer than I've been alive! I hope I can knock out that kind of mileage in my retirement!

Now I'm not suggesting you stop for beans on toast on every ride, or average 150w but sometimes your head is more important than your legs and getting your head fit takes more than intervals. You need to recall WHY you love riding your bike and how much fun it is riding roads you don't know with people you do.

But seriously the beans on toast are massively underrated, I was stomping on the way home!

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Most of Shropshire and a little bit of wales

Break time in brussels

2011-08-21T12:24:00.001-07:00

With a fair amount of racing behind me and an ever increasing amount of fatigue in my legs I've been enjoying a week of taking it fairly easy. I'm not quite sure what's up but u seem to have lost anything vaguely resembling a jump or indeed anything looking like someone dressed up as an anaerobic effort for a sports science themed dressing up do. Yup it's that bad.

My initial response was to train more but that didn't work so I've enjoyed a week(ish) with mum in belgium, riding a couple of hours each day and enjoying a bit of culture, museums and food. And sleep, can't beat a good sleep.

I've eaten frites, drunk beer and even eaten chocolate. I can report that all are very good especially the beer!any tips on personal favorites are welcome, but don't say duvel. That's like saying your a connoisseur of fine wine because you drink the four dollar bottles not two buck chuck!

I really enjoyed the centrum ronde van vlaanderen, the belgians really do museums very well and this one obviously hit on a favorite subject. I also dominated the wattbike "cobbles simulator" let me tell you, it was bumpy but the watt bike is neither cold nor wet nor will it push you into a ditch. Anyway the cobbles are okay, it's the missing cobbles which get you.

In other news, new delicacies discovered include carbonnade which is possibly my favorite Belgian meal, and sirop de liege which is a delicious apple,date and pear jam. Waffles are still good, real cream is still better, horse is surprisingly yummy and very lean and Belgium has maple syrup at breakfast buffets unlike canada. Oh and the little crispy sprinkles they have at the buffet, they're for your nutella sandwich but they go well on yogurt.

And now for the Debbie downer; I've been doing lots of museuming and history in Belgium isn't all waffles and beer.

I want to reflect a bit on the tough deal Belgium has had over the years, I mean this poor nation(or nations) has been where the rest of Europe has come to sort out it's squabbles for centuries. With my host family I've found some rather grim souvenirs in the garden, it strikes me as utterly insane that where we sit relaxed and enjoying our beers today, people have been dying for centuries and indeed many of them haven't moves since they took their last breaths in a country which wasn't even their own. I know you've heard it all before but why on earth do we try to prove who should rule whom and who is right about what by demonstrating who can more effectively slaughter young men? Surely the opposite should be the case.

We've raced through graveyards and battlefields in the last few weeks and sitting down to think about how most of the guys in the peloton would've been older than everyone in the ground around them. Having been to Waterloo, passendale, dunkerque and even passed by the eu court of human rights I am given to wondering, if insanity is defined as doing the same thing expecting a different outcome, when are we going to abandon such mass lunacy?

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Galavanting about in Belgium

Rituals and cocktails

2011-08-10T23:34:00.001-07:00

The changing room before a kermis is a fascinating place to be. I sit there 4-5 times a week but it's never really occurred to me to take a good look around before; everyone has their own little pre -race ritual. It's like a hundred liturgies each with a different means to the same end.

To one side there might be a guy pinning his number 17 times and folding it like an origami artist. Another fastidiously checks His jersey pockets and mutters to himself "twee gel, waffel" and the little pill which triggers a furtive glance every time he pulls it out to check it's there. Someone else pits chamois cream on his shorts. Another takes his shorts from a supporter already lubricated and slips them on before going outside, base layer on and shorts rolled up to to his groin. He sits in a folding chair while the same supporter applies embro like she's about to send him sliding down a chimney.

I'm the same, i get to the race and make my bottles; flat coke. No money for mix any more. I drop a lemon magnesium tablet in each and a paracetamol in one if i feel sick. I will have eaten 4 hours out, maybe 3. Bread, ham, and fruit. Many eat plain pasta or even pasta with sugar! If it's been more than 3 hours I eat a rijstart wen I get to the race. And I get in an early trip to the toilet, before it looks and smells like pasendale.

I usually mix Vaseline aloe vera and litocane to make a chamois cream, pit my chamois and base layer on before the embro (that's important, try it the other way around and you'll see that it's not just a superstition). Check bloodsugar, im always checking. Everyone looks but i dont care, nobody talks. Then i put on armwarmers and check my jersey pockets.

I pull out a big bag of dex 4 and work out the distance of the race, divided by 40. It's never slower than 40. Then I multiply that number by 60 and that's my carbs. Plus an extra dex for emergencies.

Next I put the long sleeve on and shoes and gloves, select my sunglasses and ride to the sign on. Pay my euros and get my number. Pin it on, I'm not that fussy. And drink a redbull (45 mins out, thats how long it takes to hit) I put the race jersey under the long sleeve and ride the course, first lap to look for holes and tight parts. A few sprints. Second lap high cadence efforts. Check again, correct if I need to. Still 25 minutes, time enough to make corrections.

Then it's back to the start, others do it differently some are loud and chatty, others like Thom yorke. After the caffeine hits anemone done my efforts I'm more gregarious, less nervous.

Then to the start. I nine up in the middle near the front and hope we get off on time. Hand off my coat to dernytrainer eddy or janneke at the last minute. Nod at my friends. Cross myself (always, don't know why) and check if my shoe cover is covering the cleat. Some guys clip in and grab the rail. Others stand in front of the line and form a new "line" bastards.

I clean my shades, take a puff on my inhaler and do some light meditation. The guy next to me slaps his legs. Another idly toys with the lucky charm hanging from his saddle. I try to see who's sketchy and look for a good wheel. I look what gear everyone is in, the right gear is the same gear, if they have 53-11 then so should I. Someone kisses his wife. Someone else spits on the floor.

I reset the srm and when the whistle blows. And after two hours if pre-ritual of caffeine and sugar and embro and pills and nerves. Then we start bike racing.

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Kleedkammers

The several ps

2011-08-08T13:43:00.001-07:00

https://m.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fvimeo.com%2F27376337&h=6AQBfduV2&refid=7

Proper prior preparation prevents piss poor performance, right

So I went out training on Saturday and 2 hours into a tempo ride I bumped into a race. I was going to watch but peer pressure from te nice old lady who hands me bidons sometimes Persuaded me to pin on a dossard.

Fully expecting to get dropped I set off with one can of coke in a bottle, a jersey with didn't match my knicks and made it to a bakery just in time to pound a rijstart on the line.

For reasons best known to myself I didn't get dropped as fast as I'd hoped, despite my frame pump and saddlebag. Thus I found myself 100k later with nearly five hours on the clock begging jelly smurfs off the other riders as it started to hail.

In the video I'm the only guy in kneewarmers; thats a sin in Belgium but I think the saddlebag marked me out as a rank outsider anyway, Floyd would've been proud.

To top it all off I got lost on the way home, and all I got for the whole 220 k funfest was a waffle!

And yes the Belgian team I'm riding for has a beer sponsor, other major supporters are euro premium dog food (my favorite canine cuisine) and a cabbage grower ( mmmmm cabbage).

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Fun in the sun

2011-08-03T08:39:00.001-07:00

I woke up his morning after a holiday weekend. My head was thumping, there was a tattoo on my arm and my mouth was bone dry. The tv hurt my eyes wig Its images of a carnival which I had somewhat unwittingly got involved in on Saturday and bottles covered the hotel room floor.

Rather than a bout of rocketed excess I was recovering from my trademark dehydration and heatstroke and a great weekend at cwd Toronto. I love working with children with diabetes. Nobody should have to stop doing what they want because their pancreas is lazy. And if it takes me to prove that my insulin pump is waterproof sweatproof bullproof and Tarmac impact tested then I'm happy to help.

The omnipod team in Canada really impressed me, great people and a grey attitude and balance. Their office gym and cafe were outstanding and they really seemed like a happy and motivated team. I can't ever see myself desk jockeying but if I do I hope it's somewhere like this.

I managed to get ina quick spin whilst I was in toronto. I rode over to the cn tower and along the lakefront. Sadly some phallus of cn tower proportions had removed the tape marking my position but the guys at wheels of bloor helped me get it back, thanks. A Nys inspired barrier hop on te way back found me surrounded by spandex, sadly not a ride but a parade. I did get some odd looks but I want the one with a flamingo on my head.

We ate some fantastic food, lees. Fusion food provided a highlight without doubt the beat slaw and possibly the best peanut and chocolate dessert ( a subject on which I could be considered an expert) but my best memories are from sitting down with little kiddies as they totted up the carbs in their lunches and decorated their pods.

And mum and gran, you can breathe again; the tattoo was a transfer from one of the children .

Location:Toronto, the town with the tower that looks phallic enough to get it fired

Fun in the sun part 2, the not so fun part

2011-08-03T08:30:00.001-07:00

It always amuses me to reflect on place names when I race, the other day as I hacked up my lungs in between the bunch and break in boezinge along a course which passes the Ypres canal it occurred that I was literally and metaphorically in no man's land.

Mondays race here in canada was in terra cotta, which means bake earth and I managed to end up truly baked. This was a pretty interesting race, no uci regulations and a huge number of starters. Needless to say it was full gas first lap to get rid of the muppets and countless people managed to lay it down. A brief batboy cyclocross action helped to avoid one sutch sketchfest and it wasn't until 20k later that I realized it had cost me my bottles.

Heat index was 41 degrees c and I had already ridden 40k to get there and had 104k to go and one bottle. I'd set up my pod to cut my basal two hours before the race but riding out there I left two hours before so insulin on board might have been a little high. Normally I'd snack before racing but the heat killed my hunger. The feedzone had plain water in plastic bottles but I wasn't getting one each lap, the riding was well out of line and passing lapped riders made the feed a pretty unsafe place.

After not drinking mix I predictably began to go low, reaching into my pocket for dex i grabbed a pack, and went to rip off the tab, but there wasn't one, I stuffed it back into my shorts and grabbed another, same thing. So now I had no sugar and no electrolytes. I tried to grab something in the feed justvas some kid uses his face to slow down. Closing the gap was not what I needed at that point. A gel and a wheel and I'd have recovered but sometimes it's not meant to be.

I started swinging and missed the break. I shouted for a Coke and some kind soul hooked me up but it was 30ks too late. I finished at 6mmol or about 104 after a dex 4 which Tracey from gsk handed up and a Gatorade. So I was most likely about 2-3 mmol or 60 for a good 45 mins. Good enough for 8th in the 20-29 race and some nasty arsenal stress. Pity there wasn't a bottle cage prime....

That night things got bad. I felt dire incredible cramps in ever part of my body. We went out to dinner and I threw up. I couldn't move as my muscles wouldn't respond. I was desperately looking for anything with salts, but nothing stayed down. Later I managed a drink of magnesium and some vitamin c mix, and some pretzels. My body had gone pretty deep to ride out the hypo and the dehydration. Sine te race I'd had three crashes and put away almost 40g of sugar to get out of each, and barely bolused. I was running on empty.

Jeff from gsk took me to his house, we sat down (well i flopped down like a wet fish) on his sofa and chilled out like old friends. Such a kind guy, we'd only met that day and here he was feeding me dry toast!

Anyway I managed to get to sleep and woke up ravenous, luckily I could go to town on he hotel buffet, and copious amount of salt!

Just another part of the world to nearly die in!

Location:Terra cotta, quite literally baked earth

Broken in Belgium

2011-07-31T18:03:00.001-07:00

Well I'm back in Belgium and predictably it's raining. I've been racing but without much luck the casteen and the broken ribs dont get on very vell, neither do poncy Light saddles and the above. So today I'm taking a rest, belgificiating my bike ( back to the San Marco regale saddle, there are some positives to not being sponsored) and later I'm going to enjoy a fine geuze from the bierwinkel in wevelgem.

I'm very content here, living with my family is great, they look after me wonderfully and it's really nice to be back in the nourishing family home environment. It's also good to have someone else to tape up your ribs!

I've been sampling the finest of Belgian cuisine, frogs legs and mashed potatoes with soured milk were a new ( and yummy) experience. I'm trying to steer clear of the frites but rijstarts, grillettes and speculoos as well as the manifold waffle variations have made a showing. I've also become a regular at the bier winkel (bierwinkel.be) where they're educating me in the geuze, lambic and Trappist ales.

A trip to the doc recently revealed some blood issues again, so I'm having a bit of a rest and traveling business class (yeah baby) to cwd in Canada. I'm really looking forward to cwd, I love seeing kids with diabetes. Nobody should have to be told to stop doing what they love and I like the feeling that I can help in a small way in empowering and helping them.

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

SO WHEN YOU SEE A BULL, DON'T LEAN FORWARD TO GET A BETTER LOOK

2011-07-17T13:38:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDIm5pjvydQ&feature=related

racing without ribs

2011-07-17T10:23:00.000-07:00

well the last few days have just been one big adventure; the day after my tango with the torro. i decided to race, my legs felt good but i lasted a couple of laps before leaning on some guy into a corner and nealry passing out with pain. That was a bit of a waste of everyone's time really. should have spent all day in bed.

However Friday provided considerably more entertainment. Cynthia and I drove up to France to catch the tour at Lourdes. Using my newfound ability to negotiatate the labyrinthine ffc webpage i found a nocturne a mere 31 k away and decided that, after watching thour thunder home i would go and repeat the process. I mounted up and began following signs to the race (big thanks to the TDF commisairre in the red car who gave me a tow while he informed me we were going the wrong way....). Anyway from my riding to the race expereince i can reveal another of my "top tips" you might want to check the elevation, yes it was 31k but OVER THE BLOODY PYRENNEES. I arrived about 10 min before the race, the backpack was not helping my ribs and ai was already battered. Thankfully they let me sign on and pinned on my number as everyone lined up. and then made a big fuss of anouncing just about everything i've ever done on a bike.

Once the race got going it became clear i was going to put in a pretty underwhelming performance. the painkiller had rendered me totally useless, i felt like i was on dope, i saw the race going on but didn't care. anything about a mighty 400w seemed like too much effort and os i just sat at the back being pants. My one move was foiled by a stack in a dropped group and an ambulance awaiting me around a blind corner. Saldy not everyone obeyed the black flag and somehow a break went and lapped the field while we were neutral, tres francais...

after the rave i grabbed my backpack and started to head back to lourdes. Being careful to mount my two knogs, i'm not sure why i bothered. One led isn't really going to do bugger all at 11pm in the pyrenees. Then i proceeded to flat, change the tyre using the light on my ipod and a qr lever to take the tyre off (and if you thought you knew pain, try pumping a tyre up with 2 broken ribs). Climbing and descending a col in the pitch black is very peaceful, meditative and also TOTALLY FUCKING PETRIFYING.

somehow i made it back to Lourdes in one piece (or two pieces if you count my internal cracks). spent ages mincing about and eventually found the hotel, where they didn't have the key. Eventually iwas let into the room and showered before realising all my clothes were with cynthia in the car. A call to recpetion saw the wifi passcode sent up, not by room service but by two elderly women who happened to be in the room next door. Me clad in a towel was perhaps not the pearly white vision they expected in Lourdes....

having dressed and eatena 1am dinner, slept and caught the start of the Tour stage i dropped off cynthia and headed to Narbonne. I grabbed a room in the cheapest hotel in town (that's how i roll) took a nap, woke up, ate my bodyweight in bread and nutella and headed out to race again at 9pm. I'll save the race report for another day but suffice it to say that your skin isn't as effective as Dura Ace brakes at slowing you down...... but i'm more balanced now, left hand ribs broken right hand road rash

Denia Kebab

2011-07-14T02:26:00.001-07:00

Well I'm sitting in a Spanish hospital again, I came here in an ambulance. There's a hole in the front of my shirt and another in the back, two centimeters to the left and I'd have a corresponding hole in my chest.

We decided to Go and see the bous a la mar in denia and one there I was stood on a box inthe middle of the burig watching the spectacle. The bull ran around a bit but nobody got Hurt. It ran towards the box but veered away. Cut a long story short the bull minutes the box, and when it left it propelled me, like a ragdoll onto the ground, I curled up into a ball and it kicked me but then moved on. I landed pretty hard on my head, got a fright I won't forget and a scar I can show off.

I was pretty lucky, once I was ib the first I'd building they patched me up and then suddenly the door swung open and I saw a young girl covered in blood with the most terrible fear in her eyes. The first aid guy shouted "shit shit she's going to die" I stumbled out of the door to get away, feeling really dizzy I fell over. A couple of guys helped me and a kind policeman came and kicked me and told me this was no place for drunks, the red cross volunteer gave the policeman a forceful slap, he policeman gave me a dirty look and moved on.

I kept feeling dizzy and falling over but with my cgm torn off and my bag in the medic room it didn't occur to test until someone gave me some sugar and I felt a lot better.

Anyway I've had a spinal X-ray and I seem to have two broken ribs but they may have been broken before. My neck hurts and I'm bruised all over but I can't stop thinking about that girl.today I cane 2cm from death and all I lost was my shoes ( which are somewhere in the bullring)

I'm the luckiest boy who ever broke two ribs

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Denia hospital

road food, eurostyle

2011-07-09T12:24:00.000-07:00

rapid post while i await an interview phone call; Unlike the USA Europe isn't carpeted with Wendy's outlet's and other stores selling pureed cow and with enough lights to guid ein an UFO. Indeed, most food shops shut at 8, and earlier on Saturday, and all day sunday. So as a bike racer the option of "stopping off at a taco shop" isn't really avaliable. As a poor bike racer, the option of noshing in restraunts isn't really on the cards on a daily basis either. So what exactly does one do to keep a decent diet whilst travelling.

First of all it should be noted that here bread is something of a religion, it must be bought fresh, daily. most bakeries bake morning and afternoon loaves and there are always 3 or 4 options. I favour the open-structured mediterranian baguette, or the campagne in France. This forms the basis for about everything I eat on the road.

secondly you've got your canned products, unlike in the US these are often from old, established artisan firms. If you follow my twitter you'll notice that i nosh on a LOT of sardines, they're healthy, cheap and yuumy. They come in olive oil with lemon, or herbs or in tomato sauce, or escabeche. On top of this i'm a big fan of ratatouille (or courgette provencale) which you can heat up in the microwave at formule 1 motels (about the only thing they have going for them). And i always tote my olive oil from Cambrils as my flatmate religiously insists it is the best in the world. I also pack dried ham (jamon pais or serrano) for the same sarnies.

Thirdly you have fruit and veg, which are not only incredibly cheap but incredibly good and fresh. My local fruiteria currenlty carries 5 types of tomatoes each with a specific role in life.

then you've got race food; limited by financial considerations i'm a big fan of flat coke, pates de fruits (kind of like massive, fruit flavoured haribo goodies), peanut flavoured gels which i have discoverfed and fallen in love with at decathalon. in longer races i pack small brioches with nutella or jam and even small apple flans or brioches de poche which come in handy individual packets. I'm not averse to Carambars either

As nocturnes often finish after 11pm dinner often consists of these staples, hastily guzzled on the way to the next campsite. Breakfast is nearly always the offer in a cafe or bar; coffee with a pastry or mini-entrepan (my favoured combo being a cafe llarg with a mini of pernil pais or truita) and lunch being more of the aforementioned bread with local fruit and ham (i always try to eat 3-4 hours before the race so oftne i have two "lunches" and forgoe the traditional siesta-inducing midday meal). Melons are incredible in the south of France at the moment so i enjoy those. In Spain i'm all about local peaches and cherries.

When travelling one should note that the French make inferior sandwiches; jambon Beurre being the classic example, still ten times better than your average british fare but i much prefer the spanish dry ham and olive oil to the french sweet ham and butter. The aforementioned butter does make for some fantastic croissants and i do appreciatte their differentiation between sweet and salty vehicles for dairy fat. Often breakfast at hotels is just baguette and butter (if the hotelier has taken pity on you and is giving it to you for free).

I really appreciate that all over southern europe everythign is homemade real food. made in front of you,with ingredients you can pronounce, not frozen, not microwaved, not picture perfect but perfectly tasty. Eating from the Menu gives not only a cheap but a tasty insight into local cuisine, "menus" change each day and are printed or written on a board in the window, they gauruntee 3 courses for about 8 or 9 euros including bread, dessert and a glass of wine and offer what is fresh, local, tasty and traditional. If you're in Rome (or just about anywhere else) do as the romans do and enjoy the menu del dia (or plat de jour) at lunch.

And finally don't ever let the frenchies fool you that they are immune to the delights of fast food. Get yourslef to a "McDo" on a sunday lunch time and watch the buggers line up to chow down. True, french McDonalds have plates and cutlery but still - jose bove would not approve mes amis.

Bon Profit
James

monday night in miracle-town

2011-07-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

last night was the Nocturne Lourdes. Nocturnes are pretty much a french peculiarity, you start at 8.30 and race about 90k. I don't like nocturnes, you spin in the morning, spend the whole day not feeling like eating and worrying about tiring yourself out. I took the chance to go and visit most of the lourdes "attractions" and purchase some food for lunch. I also took the chance to buy an opinel penknife which i have wanted since i was 8, my parents wouldnt let me have one then as they thought it was too dangerous. Now i am obviously 200% older and wiser so i invested 8 euros in such a knife. and within 3 hours i was getting adhesive stitches in my finger....

anyway back to the race, pretty French again i'm afraid. I turned up and had spent the whole day faxing and emailing FFC who had contacted the commisairre to let him know i COULD race. so on presenting my licence i was surprised ot be told to sit down and wait for my dossard while all the local riders warmed up. Apparenlty we had to await the commisairres arrival. I asked if i could warm up and come back. No. because when the commisairre came he would take the sign on list and i would be too late. So why did i have to wait if i couldnt sign on after he came? Just wait there..... I'm not one for national character excuses and i have many french friends but french cyclists can be pricks!

so I sat there and embrocated, the comm turned up with about 15 mins to the start and i pinned on a dossard and rapidly got in a few tours before the off. once we got going it was pretty solid stuff, mid 40s speed wise, a lap of 1.5km, a pretty stiff berg of about 50m but enough to warrant a 500-600w effort every lap. My french hotelier had stationed himself here and later informed me of his disappointment that we seemed to be circulating quite slowly....

after familiarising myself with the assorted roundabouts and potholes between which we were attempting to cycle i Decided to attempt something approaching a bit of animation. And it rapidly became clear that i had a cheese chewing shadow. The local boys weren't letting me get away which is entirely understandable as they had no idea how strong or otherwise i might be. Anyway once it was clear i wasnt getting off the front i settled into the pack in the top 20 and proceeded to get really angry at a French rider now known as monsieur le guillotine thanks t his wheel chopping. Occasional forays off the front and sprints for primes took up the first hour wihtout incident. With about 30k to go it started getting pretty seriously dark, with about 15k to go it was pitch black. Some friendly soul had installed a slow strobe on the apex of the roundabout entry barrier, just slow enough that at 50kph you don't quite see it until it Jumps out at you, giving the race a whole new level of twitchyness. I fumbled my sunglasses into my helmet, slammed a final gel and hopped up onto the curb to move up.

10 tours now and local has decided to stand on the backside of the course, waving his umbrella onto the racing line. we're lined out, full gas and the next lap he damn near eats carbon. he's still there with 8 to go and my smart idea to discard my bidon towards his face seems to have been shared by about 10 other riders. Under a hail of plastic and sugar, he retreats. 7 to go now and a few guys are off the front. 2 riders in front of me blow up, punches fly and they manage to eliminate each other without getting in anyone elses way. phew. i'm all out of flat coke, i cant see a thing and my sugars are low, reactions are slow and the camera flashes are causing me to jump.

5 to go and the group is within spitting distance, i'm on the front flapping my arm like a crazy fool but nobody will come through so i tow a few guys over. To compound matters the hotelier is looking at his watch, he told me at 11 he would lock the door. 3 to go and it's all together. Hotelier has buggered off to lock me out. I'm sixth wheel and coming to the line i make an uncharachteristic and suprisingly succesful kick, enough for sprint points but not enough points to take the cash, bummer. after the effort i slip too far back. the group spreads out and holes are hard to find. 1 to go and i'm moving up the gutter when mnsr le guillotine appears from the right, rapidly traversing the road and intent on connecting with my steering. i bounce him off, loose speed, loose position and swear. It's too late, the kick is a shitstorm anyway, someone's pulled out of both his pedals and neutered himself on his top tube. Oh well, we're in lourdes, he can be more catholic now; no need for a condom.

with the race over the announcer grabs me for a few words on the microphone, i thank the people for watching and try my best to tell them a bit about diabetes in French. Then i grab my rucksack and return my dossard, get my licence and smack it back to the hotel just in time to wait half an hour for him to finish dinner and let me take my car out.

I drive for an hour, the GPS takes me on and off the toll road, they try to charge me 47 euros for the privelege of exiting at the same place i entered. at this point im starting to feel really low and really, really ill. I ask nicely and they let me off. I pull over after 45 mins of searching for petrol and vomit, force down food and realise i havent eaten anything but bread and 2 ham slices all day. i am suddenly ravenous, i eat some chocolate and another sandwich. Then, i start driving again, the detour has cost me an hour and i cant get more petrol as my card is frozen so i head for the border and the nation where i feel at home. I made it back at 2am, drove a bit further over the beautiful pyreness and pulled over at 3am. i slept fitfully atop the pyrenees for two hours as the wind shook my car violently and i woke bursting for a pee. ONly to find i'd locked myslef in the car and lost the key. Smart. mad scramble/ panic ensues, i find the bottle and get out and make it about 2 feet from the car before remembering not to literally piss inot the (glae force) wind.

i made it back at 8am, was about to get to sleep when my phone went mental, apparenlty i'm in el pais. Something about a t-shirt....

Lourding it up

2011-07-04T05:11:00.001-07:00

After yesterday's basqueland battering ( by the way is a hotdog course in the basqueland a xorizo course? It was certainly spicy...) I've made it to Lourdes.

The number of hotels in Lourdes is insane, and after the tent and the little passengers who seem to ha e joined my adventure since sleeping on the gravel by the aide of the road i decided to shell out for a shower and sleep.

Turns out the hotelier likes to ride, he gave me a look at his cofidis edition look and provided to ask how I would prepare for the race, I said I wanted to get a good sleep and I'd have a coffee beforehand. He laughed. Since then they've been trying to catch medoping I think the Insulin I took with breakfast seemed too obvious.

Lourdes is a fascinating town. Wikipedia
Should familiarize the uninitiated but what it doesn't tell you is that this town is a cross between blackpool and Sarasota. They are huge amounts of tacky souvenir shops albeit kiss me quick hats are replaced with rosaries and crucifixes. Hundreds of empty hotels and resteraunts tote their wares and roaming groups of tourists following umbrella (or ikon) wielding guides prowl the streets. Meanwhile down by the cave concession stands battle with groups of nuns getting their photo snapped and scenes resembling a traffic jam in a Hospital as hundreds of very unwell people are wheeled into the cave. I hope they et better but I couldn't find anything approaching peace or healing amidst the virgin Mary cigarette lighters and saint Bernadette penknives. But maybe I lack the faith to see.....

Anyway I've bought some ham after three days of canned sardines and a very unsatisfactory dinner of bread and prunes. Time to get my lunch on; jambon beurre et fromage chevre
-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Lourdes

Up and down

2011-06-29T11:22:00.001-07:00

Up and down

As I write this a procession is marching past, headed up by 15 fife players, there are about 50 drummers (it’s easy to count as they are in lines of 5), there is one lady (the recently elected neighbourhood queen) and following her are 49 men with muskets, they all wear white shirts and red berets with matching neckerchiefs. On the extreme left of the back row there is aman also sporting the uniform however over his shoulder there is what is quite clearly not a musket, it is in fact an air rifle. The global economic crisis has hit new lows here in Irun.

Today I raced the Clasica Irunes, one of the Basqueland’s bigger races. 130km in one circuit, mountain passes, the whole shebang. Having turned up at the club hq not the race HQ I was driven to the start by the club president, presented with a coffee and croissant and generally treated with the best of Basque hospitality. Being as it was bouncing it down with rain I commenced embrocating and showing off my plastic gloves (which I pilfer from petrol stations). It’s somewhat disheartening when every other team has not just a car but a BUS, and you have a backpack but oh well. I tucked an extra bidon down my jersey and checked my sugars before heading off into battle. The crowds were pretty solid for a rainy Wednesday and we rolled through the middle of town as most civilized people were rolling out of bed following a night of uncivilized fiesta.

Ten ks out of town and the ikurrina, along with the proverbial hammer, dropped. Next thing I knew we were climbing at 50 kph. In this situation I tell myself that whomever is doing this is only as human as I am and they will give up soon. They didn’t. An hour and a half later and I’ve decided it might be a good idea to attempt a 100k solo move, some people have joined me and it’s looking worryingly like we have a gap. We all start working and then, just as it looks like we’re going to stick everyone decides the time has come for a mid race wardrobe change. Shoe covers come off, gilets go back to cars and short fingered gloves come out of pockets. Resplendent in clean kits we must look quite the troupe as the bunch catches us.

In all my excitement I’d managed to ride 70k on a gel, and I commence snacking on assorted pastry products in plastic wrappers (can you say brioche de poche?). Just after the catch we commence climbing a pretty solid col, I was at the front but things weren’t looking good from the glucose perspective. I noticed the climb was awfully hard but they tend to be that way. Then I looked at my SRM and noticed I was only on 340 watts, this felt like more than that. I tried to just HTFU and ride but it kept getting harder, then I looked down and saw the distinct absence of air in my rear tyre. That might be what was making 300w feel like 500. Drifting back I looked for a neutral car. All isaw was the race exploding behind us and, as we crested the climb and ice- skated down the other side I diced with death in the caravan. No car= no wheel= game over. ARSE.

Anyway, half an hour later the broom wagon dropped me off back at the club. They gave me lunch and their consolation. As I write this I’m readying myself to spend the night with a local old gent. He’s a good friend of JM Garate and more than willing to help a starving cyclist in need. Once again, swings and roundabouts. It’s not only bike races that go up and down, it’s your luck too!

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:A basque bar

from the eye of the storm

2011-06-24T01:20:00.000-07:00

they say that in the eye of a storm it's calm; i feel very calm right now thanks mainly to the massive outpouring of support from all of you. thanks. anyway here's what i wrote a few days ago before all this exploded ..

Stfu

2011-06-22T00:27:00.001-07:00

There's something highly attractive about swearing, especially for a good cause. Whether that be fuck(ing) cancer (not literally) or giving the metaphorical middle finger to my pancreas I've never been one to shy away from four letter language. Sone peopledont like it, some people might use it as an excuse to terminate your employment. Frankly if your brain isn't large enough to contemplate the difference between foul language to cause offense and the manipulation of spectacle for humor or a good cause, you'd better focus on breathing. That's it, in and out, good, had you worried for a minute there didn't I? Fuck! (that caught my remaining readers in Georgia by suprise, but no worries, i think they shock most likely euthanased them)

Anyway I want to highlight the work of the guys over at stfu; I'm all about not whining when it comes to training or even diabetes but there are some cases when we need to learn to share. Depression is a nasty nasty thing, I've seen it destroy my family and that of my best mate And I myself am no more immune than anyone else. The really nasty thing about depression is that we can't see it and as a result we don't give it the recognition it deserves, sufferers don't talk about it and we often never find out an individual I'd suffering until they breakdown or worse. Then it's too late.

As a society we need to change our perceptions of mental illness. We need to be more open to talking about it. We spend millions trying tp cure cancer but we could solve this issue by simply softening up and having time to talk.

I want to make raising funds and awareness for the issue a part of what I'm doing with my life. If I can do this and just one person is moved to talk, or listen before it is too late then I'll be happy. I spend my life wearing my diabetes on my sleeve (literally) and I do t see any reason why depressed people should be any more compelled to hide their condition. so check it out

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:The Barcelona metro

place names explained

2011-06-19T09:39:00.001-07:00

yup, i've been racing my bike again. With mixed fortunes. Monday was a national holiday here, and in celebration of this there were NO races in Catalonia because our local government is still composed of two warring factions who are yet to grow up enough to actually do anything useful and as a result all kinds of things aren't happening. So a large group of us conducted a border raid into Pollestres. if you want the compact race report it goes like this, mental first lap, buried my pedal about 30ks in. went to the back, pack split, escaped from the bunch, worked like a dog, got caught, sat in the bunch, thought happy thoughts, perfected my water bottle stealing.
Now the interesting thing about pollestres is that the catalan word pollo a l'ast is pronounced more or less the same as the french word pollestres; resulting in much giggling as we disputed the grand prix of spit roasted chicken...

this weekend was more exciting, saturday was a carnival rac ein Pobla de Mafumet. This was a moorish town origionally called pobla de Mohammed but, post reconquista such obvious islamicness was unacceptable, but they couldn't change the name too much because nobody would know what they were on about, thus we get the Catalanised mafumet. As for the race, it was a classic of spanish organisation, i rode out, only to find the start delayed for over an hour, they towed about 20 cars off the course as nobody had thought to post no parking signs on the finish straight and, after much discussion they decided to add a section of road which i am pretty sure wasn't on the origional route.

This being Catalonia and there being virtually no races a mountain of spandex weirdos descended on the town and, they decided to split the race into two with a final race afterwards. They informed us there would be sprints for the classification. I (along with many others) assumed this was the regional copa elite classification but no, you had to be classified to go onto the final. Ergo, despite finsihing up front after avoiding the crashes which eliminated hafl the field within 6k of the start (and one bloke before he'd even clipped in!) i didn't get to race the finale. My fault, i'll listen better next time.

Sunday saw myself and a french friend making a trip to Valencia where we arrived early, in time to wait for 50- mins while the local federation rep decided if he was going to allow foreign riders to race, It's ok in Catalonia but app[arenlty Valencia is a different world. WIth 10 mins before the start he decided to relent, mad spandexing and oil application ensued but we were ready in time to roll up DFL at the back of the bunch.

In an interesting side note today's race also had an odd name, alquerias del nino perdido. The name was changed by Franco from the origional alqueries in Valencian. Now the town has two names, this makes finding it on a sat-nav a bit of a mission.

Anyway, having not warmed up, and started at the back we went from the changing room to 50kph more rapidly than i would have liked. i suffered like a monkey for the first 15k, gradually made my way up for the first 50, relaised i hadn't eaten or drunk anything when my navigator went mental and went to the middle of the bunch to enjoy a bit of a picnic. Of course at this point the break went. After allowing myself a full 10 seconds of digestion i set off in hot pursuit, bridged to the second group and tried to get things organised. Despite my best efforts to explain that we had about as much chance as a chocolate teapot unless we worked together we proceeded to alternate between 20kph and 50kph while those of us who didn't have the legs to attack were kind enough to decorate the roads with our dropped bidons, gel packets and nasal fluid (yes i'm talking about you orange dude). Lon story short, we got caught, it came down to a gallop with about 15 guys away. IN the last corner the bunch was somewhat hindered by the attempts of a local 4x4 owner to share the road, and i count myself lucky to have finished with my skin. Oh and some theiving gypo nicked my armwarmers.

Still i met some pretty cool folks and unlike in the rest of Europe people GIVE you water here so you don't have to steal it, this helps as you don't have to leave the race at high velocity in your chamois as there are generally fewer angry wives and girlfriends to deal with.

i'm going to start making race comment cards

GP Pollestres
Country:france
Distance: 105k
Circuit: 2 roundabouts, urban section, more white paint than asphalt, rain, considerable "drifintg" potential off circuit final km
Bonus points: Nabbed a water bottle

cursa de fiesta mayor pobla de Mafumet
Catalonia
80k
2 180s 1 roundabout, 3 90 degree turns - more reminiscent of stock car racing than bicycle racing.
Survival was a bonus!

GP Alqueries
Valencia
100k
twisty, 5k, 2 motorway overpasses, more sleeping policemen than you'd see in a constabulary dormitory
red bull hand up, if there had been a king of the mountain's i'd have taken it i DOMINATED that motorway bridge.
Country

so what does a full time cyclist do on a rest day?

2011-06-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

well for one thing (s)he (im going to go ahead and use the male pronoun from here, sorry Germaine but that's jus thow i roll, so suck it [do we think Germaine Greer reads my blog? Not any more]) forgets to write a blgo post so im writing this after cremating myself in the Catalan sun.

i have developed an alliterative way of recalling my usual rest day activites and i've even managed to use a cycling related TLA (three letter acronym) for my rest day fun. the three categories of activity which seem to often mean that my rest days are more jam packed than training days can be summarised along the same lines as one of cycling more painful events; TTT.

firstly you have time saving. In general this is doing stuff that you cant do on training days as you want to be restful, or stuff you cant do because you're away racing. this category might include: waiting (this is a VITAL activity when you need to get something done with the spanish government), cooking a lot of food, making rice cakes for training. cleaning bidons and the bike, planning travel to the next race, shopping, skyping and just occasionally a spot of home brewing (more on that later)

then you have your second "t" (you'll notice that in order not to infringe copyright i havent called these the 3Ts). This is "training" just because it's a rest day doesn't mean no riding. i'll spin for an hour or two, often taking the chance to sport a classy walz cap on my way to a local panaderia where i will sample a minute croissant and coffee (in order to maintain my svelte physique) before rolling back home. this is a pretty easy ride and i try to keep the cadence high, it flushes the legs out but prevents them from going stiff. I also do other training related activites; think stretching, breathing exercises etc.

bringing us to the end of our TTT is Time filling. I've become a highly effiocient procrastinator and i can pretty effectively dominate the tables outside of the cafe florida for over an hour, sipping a cortado or a cerveza, munching on olives and enjoying some improving literature. There are so many books to be read, songs to be learned, recipes to be browsed and tweets to respond to. I also seem to spend hours talking to various shopkeepers, bartenders and random people in the street which i am sure i could cut out of my day if i were more ruthless.

anyway, there's your weekly window into my little world (i am KILLING the alliteration today)

until next time, adeu

kermis means fair

2011-06-10T00:47:00.000-07:00

and not in the sense of all being equal! A kermis in Belgium is like the fiesta major over here or the county fair in 'Murica, indeed a somewhat more raucous version of the village fete at home). When i was a child our town had a mop fair every year, a local tradition origionating from a hiring fair (thanks wikipedia) but by the time i was of age it had become an excuse to drink fizzy cider from a 2 liter bottle, get properly sauced and then ride on those rides which serve no purpose other than to make you barf and, if the pikeys underneath get lucky, make your worldly goods fly out of your pockets.

About the only thing those fairs shared with kermesses was the aforementioned rides (its a bit like a pikey pinata i guess). and of course the huge crowds, even in the middle of the week you can count on 500 or so spectators. All the bars set up an outdoor beer tent and often a braadwoorst stand, at first this seems quaint but after 100k the grilling meats seem to cause alternating hunger and vomiting impulses. Also ever present are droogwis, basically dried white fish on a string. I think i'm th eonly person ever to actually eat a droogwi, i quite like them with a beer but i will admit that they're pretty pungent, kind of like fish jerky i suppose. Of course this being belgium, copius pinches of jupiler abound.

the general kermis schedule is this (and by general i mean universal). The Enschriven (sign on) is at a bar or cafe, you walk in and present your bond (the belgian cycling union, yup UNION) card which is scanned, you pay 8 euros (always 8 euros unless its a topcompetition or something) and this secures you a frame number and a dossard. They tell you if the dossard goes linx or rechs (left or right) and you provide your own pins. Sign a sheet and that' you done. Generally the sign on opens 2 hours before the race.

Then you head to the Kleerdammers (changing rooms) and pin on your number (the proper way) along with bolting your frame number to your specially made frame-number-holder. The Preme list (prize list) details what is up for grabs each lap, and who donated it, you look out for that fitted kitchen, microwave or 3 kilogram cheese what you fancy and make a mental note of when to be at the front. Then you put chamois cream on and apply the chamois. at this point you may also apply the base layer but NEVER put the bibs over your shoulders. You then put on your jersey but unzipped and proceed to elevate your legs whilst someone else (either your father or wife) applies embro, this step is VITAL even in the heat of summer, you MUST apply embro. next you remove your jersey again and put it on your knees, inserting a few gels and the odd waffle into the pockets. Some riders will ride to the race, always with a backpack and ALWAYS carrying not wearing their helmets. wearing your helmet for training is a clear indication of cyclotourist status. These guys appear a little later, sign on and then commence the process at the embrocation step. Then it's time to pull up the bibs and check tyre pressure (3 times is normal) before commencing to ride around for maybe 1 lap (warming up is considered cheating) before hurrying to the start where you wait a minimum of 15 minutes.

and then, an overweight man with a moustache (or sometimes a woman with a moustache) blows a whistle and all hell breaks loose, you sprint to the first corner (typically within 100m of the start) slam on the anchors, sprint out and commence the fastest, hardest lap of the race. next comesa the second fastest lap, and the first preme. and gradually, the race explodes as echelons form and crashes happen. Groups ride around the course, all but the front group stalwartly refusing to work and attacking each other shamelessly. Riders often use kurbs, road furniture, roundabouts etc to move up so the crowd is always kept on its toes. Every lap also sees a sprint for the preme and a change in the betting.

Oh yes, the betting, bike racing is a big deal in Belgium (had you guessed) and a lot of money changes hands underneath the blackboards, with the leather suitcased bookies adjusting the odds each lap as races are bought and sold and riders grow weaker or stronger on the invisible other side of the course.

Whenever your group is considered to be out of the race, the moustachioed one will wave a flag and ring a bell. "laaste ronde" and your group sprints (like really full on sprints) for placings (money often goes down 50 deep) . this is a nice system as you generally go home with something AND you practice the tactics of a sprint. Then its time for a coke, again this is obligatory, on occasion one may substitute an aquarius but a can of soft drink is a must. then back to the Kleerdammers, a quick (communal) shower and chance to scope out the shattered looking racers who've already finsihed. In my case about ten people will ask you about the little thing on your arm, you'll explain the pod and they'll swear loudly, express a genuine concern and admiration and then nudge the guy next to them and tell them they were just beaten by an invalid.

Then its time to remove dossards and frame numbers and go back to the cafe where a line of riders is waiting, you climb through the smoke, up the stairs and into a small attic (i think they have these rooms specifically for this purpose). Your number goes back and you get an envelope stuffed with a few euros and maybe a gift ceritificate if you've earned one.

After this its back to the car and off home for dinner. generally its not advised to let your fellow atheltes see you eat so you wait until you've left to show this mortal weakness. it's frowned upon to get a beer in the bar, unless someone else is paying. I do it anyway. Just occasionally you get to have a bit of a slanging match in the car park as well, especially if you've hooked someone or been a bit generous with your occupation of asphalt in the sprint.

And then home you go. Steak, frites, jupiler and sleep. Bear in mind you've raced 100-140k starting at 3 so you often leave the race at 7 and youre amped up on caffeine and adrenalin until late, so you sleep in. get up at 10 and start the process again.

Beer, Beadspreads, and blue steak in Belgium

2011-06-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, I have a tendency to benefit from the kindness of others; Many of you reading have helped me and many of the people who have helped me will never read this and never know how deeply touched I am. I thought I would share with you the story of how I met my Belgian family, ate an eddy mercx style lunch and slept under a club brugge duvet.

After racing on Thursday I decided to drive to the town where the Kermesse was going to be held the next day. The sat-nav having once again failed me I couldn’t locate a nearby hotel which I could afford (actually I shouldn’t blame the sat-nav for my poverty…) I stopped a man by the side of the road to ask if he knew of a camping, planning to pitch up inside pablito for the night. He directed me into a bar (he also accompanied me inside) and we asked the barmaid. Within minuted Bart had offered to let me camp in his garden, he had a tent. I jumped at the offer and quickly a round of pinches was ordered. Bart then suggested we set off home, and when I went to pay for said round. I was told that this was not going to happen. Once it was announced that would be racing the kermesse the next day I achieved something of a “local” status.

Back at Bart’s house we drank another beer and I met his family, 2 boys of 10 and his 17 year old son. Also his neighbours (the two men had been together at the bar). We talked for hours about cycling, Belgium, home and the USA. They didn’t ride themselves (although by Belgian standards they didn’t, all the children still made a 20k round trip to school each day) but had an appreciation for the sport. Their dinner had been and gone but they insisted on preparing me a fine (and not insubstantial) bowl of spaghetti (which was fetched from next door).

When the time came ot go to bed the two twins announced that they would share a bed and I could sleep in the other bed. And thus I found myself, having had my first hot meal in days, better beer than one can encounter rin the us for less than 6 dollars a glass and sleeping a REAL BED, all in the happy environs of the bedroom of a 10 year old football fanatic.

The next day I ate a hearty breakfast of 3 eggs from their chickens and headed out on a spin to Wevelgem, as well as making a practice ronde (in my customary fashion I did this the wrong way) of the race course. On my return having used their shower and towels (microfiber towels are great but only for so long!) I was presented with a blue steak and a heaping bowl of frites, looking at the clock I noticed that this was d to be consumed exactly four hours before the race; clearly one Sunday in hell has achieved the sort of product placement penetration which coca-cola can only dream of.

After a brief trip to visit “family” in Ypres, I returned, signed on in the café and came home with the premelist. FLor and Warre the two young boys helped me pin on my number and mix my drinks. The whole family came to watch me race. They tried to feed, they made flags with my name on, they screamed “koomop” every lap and gave me the kind of wholehearted support I’ve honestly never had before. I’ve mentioned that my dad is n’t the most vocal supporter of cyclesport and this was really really touching to me.

Over the next four days I stayed with the family and I have memories I will never forget; Flor and Warre drinking my prolong energy drink and joining me on a “training” ride. Warre’s collection of pro cyclist stickers to which he added my bio-picture and his collection of bottles to which he added one of mine, so proud of it he fell asleep holding it like a teddy bear. He shouted so much on Sunday he made himself hoarse. They all laughed at my ability to consume ungodly quantities of waffles, speculoos and coffee. And we spent hours around the table in the garden of the house that Bart had built for his family with his own hands.

When I left I was genuinely moved to say goodbye. Flor had made me a mini cobblestone trophy and The grown ups had made me a bag of food I am still enjoying. There was also a Duval glass to replace the one I broke last summer. I didn’t have much to pay them back with; the boys liked my chocolate recovery drink so I sneaked it into the pantry, they each got one of the energy gels which fascinated them and a bidon. I also gave them one of my prized boxes of fudge and a box of English tea.

It was really heartwarming to me to be taken in by such a happy, well rounded and welcoming family and community. I’ve promised to go back and win them some premies. 17 year old Kasper and his buddy Mitch have promised to visit next year in England for a tour of our finer drinking establishments. And they’ve all promised to throw snowballs at me if I race the Gullegem ‘cross. Belgium might be a cold country, and it might be a little strange to see a vending machine full of potatoes but the people couldn’t be kinder. Not only bart and his family but the lady who handed me a bidon when I lost all of mine in a crash and as faced with 120k in 35 degrees centigrade without a drink, the fan by the side of the road who gave me his wheel when mine broke, and the race organizer who would always write the town where the next day’s race was on my arm so I could ride there.

If you ever get the chance, make the trip but be sure to take lots of presents! (might be best to avoid American chocolate, beer or French fries though, they’ve got that covered)

And yes it was really 35 in Belgium, and no, all the chocolate did not melt, neither did all the Belgians.

gullegem koerse

2011-06-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

sometimes life throws you a bit of a bummer; today was the gullegem koerse, one of the most famous night time kermis races. as the ourse wa sonly 3k from my temporary home i headed out in the morning for a brief recconaisance, this turned into alengthly slog as i decided to visit wevelgem, the ride out was pleasant, the ride back, not so much. Funny what a 50kph wind will do to you! Anyway my course inspection revealed a 3k lap with more road furniture than an ikea superstore. i went back to the house and, in classic local style was presented with an extremely rare steak exactly four hours before the start and told to eat up, and eat i did!

After faffing about for a long time and covering myslef in liters of "warm up oil" which serves no purpose other than shinyness i headed over to the bar to sign on, get my number and scope out the oppo. then it was time to warm up. in my time honoured fashion i turned up late for the start to find 120 of my closest spandex covered friends waiting to ride around the narrow streets with me. It also seemed that we were going in the other direction to that which i had taken all my practice ronden. bollocks.

the family i was staying with had mobilised the whole street to come and cheer so i had something approaching local boy status. in belgium this mandates you to ride off the front like a crazy fool. so i commenced diving up the inside of every corner, slamming on the anchors and then sprinting out of them like a proper local hero. The Belgian style of racing is to pretty much drill it out of every corner after creeping through each turn and chopping everyone like a crazy samurai.

now as i mentioned the course included not one, not two but an impressive 5 speed bumps in a mere 3 kilometers, also we got to sample the delights of 3 traffic islands and two roundabouts. This, combined with the grossepremelist meant that 3 laps in, the field was down to 2/3rds of the starting size. gaps were opening up and people were crossing them full gas. After about 15k, amother gap opened as the bunch split around a marshal stood on a piece of road furniture. one of the flemmish cycling project guys was busy burying himself and paying close attention to his stem, he was so enamoured with his front wheel that he neglected to notice the impending lampost and slammed into it at 50kph, it looked fairly painful. It is important in Belgium to maintain an aloof demeanour so i made an effort not to bat an eyelid as we all silently rode past.

the race continued in the usual kermis fashion, balls out and then slowing right up into the corners. I made apretty spiritied move for the preme sponsored by our local bar, only to have a rapidly retreating rider slam into me, i spilled both my bottles and came perilously close to an intimate encounter with the crowd. i managed to keep it rubber side down. but the next 70 kilometers were not fun; having lost all my prolong i was seriously lacking in fluid and calories. Every lap i shouted for anyone to give me water. The family had cited themselves on the premeline and thus every lap we went past them full gas, no feeding there. Eventually i managed to pull a sly one, hopping up on the curb i grabbed a bottle from a lady who was not in any way expecting said bottle to be grabbed, cheeky but necessary! thankfully a lady i had talked to before the start took it upon herself to replenish my supplies. Still running only on water i was rolling some pretty low blood glucose levels. i wa sracing in a skinsuit so gel carrying capabilites were limited.

come the end of the kermis 2 groups had slipped away. I had some good tempo left in my legs so i kept trying to pull the group back but nobody would work. It seems the response to seeing someone on the front trying to get a chase going is to sit on mercilessly and then hop onto the curb and drill it. after 3 laps of this the flag was being waved. I managed to pull enough of a sprint out of my stripy arse for the 3rd bunch kick, which got me 5 euros and a smoked fish. i think the smoked fish was more of a consolation prize but it tasted good.

I'll be writing more on kermis culture later but that's all for now, it's about to start raining and the whole family is trying (and failing) to name ten famous Belgians.....

What goes a ronde

2011-06-02T08:55:00.001-07:00

Well today wasn't my finest hour; I'm writing this from the cafe where I signed on five hours ago; watching the break roll in for the last lap.

In a typical jamesfashion I arrived early, signed on and managed to waste the 90 mins I had allocated for warming up by faffing about. Having completed two ten k laps I was sufficiently worried about te parcours to get to the start early, so were about eighty others. Sadly one local gent had left his vehicle in prime position and so we waited while the police towed it away, and we waited, an it gt warmer and the bolus I'd taken worked it's way into my blood and I started eating all my gels. Thirty minutes later we rolled, the first lap
Was savage.

Usual Belgian stuff; clip in, sprint, try not to vomit, up he pavement watch out for the lampost, across the gap. Sprint, stop, sprint again, swear ib whatever language comes first....

Two laps in and we settled, I moved up in afew corners ten lost time by taking the long route around a roundabout. A guy in front of me popped and I chased, five hundred watts for a minute, we got back, I rested, I was struggling to get the bike into a gear, I'd put the wheel in wrong. I looked down and lost places, an anpost rider dived up the inside, too fast and next thi g I knew his bike flew back off a lamppost! I swerved and then it was full gas, the riders behind bellowed but I knew they didn't have the legs to close it up so they were using their Lungs in the hope that I did. Five ks later we were back, sitting at the back I breathed through the straw which had replaced my windpipe. And then I looked up, echelons wereforming and we were at the back. Boom! Full gas but too late, I tried with the Fcp team to close the gap but no good, we were done, I popped him for the unimportant placing, grabbed my pump and went out to spin.

An hour later I got back, drank some rebuild and action wiped myself and the bike clean, I'm off to find wifi now and a place to sleep, until then.

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

riding at windmills

2011-06-01T11:26:00.000-07:00

If I were to tell you a story about a tall, skinny, beardy bloke, his faithful mount and their travels in pursuit of impossible goals, there are a couple of things that might come to mind. If you’re a well educated, liberal and worldly resident of the USA you probably have no idea what I’m on about but for the rest of us this (hopefully) evokes images of Cervantes Don Quixote, the eternal Spaniard, his horse ROcinante and his faithful companion Sancho Panza.
I read Cervantes novel the year I left school and I can empathise with it’s tragic (or comic) protagonist. The first art piece (and up until last week the only art piece) I bought for myself was picasso’s simple sketch of the knight and his servant. It had pride of place in my apartment (when I had an apartment to call my own!). I liked the idea that Quixote, bound up with ideas of loyalty and chivalry set out into a cruel world and wouldn’t let it its cruelty do anything to alter his perceptions.
So why have I started writing lit crit? Well I’m off on a bit of a journey myself as well, and I dare say that I’ll be tilting at a few windmills en route. Also I’ve purchased a really pants car; but when I saw that it was a citroen xsara Picasso I knew it had to be and my whole mission came together. So now it’s me, pablito the Picasso and my carbon Rocinante. I’m sitting on a ferry, surrounded by families eating their fish and chips and Belgians reveling in their mullets (at least I presume that is a look of revelry, either that or they’ve stepped in something).
I’ll be landing in Belgium tonight and racing my way back to my house in Spain. Living the dream and smelling the nightmare (or at least the heady cocktail of sweat and embrocation which I know from previous car dwelling in the Benelux experiences). On the way I will be doing a spot of writing, a lot of riding and a fairly large amount of adventuring. I’ve set off with my entire stash of prolong, a big bag of action wipes, a pillow a blanket, my clothes and my bike. I’ll keep racing until money runs out or they stop offering edible primes.
Trying to race on your own, at the national and international level, “unassisted” might be tilting at windmills but like don Quixote when I started playing the game I found out the rules and I don’t intend to break the rules just to win the game, because then the game isn’t fun anymore. I’ve enjoyed racing again and I’ve decided that all I want from the rest of the year is the feeling I had last week. I really do this, not for the victories (which is just as well because im averaging about one a year!) but for the release that you get from being totally and utterly exhausted, knowing that you gave all you had to give. Of course I still want to win, that’s part of the game as well but just like don Quixote, I don’t really mind if training hard, eating right and racing harder is a fiction, if it’s just a story for children that your team are like your family and that you can change people’s lives whilst racing your bike if reality is different I’m going to keep living in a storybook world. After all, Picasso didn’t paint Don Quixote being beaten by bandits but sitting proudly upright so maybe don Quixote did win and maybe I can as well.

Lest this appear too serious I also have other plans: im going to shave a little bit of my facial hair every day, kind of like an advent calendar but on my face. Suggestions welcome.
Oh and in funny stuff I’ve seen this week: the cyclotourist who just got on the feery, walked into the buffet and stripped down to his bibshorts, speed bumps which you can catch SICK AIR off to make 160km race go a little faster (and people in the bunch who don’t like it), the Hoff announcing he would be performing in Brisbane when he meant Brighton, my little sister’s attempts to “undercut” the chocolate cake so it looks like she hasn’t had any and 80kph on an unsurfaced road, actually that wasn’t funny at all…..

why do bad things happen to good people?

2011-05-24T07:58:00.000-07:00

the last month has just about turned our sport upside down, it's also severely changed the way i see the world. I'm not sure how much of this i want to share, and how much of it i have to deal with alone but i wanted to put some of it up for debate.

A few weeks ago wouter Weyland crashed and died in the Giro, i didn't know him, i'd never lined up next to him. But it still hit me hard, he was doing what i do every day, and he lost his life. it shocked me but in a way which i now see as peripheral. People i'd competed against people i've grown up with have died before; hit by cars, drunk drivers, heart complaints, even cancer. A couple of times i've been bowled over by the grief butthe confluence of incidents in the last few weeks has really, really made it hard for me to get out on my bike. Heck it made it hard for me to leave dad's house and drive to mum's i was suddenly hit by the realisation that every goodbye could be final.

Xavier Tondo was someone i knew, whom i'd see out training, who was helping me find my feet in my new home, his sister in law was,is, a good friend. He lived 10 kilometers away, we train on the same roads, under the same sun. The randomness with which his life was ended has been hard to bear. For the first time ever he has had a chance to shine, and how he was shining. He will be sadly missed by all that knew him and many that did not. I didn't feel right strapping on a black armband for Wouter, he wasn't my friend and, whilst i respect the decisions of others to do so it felt wrong for me to presume to be so public when my emotional response was shock, not grief. This weekend when i line up in Belgium, i'll be wearing an armband for xavi.

All this has eclipsed the goings on with lance armstrong and livestrong in my own little sphere of consciousness. All i will say is this, good people don't deserve bad luck but if it's true that Mr Armstrong lied and misled thousands of very unwell people, i hope for their sake that he at least has the strength of character to say sorry. Sadly, for Wouter and Xavi, there's nobody to apologise. The wheel of fate turns and we are privy to its revolutions. But one mustn't live one's life looking out for the worst, rather we should search for the best. Xavi would rather we all went out riding in the sunshine than sat inside crying and so i will try.

Carpe diem i suppose

mis abuelos

2011-05-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

although abuelos might translate as grandparents my "abuelos" have no blood relation to me whatsoever, they are however as kind and caring as if i were their own son. They own the bar down the street, i go there every day, it started because they had wifi, and for 2.5 euros i could get a pincho of tortilla and a beer, and they'd always bring me as much bread as i wanted (which tends to be a lot) and a tiny plate of patatas Bravas. I remember commenting that they had the best tortilla, it tasted homemade. The lady replied that she made it herself every day.

No sooner had the comment escaped my mouth than a tremendous debate on the nature of tortilla perfection engulfed the bar, 90 minutes later i left, having reached no conclusion we'd all decided to go home for dinner (cooked in our respective "ideal" fashions no doubt). The next day i came back and we discussed the giro, having moved onto the subject of doping they were surprised to find that i didn't outright condemn Contador and that i really do believe he is the best cyclist we've seen since Mercx. the bar has since become something of a penya for Contador, and they're not shy about shouting a few encouraging words at me either. Generally you don't expect a 74 year old woman to erupt (see the giro reference there....) out of a greengrocers shouting "venga venga", especially at 8am when you're just rolling out of your house, but i can't complain. It does put the frightners on me when one of the family sees me out on the road and honks the car horn though!

they began to enquire about my training, my diabetes and my research. When the fact that i'm researching food came up all hell broke loose again. We talked about the tradition of eating paella on a thursday (Franco went hunting on a Thursday and he liked to eat paella afterwards, soon this became a national tradition as nobody wished to risk the caudillo turning up unannounced and fail to provide his comida of choice, or so we're told). Antonio regaled us with tales of his trip into Franco's private estate and the mountain of birds and animals introduced there for the dictator to satiate (some of) his bloodlust.

Soon i was a daily fixture at the bar, the stage of the giro was always on at 5pm, i didnt have to order, just wave as i came in and sit down. I told them about my food research and my love for Spanish food, they asked me when i would come in for lunch. It occurred to me that this was a bar, and they didn't cook lunch. But i gave them a date and returned. It did surprise me a little that business was sparse, in fact just me and them. and it was a little odd that the menu offered no choice. It only really dawned on me today when we were eating our paella and a customer came in and asked for a portion, and was declined, that this wasn't a menu at all. it was them, welcoming me into their family meal.

the food is always delicious but that's not why i go back. As the lady snapped at the offended would be patron "he doesn't have a mother here, or a grandmother, so im making him lunch". There does seem to be a genetic predisposition amongst Iberian ladies over 40 years old to want to feed me unfathomable amounts of olive oil, but i'm happy to benefit from it! I really enjoy sitting at a table and talking over great food and drink. We talk for maybe an hour after lunch, i'll chalk this up as "research" time but it doesn't feel like work. I'm picking up some great recipes though. Then go our separate ways until the next day. I'm growing to love the rhythm of life here, riding all morning, a big lunch and a nap and then another ride or some writing in the afternoon. part of feeling at home is being accustomed to the culture but a big part is feeling welcome and with my "grandmother from another (greatgrand)mother" i most certainly feel welcome.

what i really wanted to say is this: some of you know that things are far from rosy for me as of now, i wish i could say more but when i can, i will. despite all this people have been really kind to me when i've needed them to be, i hope one day i can pass the kindness on

Castles and croissants

2011-05-03T10:58:00.001-07:00

Today's ride was one of my more interesting adventures. First off I found this little gem, ( pic below) after a session of hill reps I did, for a minute doubt my eyes. But it was indeed there, a sanctuary apparently.

Continuing on my merry way I proceeded to follow a road which got smaller and smaller and then definitely ceased to be a road. Then it ceased to be a dirt road and became a goat track, not well suited to the skinny rubber.

Having returned via a somewhat longer route than expected I proceeded to stage a hypo of monumental scale, not so bad generally but it rural Catalonia nothing is open from two to five pm. Fortunately I managed to find a bakery which was still occupied, if closed. Once again, pastry saved my life!

I've been having a bit of a stressful time recently and it's slaying my bg control, I'm going badly low often, like so low that my meter just says "lo" not quite sure what's up, I tend to bounce back up slowly but once up there I spend a few hours high as a kite, not good.

Anyway enjoy the picture!

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Spanish shopping

2011-05-02T10:03:00.001-07:00

Generally my anecdotes don't involve footballers wives, but for Vickie b we'd all make an exception, right? I found myself at the counter of the fish shop today debating the position taken by the former on alluvium consumption.

Having selected my sardines ( caught this morning, I think I saw some of their brethren come ashore during my ride) I announced an intention to cook them amb al ( with garlic) this sparked a somewhat strange reaction: old lady one announced that she was with Victoria on this one, we eat too much garlic. I disagreed and was joined by old lady two. Customer two weighed in with the spice girls and we spent the next ten minutes in debate. Conclusion, I'll cook my sardines with garlic and the parsley which they give you fore free at fish shops here. That, amics, is European unity.

I love shopping here, a typical trip takes me from the fruiteria by my house where I garb a few apples and pears to the market which presents a cornucopia of vegetables ( yup cornucopia) and animals in various states of dismemberment. I've been buying chicken carcsses to make soup recently, you get the bones and, I you're lucky some " bonus" meat for less than a euro a kilo. Then I get my veggies, and stop off for fresh flautas ( especially thin and yummy baguettes) which I carry home ( taking care not to crush them. By this point I resemble a culinary packhorse as I approach the fish shop to enquire what is cheap today and how to best prepare it.

At this point I tend to recover my reserves with a brief tapa and a cana before assaulting the cobbled climb back to home and the rigors of lunch/dinner preparation it's a hard job but someone has to do it ( I suspect that someone is not mrs beckham)

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:All over tarragona

R and r and redox

2011-04-29T01:46:00.001-07:00

Well it's taken me 4 months of riding my bike full time to embrace NOT riding it all the time. Last week my body decided to throw down the gauntlet, all the jetlag and training kms hit me at once and my intestine, where my ruptured appendix scarred it ( Thanks again privatized healthcare for leaving said appendix unmolested) decided to wrap itself into a little ball. That hurt.

It also necessitated a change in diet and 8 days off the bike. I'm on my last rest day now and I feel so much better, more energetic and less fatigued. You don't want to know the treatment details but I will say that I turned up at a Spanish hospital got an d X-ray and a blood Chemistry and got the resume all within 2 hours, for free. Damn I hate socialism.

I have been wondering what I changed, it's tue that I travelled but I travel a lot and training was hard but its always hard. The major thing I removed was the asea redox water I had been taking. I'm not normally one to believe in such stuff but I took a good look at my regime and I really do think this might have been a factor.

Now I'm not a nutritionist or a scientist but I am pretty open minded and willing to try stuff, Scott at asea was kind enough to get me on the product and, as I say I feel I can attribute some positive effect to it. I get no money from them but the product was free, I'm not going to say it'll change your world but it is one of many things You might want to try. Anyone who can enlighten me on the science, feel free!

Anyway, of far more import is the upcoming royal wedding " gasp " what WILL she wear? I think my village at home is having a street party! As much as I'm not a royalist will is a nice guy ( I met him once, he was struggling mightily with a surfboard, I think it ha republican sympathies) and I wish him all the luck in the world, I'm just not going to bow to him!

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:A cafe in tarragona

homage to catalonia

2011-04-21T10:35:00.000-07:00

first one to source the title gets a chocolate (or a virtual chocolat, unless you fly here to get it in which case i'll give you a real one).

my ride today took a turn for the more interesting around kilometer 75 when i pulled up to the the cafe-bar in Mont.Rall at the top of the climb. For a start, three massive white dogs which, at first appeared to me to be polar bears started heading pretty rapidly (and rabidly) in my direction, prompting a sven nys-esque remount as i headed for the door of said cafe-bar. Then, on my entry i perused the avaliable pastries (the selection was slim, it was 11am and they were all but sold out) and decided to order a small bocadillo (sandwich).

In an effort to branch out from my ususal tortilla and bread combo (thats tortilla espanol people) i went with llom, now in spanish lomo ahumado is a cured pork product but it turns out that our Catlan friends forgoe the curing in favour of merely frying a large pork chop, thus i was presented, not with a few slivers of salty goodness on a crusty roll but with an intimadating hunk of pig. Sadly the assembled old men of the village already clearly doubted my manliness and i wasnt about to sissy out of the challenge so, like the trooper i aspire to be, i bolted an espresso and about 1/2lb of pork and set off up another mountain, i knew they could see me from the bar, but i dont think they could see my expression of distinct suffering as i endeavoured to produce an acceptable wattage.

I really love the cafes and bars here, the pride they take in local produce. Every sandwich is served on pa amb tomaquet - crusty baguette toasted with tomato, olive oil and garlic. far more delicious than mayo or butter. Lunch is always a 3 course menu del dia and every bar serves this (as do all restaurants, it is a legal obligation and about the best thing Franco ever did apart from dying). seemingly always staffed by elderly ladies who take great pleasure in explainign local dishes and feeding underweight young brits i have already had some fantastic food and consumed roughly 17 gallons of olive oil and 24 kilos of garlic.

local pastries have also been making frequent breakfast appearances especially as we approac st jordi and easter, both of which come with associated baked goods. Pa de sant jordi is definitley worth your googling time, if not your baking time as it uses 3 dough flavours in one bread. The combo breakfast offers which allow me to eat a pastry and drink a small, strong coffee for less than 2 euros have facilitated the sampling of many such delights.

I really like the spanish approach to food, small amounts, no restraint on fat or sugar but a pleasure in eating well and taking the time to enjoy food. you cant get a coffee to go here, and i dont think anyoen would understand why you would want one. you take a coffee in a small glass and take 5 minutes ofyour day to appreciate it. i think the US and th Uk could learn a lot from this approach, mindless eating and drinking is rarely if ever a healthy approach.

molt be, i'm off for a paseo and a tapa in celebration of the completion of a 3 day block and a much needed rest day. Oh and apparently the local monks are quite excited about another skinny hairy dude with holes in his hands.....

Volta a tarragona

2011-04-18T06:47:00.001-07:00

Well I've made it, made it back to the cafe after a rousing circuit of every government office in tarragona trying to find the right one to file for my registration card: one if you're foreign but a different one if you're from inside the eu, the Catalan police cant help but the Spanish police can. Imagine my Delight on discovering that, on finding the correct office, they gave me a number to call and make an appointment! Still I'm embracing the chilled out attitude and enjoying lunch before investigating the old town and moving into my new place at 8 tonight. Then it's bike building time! Still it could be worse.....

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Fancy a brew?

2011-04-16T01:09:00.001-07:00

4.30am alarm, table seat, off peak day return to London Paddington and a buffet car mug of tea - the only sense in which I am living the dream is that I'm awake when I should be dreaming away. I'm off to Grovesnor square where the US embassy mandates that any British type requiring a visa has to get up bloody early to do so. 8 am appointments mean us provincials have to get up before the sun does, even in the springtime. That said I do like a good train journey, they're always reminiscent of adventures to London as a child and trips home from uni as a "yoof".

What's really comforting me now isn't so much the train as my mug of tea, hot, milky and sweet. Hot beverages play an inordinate role in my life, and the bewildering array of varieties is, I feel, a much underdiscussed topic. I've been asked more times than I care to recall "how do you like that colnago/dura ace/helmet/drink mix" - in all of the above cases I'm going to tell you the same thing "its very nice thanks" - you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth and no more do you run down the people who are kind enough to give you bicycle bits n' bobs. But ask me what kind of beverage is appropriate for a given situation, that’s when I'll really start spouting (ok I start spouting quite a lot).

Amongst the quiver of options available the most frequently plucked is coffee, every cyclist loves coffee, it's what we do instead of eating. I tend to avoid the bewildering array of "espresso drinks" available at your local 'bucks (I don’t trust mermaids, much less ones who DON'T HAVE NIPPLES), reasoning that most of them are pretty pants for you. A good doppio espresso provides just the kick I need before a ride, or after a ride when I'm lacking the energy to do anything. I'm a massive fan of bird rock coffee roasters so they're my shot of choice. I'll occasionally indulge in a cappuccino if I'm breakfasting lightly on pastry goods but please don't put down a milky, sweet coffee AND a big ol' plate of pancakes, eggs and bacon. You don't need that kind of gut ballast people.

While we're talking about coffee rules here a re a few more: in the middle of a ride you want an espresso, maybe a hammerhead or an Americano maybe a cappuccino. Not a latte or a venti mocha frap, it's not lycra appropriate, save it for later - recovery drink style. A cappuccino, latte, macchiato and a flat white are not the same thing, if you're going to attempt to make it as a barista, you should take the bar exam first. An espresso served in anything other than a demi-tasse isn't an espresso - it's a travesty. And what on earth is going on with all the paper cups in the USA, if I'm gong to stay in your café give me a mug, a warmed one and save yourself the money. Did someone at starbucks get molested by and ent and now they taking it out on the rainforest?

displaced 'muricans have been known to lament the lack of their familiar bucket sized mugs in the land of pointy shoes and public transport but I would submit that us Euro types have an alternative for these situations. The humble mug of tea occupies a special place in the British psyche; any problem is met with the response "I'll put the kettle on". Not just a beige beverage, tea is a social lubricant. A good cup of tea also provides the dedicated sipper with a brew which will last more than 5 minutes of slurping. I've read a theory suggesting that the British predilection for the Asian leaf helped workers in the 19th century to avoid cholera (they boiled water) and helped to kickstart urbanisation and industry. There you go: tea - the building block of empire. But please, none of this fruit malarkey, those names promise so much and deliver so little. I mean come on, if you were blindfolded would you ever be able to tell that the slightly sweet grassy flavoured brew was "lychee and Asian passion fruit with a hint of ripe mango"?

Now over on the continent, teas aren't so common. But there's a variety of hot chocolates which makes your "coffee" drinks look like wheatgrass juice. The French favour the enormous milky bowl of chocolat chaud, served at breakfast and (at least in the case of undiscerning rosbifs) the recipient of many a dunked croissant au beurre. I think every trip to France when I was younger saw me clearing out the hotel breakfast buffet of those little sachets. That stuff is like crack. On the other end of the spectrum you've got the "suisse" chocolate favoured by the Spaniards. This, in my opinion is the peak of the candified beverage art. Thick enough to stand a churro in, darker than Fabian's opinion of Jonothan "no riding" Vaughters and about as bitter, enough to require additional sweetening in the form of a dunked melindra or churro . There's a place in Barcelona which makes the best rendition of this delicacy. I'd tell you where it is but I'd be worried you'd catch me in a private moment communing with my drinkable dessert.

And no, the platforms here are not denominated in bloody fractions and harry potter is JUST A STORY, capiche? And the bloke next to me: snappy suit, pink shirt, proper London attire complete with rolls of neck fat above the collar, well he's listening to ka$ha on his ipod - busted.

And so, a list
Drinking:
Coconut hot chocolate (coconut milk = yummo)
Bird rock coffee roasters (daily specials or the yirgacheffe from Ethiopia if you're buying)
Yorkshire tea (since PG tips ditched the chimps)
Lideman's Geuze (because miller genuine draft is NOT the champagne of beers)

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Spandex, sugars, Spain and Sardines

2011-03-31T19:26:00.000-07:00

Tonight’s missive is comin ‘atcha from Lauren’s Balcony in Santa Monica – very much “real housewives” territory. I’m sitting outside trying to keep cool after a couple of large days on the bike. These have been the first properly hot days in a while and I managed to maroon myself out on Mulholland without any idea where I was (or where water could be had), it was pretty traumatic. So much so that it clearly affected my mental state; I did the same thing again the next day. I had a pretty pants blood glucose day today; rolled out the door at 150, dropped 50 points in 10 mins and I could feel it! Ate 25g of gel carbs and did some efforts for an hour, ate ½ a bar and cruised the coast, I felt low so I ate the other half and stopped (about 1.45 into my ride to grab some water before I went into the wilderness. Halfway up my first canyon climb my sugars went boom – 130-70 and shaking inside a 15 min effort. My lip went wobbly and I stopped and put away a pack of fig newtons,a chewy bar and few jelly beans – that was enough to get me up to 120 and my sugars cruised downwards slowly for the next 2 hours before making another bid for the bottom about 5 minutes from the house.
Having groveled home via a bakery (amandine – Wilshire blvd) which has received the hypo-cyclist seal of approval I’ve spent the rest of the day prancing about in my boxer shorts and trying to work out why the bloke next door spends quite so much time naked with the blinds open. It’s funny once but seeing the sausage swing whilst he shadow boxes when I’m brushing my teeth is actually quite traumatic.
Anyway all this heat (and some of this nudity) is preparing me for the next leg of my adventure; I’m going (back) to Spain (or to be more accurate to Catalunya) . I rode there a fair bit when I was but a gangly (or ganglier) yoof. I’m pretty excited to be going back, I should be able to get in some quality racing out there and plenty of big days in the Pyrenees. Nothing makes me happier than being within striking distance of Barcelona, it’s my favourite city and I feel at home there. The roads are great for training, there’s always an old man to chase up a climb and outside of the city people take a pretty forgiving attitude to my tendency to descend like I’m on closed roads.
I also love the food, I can list a million places to get espinacs al catalana, tapas, bocadillos de tortilla (a personal favourite), helados, the butteriest pastries and the crispest estrella beer. I could write a whole post on where to eat in Barcelona, maybe when I give up this lycra related segment of my life I’ll set up running gastro-tours of the city. Hopefully I’ll be there for a few festivals as well, I love seeing a community come together in celebration. It’s not really something that happens in the US but the palpable sense of welcome is remarkable.
Obvioulsy this means I’ll be missing out on some of the team diabetes work here but there’s a method to my madness and I will be back soon enough. I’d love to do similar work in Spain and Europe so maybe I can hook something up with our sponsors. I think attitudes in Europe are a little different; type 2 is not so prevalent and thus the media and public don’t have such a negative perception. However general knowledge on the condition is still low and maybe I can help do my little bit to rectify that with spandex, sweat and my multilingual ability to run my mouth.
If you’re wondering why Sardines made it into the title it’s because I just pounded a can of those bad boys. I’ve been living the flat broke dream recently and after a few weeks of letting my diet really slide (pb and “wholewheat” bread do not a complete day’s nutrition make) so I’m learning how to get good food, cheap. If you’re poor (I am right now) and hungry (when am I not?) and looking to stay healthy (I try) it’s a pretty safe bet to throw your greenbacks behind the super-sardine. They are almost as cheap as tuna, come in a tomato sauce so you don’t have to make an effort to make them taste good (see my experiment with wasabi tuna: if you’re wondering it does not taste like sushi it tastes like someone’s resurfacing your nasal cavity) and they pack some of the those Mega omega 3 fatty acids which people who know things about such things seem fond of; so get some. Other good bets are spinach (costco has bags big enough to sleep in for $4) tinned tomato, peanut butter (again costco organic) and cheerios (they have about the best fiber:sugar ratio of any cereal I can find cheaply). As for having to write “I live in my car” on race entry forms, and shaving in a rear view mirror I’m afraid I haven’t got any tips for you – it sucks!
Adeu, and a recipe(http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Catalan-Spinach-1889) and a rock band (http://www.poprockbands.com/sidonie/band/prs.html) to get you in the Catalan frame of mind:

big saturday

2011-03-20T21:01:00.000-07:00

sadly although this WAS a big Saturday in spandex there was very little pole dancing involved. in fact you could accurately say there was none. I thought i would open your eyes to a big training day. in the form of a diary which makes things seem somewhat planned and organised, i like that illusion.

i wake at about 7.15am, can't seem to kick the habit (wish i'd been able to do that when i was 16) so today was no different. In order to prevent myself from setting about a manly breakfast i rapidly applied spandex and grabbed a healthy few snacks which i'd made the night before (chewy bars, a pb and jam sandwich, and a few hammer gels) 2 bottles of nuun and my omnipod and headed out the door. after 15 minutes of brisk pedaling i rendevouz'ed (i think i just coined a new word) with a local group ride which provided me with a hearty bagel based breakfast and the opportunity to dilute the level of blood in my caffeine system.

an hour of no-number bike racing ensued in which i proceeded to regret the bagel and indeed creep around at the back making myself work harder than i would have done at the front but not receiving the chance to battle the other grown men for the ultimate prize. Bunch gallop completed i hooked up with fellow commonwealthian Alistair Loutit and rolled out east towards Palomar. I checked my sugars after the sprint 204, i put down a cliff bar over the next hour, i thought i would need it later.

we hit Escondido at about 10am, Escondido doesn't have a rush hour it's just pants, always. after playing stop light trackstand world championships and cursing the existence of what appears to be a compendium of every single kind of bad junk food in between my house and the biggest hills around we crested Wholford and Descended to the base of the mountain. a quick prick revealed a bs of 154 and another prick (this one owned and operated a gas station) revealed that the water from the fountain cost 50 cents. I put down a gel and we set off upwards. pretty soon i was bloody creeping like my legs were made of concrete. i put away a chewy bar and an apple cinnamon gel (secret weapon, super yummy) and dragged myself up to the top. Where loutit was waiting for me. I only noticed this when i nearly rode into him, it was so foggy i could barely see. At this point we were 100k and 31/2 hours deep. I refuelled at mother's kitchen with cherry pie. and a mocha (they don't know about the mocha, i paid for a coffee and raided the chocolate machine. Now mother's kitchen makes a FINE egg and avocado sarnie but i'd like to name and shame their use of delicious but somewhat unnatural baked goods from COSTCO. those weren't hanging about in MY mother's kitchen!

my hands were so bloody cold i didnt test up at the top but the ride back saw my legs return, it was noon when we left the cafe and we rolled the 100k back home much faster, i put away my pb and jam sarnie (mum's homemade raspberry jam). The only event of particular note was the bloke in escondido who followed us through the whole city blaring rock music and throwing up "bullhorns" - i may have encouraged this by doing some of my more ornate bike based moshing and revealing my gene simmon'sesque tounge (it's really big, you could make a lengua taco or something).

i made it home at about 80 mmol and pounded a yogurt parfait, had a shower and commenced doing totally bugger all. sadly i had to move all mys tuff out of my house later in the day so i motivated myself with the carrot of a couple of Bull Taco offerings. having rolled up north we proceeded to try to attend several parties, judiciously selecting the one which involved the least standing up. ( i also put away another hypo related bowl of cheerios) and ended up at the pub. On the reccomendation of the bartender i enjoyed a fine cismontaine double IPA and returned home via the supermarket (late night = reduced prices) for a fine dinner of tuna and spinach supplemented by some yogurt and cereal augmented by a healthy trowel-full of peanutbutter (maybe i should stop buying stuff in bulk it's cheaper but the variety isn't exactly thrilling)

i went to bed at 108 - i'm not going to throw out bolus numbers but if you feel like they'd help you contact me directly. for those who asked i hope this helped, for those who didn't i hope God credits you with 5 minutes of your life when you cash in your chips

stage race sugars

2011-03-08T08:34:00.000-08:00

murco
cm 120 numbers from my navi
Thurs started at 140 - finished at 80
fri started warmup at 160, race at 120 finished at 95
sat started at 134 - finished in a pile on the ground
sun started at 110 finished at the free food tent with a dead navi

Cattle country cycling

2011-03-05T11:15:00.001-08:00

This is coming to you from a tiny motel room in merced I've got my legs up on the wall and ive enjoyed a delectable meal of rotisserie chicken from Costco and pasta cooked on our hotplate. I'm typing on my iPod, my first blog on the road for the season so I thought I'd give you a wee insight into our little world.

We came equipped for bare bones racing; hotplate, oatmeal and cool box. The shower is full of bikes an I've conducted a genocide on the towels cleaning my chain.

Top tips for aspiring bicycle gypsies include seeking out te cheapest motel well ahead of time, I'm all about the nonchain joints. Alternatively roll into town late, with a seeping bagand tent in your car and hope for he best. Look for a free breakfast, you can snag those pastries for race food. The ice machine keeps your coolbox chillin ( top tip, dont get a foam one, i drove 7 hours and it never ceased making a sound like a castrated rodent) My one concession to luxury is my aeropress coffee maker - it's nice to have wifi but it's broken here! The pool or the bath tub plus ice work wonders for recovery and you can get most of your 5 a day and all your condiments at a Mexican salsa bar. Bare bones cooking involves a hotplate and oatmeal, pasta and jarred sauces. Heat treated milk is a lifesaver or almond milk. And never travel without a set of plastic eating ironsand flatware.

Stay classy people!

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

lookin' buff like 'Bert

2011-02-20T21:26:00.000-08:00

As cyclists many of us fetishise that "euro" look. The desire to appear "PRO" (and yes it seems obligatory to capitalise it) often far supercedes the need to steer your bike properly, ride it efficiently or sit on it comfortably. This cycling equivalent of 9 inch stilletos finds its apex on facebook where people who spend hours ont he internet pass judgement on people who spend hours on their bikes. Fortunatley this trend has yet to spread to Europe. You're unlikley to see an Italian chastising people for wearing socks which don't match their gloves, using "unnapproved" apparel or for running a japanese groupset on a European bike (which they're PAID to ride mr dentist who crossed 3 lanes of traffic to judge me last week).

Anyway i would like to share with you an element of European cycling fashion which has yet to make it into the hallowed halls of a facebook group pertaining which can be edited by students in the US (including one who goes to a university called "American"). This item is more metro than the manbag (or murse if you will) more practical that the lobster glove and better at keeping the bugs at bay than Intravenous Echinacea. Ladies and Gents i give you the neckerchief, marketed in the US as the "buff".

It serves 2 vital functions: it keeps the upper respiratory tract warm and prevents you getting a cold AND it looks dashing as buggery (i mean come on, it's halfway between a ruff like one of the 3 musketeers might wear and a cravat which is the very definition of dashing). When it's really cold, putting the fabric over your nose and mouth can really help prevent the horrible burning sensation as the blood vessels in your throat burst thanks to the temperature differential between the air and your innards. It's also great for looking like a dayglo terrorist when it's too cold and snowy to even ride at all.

Now first of all is hould outline that the MOST euro of neckgaiters is not the buff but the etxeondo product. handmade by basque Shepherd's wives using Iban Mayo's pubic hairs (ok so some of that isn't true). Featuring a toggle at one end and a fleece lined tube of fabric it can serve as a hat, a neckerchief and a nosewarming/rebreathing device in extreme conditions. There are other notable brands and types of neckgaiter avaliable, the buff itslef is rather lightweight and works for warmer temps in the 5-15 degree range (Celsius people, it's sooo euro), below these temperatures i favour a full fleece unit or at least a thermal buff. Many colours and patterns are available and it seems to be the case that one can clash such an accessory with one's kit without fear of offending the style gurus who lurk behind the tubes of the internet being that they are yet to learn of the existence of such neckwear.

I myself was spotted sporting a rather dashing white fleecy neckgaiter at Today's CBR bicycle race (sadly about the only thing i did to distinguish myself today) and my good friend Bert the beefeater is such a fan he often sports two simultaneously.

Now all i need is a bright pink model......

building blocks and breaking bread

2011-02-15T08:05:00.000-08:00

it's been a wee while since my last blog (find one recently which doesn't start like that) but i've been busy. My teammates dan and Bob have both come from colder climes to stay with us here in sunny California. it's been great having people to share our dream beach house with, especially when we're giving them a break from the chilly climes out east.

I've been putting in the big miles out and starting up the high intensity efforts. I couldn't be in a better place to be doing it, out in the East county of San Diego the hills are beautiful at this time of year and they take on a rather tuscan character with the obvious exception of the avocado groves. Talking of avocados i have been enjoying plenty of California's most delicious bounty recently, which brings me the "king of sandwiches" - fortunately this sandwich is not part of the repertoire of the burger king nor is it a meat filled deli monstrosity but rather a finely crafted piece of culinary perfection.

This Sandwich is pretty awesome it takes a BLT, steals it's lunch money AND gives it a wedgie. First you lay down the base (it's like training but yummier) i like to roll with Irish soda bread, but if you can't get hold of it i would go with rye. Then i lather on some mayo or avocado, 3 rashers of the saltiest bacon, then some green lettuce (romaine would work), good fresh tomatoes and (and this is where it really lays the nipple cripple on the puny BLT) a couple of good slices of home cured gravadlax (do it like that, but use brown sugar and tequila) i could also throw on this really cool herb which grows outside our house. It looks like a cowbell but has a lemon/cilantro flavour. Or some capers, or pickles, it depends on how i'm feeling.

I'd love to add a picture to this short musing but i've never been able to restrain my hunger for long enough. I'm thinking of trying to work more rare beef into my diet though, they tell me it makes one mucho mas rapido ;)

Until next time kids, stay hungry

oh and check out city and colour, they're a great chilled out band. Recently I've also been enjoying the works of matt and kim and MGMT when I'm busting out those longer intervals, they help me find a good rhythm. try it.

on egypt

2011-02-01T07:31:00.000-08:00

http://sarthanapalos.wordpress.com/2011/01/31/a-guide-how-not-to-say-stupid-stuff-about-egypt/

salient points well made

i like it when people say thank you

2011-01-26T15:42:00.001-08:00

got a really cool email today
Hey James,

I wanted to thank you sososo much for taking time out of your day to speak with me. I really am truly honored to have met you. I am going to use those tips that you gave me first chance I get today when I get on my bike after work today. I found you on Twitter and followed you like you said, I also followed Cycling Fans. I really look forward to grabbing a pint before you head home. Also you sead to remind you that you may have some extra clothing lying around. Do well on your workout today, and that's a bummer that your coffee maker broke. I would have been super pissed.

new year, new plan,

2011-01-22T08:29:00.000-08:00

Good morning from a sunny Southern California. It's been a wee while since my last blog. Being a full time cyclist has been taking up my time rather fully as of late. I've been ramping up the intensity of my training thanks to my coach and the San Diego weather and some great company. Fellow tt1 rider Alex Bowden and I are living in a humble studio within spitting distance of the sea and smelling distance of the lagoon.

We've been training plenty and basking in the sunshine plenty more. Enjoying good food and the company of good friends before the racing season starts in earnest in a few weeks. I'm looking forward to hitting the road and having some fun but I'm also partial to being a bit of a homebody especially with such a perfect view from our kitchen window! As we speak i am using said view, along with this blog to procrastinate on a hard ride which i have scheduled.

Between moving house, riding lots and attempting to sort out visa/ family stuff. I had some family issues to resolve over the holidays which made the period less than festive but i'm glad to report that they are as far towards a resolution as can be expected. Blogging about them in detail would be neither useful nor helpful but it certainly took up a lot of time and a lot of my capacity to be cheerful. I've fallen rather behind on my online publishing commitments, let me tell you, there's no need to worry. I intend to return,stronger than before in a fashion which would make the one testacled wonder entirely envious.

but first, as my blood sugar arrow points straight up, it's chamois time!

noshing north of the border

2010-12-31T02:08:00.000-08:00

i'm on a train, with wifi AND a bike carriage - this richard branston bloke has got his stuff sorted out. Not only is he a veritable prince of pickles he also knows how to build a (tilting) train. * I was going to take this opporttunity to gush about what a crazysuperawesomeemotionaldeepmassive year i've had. BUT there are lots of blog posts about that so catch up with your reading people, if you're really bored this was a goodie and this is what happens when i get angry. Read those and step AWAY from the quality street.

instead of bringing you my musings about where the last 365 days have taken me i've decided to treat you to a breakdown of the ways my grandmother has been delighting my tastebuds recently. I want to say that my granny is one of the old school - she cooks from scratch, uses considerable amounts of animal fat. never snacks and serves tea AND dinner. it's pretty cool.

anyway the two confections with which i was particualirly taken and for which i always feel a certain sense of nostalgia are NOT to be recommended by those of us who monitor grams of things but they still score highly on the saturated fat:smiles ratio.

scotch eggs have not passed my lips for a good half decade and i'd just about forgotten how good an hard boiled egg, wrapped in sausage meat and then covered in breadcrumbs and (you guessed it) DEEP FRIED can be. Wikipedia reminds us that the scotch egg is older than the USA so don't knock it, it's got some experience. I'm pretty sure that i've actually eaten individual scotch eggs which predate the USA but this one was a fine specimen, local suasage meat, free range chicken foetus and just the right temperature. just right after a few hours 'crossin (both in the sense of cyclocrossin and in the fact that i was straddling the river esk which seperates England from Scotland). Given my recent affection for the ginger beard, riding in the mud deep fried foods, i felt more than welcome north of the border. Oh and i also play the 'pipes which helps.

my second culinary creation offers a very specific cycling benefit. black pudding is " is a type of sausage made by cooking blood or dried blood with a filler until it is thick enough to congeal when cooled" and to that i might add "a vital component of a proper English breakfast"(alongside good bacon, sausage, fried eggs, and maybe baked beans but only if the table on which the meal is served is made of formica). not only is this confection high in protein, crazy high in iron, a vessel for the delivery of whole grains and very filling indeed it also offers us a chance to experiment with the boundaries of WADA's code. If bert can get away with steak doping im wondering if i could extract my own blood, send it up to Granny and have her knock up a batch of blood pudding for me to consume in the middle of a hard block. It's the ultimate in personally tailored performance enhancing snacking. EPNO might sound like a good idea but can you really beat bloodboostingblackpudding for a pre race supplement?

Food for thought AND food for sport that. enjoy your new year and may it bring you peace, prosperity and pleasure.

PS this train is on time, the last train i took in the US was 12 hours late. From this i can conclude a couple of things 1) southern cali has a car culture 2) david cameron = mussolini

*has anyone noticed a sharp rise in the amount of british specific banter in my musings recently

Snow business

2010-12-31T02:06:00.001-08:00

Greetings from the mother country! If you've got nothing better to do than follow my tweets you may have noticed that it's bloody cold. The use of a proper adjective there qualifies the degree of cold. If I'd used a socal adjective like "freakin" or even "damn bro" you could expect it to be about 12 centigrade in real money or in the high 50s if you insisit on those retrograde yankee degrees. But my use of a British adjective indicates a whole new level of hypothermia: it's -19 c(-2 in roman catholic) and on top of that we have about 25cm of snow! Quite the winter wonderland.

Since getting back I've ridden outside once, well nearly twice. Friday was "only" -5 and there want any snow so we rode for 4 hours, my hands burned like they were covered in molten lead! That night we got hit by about 15cm of snow and the roads were pretty much impassable by the next morning so training has been limited to the mind (and groin) numbing pleasure that is riding inside. Any top tips would be welcome. Apparently taping a note saying HTFU onto your stem only works for a few hours. I'm burning through the laundry at an unprecedented rate of knots (2-3X sweaty indorr sessions a day = lots of chamois laundry) and rapidly running out of coffee (ahem @birdrockcoffeeroasters hook me up!). in temps like these everything becomes a mission, the chickens' water tank freezes and requires daily defrosting, the horses need more food as they cant get at the grass and going outside is an exercise in the application of sheeps' hair.

After a couple of days piloting the rollers I decided I'd had enough. I cued up some chopper reid and grabbing my snow shovel and set out to create what, if I say so myself was one of the more burly cyclocross loops that the village of murcot has ever seen. It included a pretty "sick" kicker a berm best described as "gnarly" (bro) and some "hella" cool (literally) snowbarriers. Sadly the next day saw it disappear under a fresh coat of snow. I also managed a 4 hour hike the other day, apparently its hard to navigate when everything is covered in white powder so I may have gone a little further than planned. Still it made for a fun day and everyone in my village officially KNOWS I'm a nutter now.

I went to get my hair cut the other day and the hairdresser told me she thought it was funny that I was essentially am 8 year old inside. And it was indeed the case that come the morning of the 25^th I was indeed awake long before my young cousins (with whom I was sharing a room) – luckily my aunt had my back and had subtly planted a stocking at the end of my bed so I could indulge myself with the delights of a chocolate orange (if Terry wants to claim it he can come and get it back), some pretty awesome trinkets (hello Spork) and a copy of new scientist which my cousin was reading to try and appear clever. Having not delved into the world of scientific literature (even in this "lite" form) since I got my place to read history at Oxford 5 years ago I can safely inform the assembled ignoramuses like myself that there is no cause for alarm NOTHING INTERESTING HAS HAPPENED, well to be more accurate nothing interesting happened lat week anyway. Or at least, nothing that was interesting to someone who isn't really interested in such matters. Funny that.

The rest of crimbo was pretty uneventful, I set insulin world records, enjoyed a quality lunch of poultry and pudding, took the dog (and my bloated stomach) for a walk and put some sweet orange HUDZ on the cx rig in prep for the Kenilworth boxing day cx the next day. But that, children, is another story….

Test

2010-12-28T14:58:00.001-08:00

It's bloody chilly!

-yep typed it with my thumbs: they're what makes us better than apes

Location:Cumbria

Bend: over. Getting screwed by the man

2010-12-16T11:50:00.001-08:00

I'm proud of that title; even if it is a little crude. My 'cross nats adventure is over, as is my 24 hour journey south. I won't bore you with the details but it wasn't fun. The race report from nationals will be on the tt1 website soon (while you're there why not equip yourself in style with the finest of lime green foppery; you too can look like the Grinch this festive season).

Bend was a pretty cool town. I very much appreciated the lack of chain stores in the downtown area and the preponderance of coffee choices. I was fortunate enough to be staying with a fantastic host family in a palacial dwelling about 8 miles out of town. This meant I could happily ride into town on my 'cross bike as a handy warm up for some 'crossing about in the mud. On the Monday after my race I got to chill out downtown which was great; I can recommend Bend Mountain coffee if you're ever in town. I love a coffee shop where the owner knows the names of his regulars, where you can rely on your coffee being ready for you without having to give the order, where you're welcome as a friend and not as a customer. The same thing applies ot the cycling industry. Some of the larger brands in our sport have been engaging in what is, in my opinion, pretty unsavoury business practice towards local shops. Carrying one brand in particular leads to almost total saturation with a product range that; while perfectly passable has many rivals of equal or greater merit which are unrepresented. At the very least some variety would be nice, you don't WANT the same bike as everyone else, especially when it's black. Your local bike shop should be somewhere to go for advice and you have every right to expect them to recommend products regardless of the brand on those products. They, in return have the right to rely on the relationship which you have with them to bring business. When your local shop starts stocking and selling a single brand, you might as well shop online. Think about the added value you receive from bantering with the mechanics, the countless hours every week that get spent tightening bolts and pumping tyres for free. Think about the first time you got 10% off without asking. So don't let your local bike shop become a starbucks get your arse (and your wallet) down there and buy your presents from real people, before we start using pretend Italian terms to describe our frame sizes!

I'm in an airport on my way back to blighty, ready for some real winter training in the proper cold weather. Judging by my parents reports it's unrideable but my parents have a rather different outlook on such matters. Just like my bike shop point above one of the things I love about being home is the comfort of fitting in absoloutley. Nobody remarks on my pronunciation, my spelling, the brakes on my bike being backwards or my refusal to call porridge "oatmeal". The cycling community around where I grew up has always been great to me and I look forward to cruising out on the "antiques roadshow" rides which stop for cider in the summer and tea in the winter. I love the conversations that pick up every 6 months and the friendships-cum-rivalries which only grow stronger with absence. I'm not a big fan of the bloody snow though, or sitting in Dallas fort worth airport! I'm scoping out the other passengers right now; there are some proper whoppers. If I land a king sized neighbour I will not be a happy camper; I've slept 8 hours in the last 48 and all I want to do is close my eyes.

Here's another list to brighten up your day ( I know how you look forward to these)

5 food combos to to try before crimbo:

Chevre get the soft one; put in on toast (walnut raisin bread if you have it) with honey, eat, ride.

Feta, watermelon, mint (salad enhancer par excellence)

Seeds in salad (seems I'm late to the party with this one)

The poor man's mocha (get a coffee, add the chocolate powder, sweetener and milk yourself. For ultimate cheapo credit, get it WITHOUT room for cream, then drink some THEN affect mocha marvelousness)

Lovely goat teas + stevia. Manorexic beverage of choice, I'll throw it in a bidon and go out to brave the cold (all kinds of good blends, stay healthy, stay warm AND reuse the tin to wrap your presents in)

And finally some questions: can someone please explain the following to me? They're bothering me immensely: flaxseeds, half-caf coffee, "American" cheese (apart from as a night-time visibility aid), treaded road tyres, hammer perpetum solids.

Bend – the beginning

2010-12-13T10:30:00.001-08:00

No prizes for guessing where I'm going with the title of my next blog post….

I'm on an aeroplane again which means the netbook's out and you get to tolerate the web 2.0 version of talking to the person in the seat next to me. I just got on this particular vessel, I can safely say I've seen cars in LA which are bigger (and use more fuel) but going by the universally acknowledged formula of smaller jet = bigger deal I'm pretty excited to be on this flying minivan. Not so excited that they just moved a fat bloke to the back to balance the plane (I'm not even joking).

Anyway it's been a while since I've written anything so I thought I'd update my avid fans on a few things. First up the 'betes game. It's been silly bugger for sure recently. It seems like every time I put in 2 or 3 days over 5 hours my body responds by rolling high at first then plummeting as the glycogen stores drop (from the high volume and the being high which most likely leave me in a pretty hefty glycogen deficit). The hypo days are no fun, my navi report graphs look like the teeth of a saw. Thankfully after experimenting I've found something approaching a solution: ice cream! It'll put you up and it has a fair whack of fat, so it'll keep you up. Really I didn't work that out by myself, Bob tipped me off. Take note: my cycling team manager told me to eat some ice cream! Hopefully this'll be the first night this week when I won't be at the dextrose in the early hours of the morning.

Having got the body into something resembling harmony I can now focus on the two wheeled side of things. Thanks to the boys at bailey-bikes.com and velohangar I've got myself a 'cross bike just in time for nationals. When I say just in time I mean I picked it up last night and rode it at 6am this morning, put it in a box and onto a plane! Thankfully Gordon wields an allen key and tape measure with a rare degree of skill and the second I hopped onto the bike it felt like my own, I could give ten mechanics my measurements but it's rare I don't have to tweak a cable or toe in a brake. I guess that's why people keep going back. If you're ever in San Diego (or indeed if you're ever in need of a direction in which to point your web browser) check out velohangar.com bicycle fettling par excellence.

On my training ride (notice there has been only one) I managed to keep the rubber side down and the grinning side up. I can wholeheartedly recommend a 'cross bike. They really open up all kinds of training routes and take the battering of winter training well. They also make a really cool humming noise when you're smacking it. This is particularly awesome. I imagine myself as some kind of turbo-dementor/dalek-hovercraft whilst I'm 'crossing about scaring squirrels and tempting the local dogs into a spot of chase the skinny bloke.

This is part one of a pretty epic block of travelling, and I've already spent far too much on bad airport food and stewed coffee. I'm flying from bend back to LAX. Stopping to see some friends for dinner, then getting a train to San Diego. Where I'll spend 24 hours before getting on another plane back to blighty. So if you're reading on the other side of the pond, and you fancy yourself as a top notch heckler. Come out to the boxing day 'cross in Kenilworth and look out for the skinny bloke dressed as Buzz lightyear. (you might also want to get your arse to London and use your heckling skills on our sorry excuse for a government)…..

Oh and for those of you who want cluing in on what's filling the gaping chasm between my ears on those long rides:

Gayle Skidmore – make believe

Mumford and Sons – Sigh no more

Stereophonics – Word gets around

Manic Street preachers – Postcards from a young man, all the B sides from lifeblood (check out voodoo Polaroids & dying breeds)

Some weird trance track called "LOL smiley face"

BBC podcasts on Moral philosophy ( check out the trolley problem on Wikipedia)

of toupes, Tucson and bacon

2010-11-22T14:52:00.000-08:00

I'm back from a surreally great trip to Arizona, the team had organised a week of athlete days, rides, bike expos and even something approaching a race. Quite the feat in the middle of November and the week before thanksgiving. Especially when many of my other teammates are in Rwanda doing fantastic work there.

Arizona is (geographically) a short hop from California which of course facilitated massive complacency with regard to my travel arrangements and led to me making a mad dash home from school 2 hours before takeoff riding flat out carrying a bike box and trying not to blow over sideways. I managed to cram my much abused training bike into it's carboard confines, pad it out with lime green lycra and make it t the airport in time to sit on my arse and wait for the delayed flight - smooth.

Whilst we were in Arizona we had various sponsor events scheduled, our main sponsors are the insulin manufacturer Sanof-Aventis. this week gave us a pretty cool chance to actually visit their research facility in Tucson, I was not so excited about getting up at 5.45 AM to be there in time, or with the petrol station coffee we got en route! expecting to discover professors of science int he grey haired, moustachioed saftey spectacled mould i was presently surprised to find a group of guys waiting outside for a brisk ride on our arrival. the ride was great, not only did we move along at a fair clip but the guys we met were genuinely great people. It always baffles me when someone is pleased to see me (unless it's my dog, she goes largely unappreciated in that regard) but these guys were excited to ride with us, even though what they do every day (inventing the compounds which keep me alive) is far more amazing than anything we do in Spandex ( with the exception of any superheroes who happen to be reading). over the course of the week we formed some great bonds with our sponsors out there, they took us out to eat in the best local spots. supported us in the race and made evrythign about our trip perfect. Sometime i wonder about the diabetes "industry" but everything about the guys at sanofi was reassuring. They were, put simply, good people and i'm proud to be able to represent them.

my non sponsor time was split between visiting hispanic diabetes groups (very rewarding, question of the day "cual es lo mejor cervesa para nosotros diabeticos" answers on the back of a postcard please) and riding around the desert outside Tucson trying not to get lost. we got to visit some doctors at a hospital and my teammates had a highly emotional but totally positive visit to the paediatric oncology ward. I actually had a rather emotional cancer related experience myself but that'll wait until part deux.

I also got to hang out at the expo a lot, this was fun, i met lots of cool bikey people including the guys from the Mavic SSC who proved to be another group i'd like to add to the "good people" directory: they were there with snacks in times of crisis and provided genuinely interesting conversation all week and fantastic support during the race. Saldy the whole expo experience was ruined by the revelation that, in our sponsor material SOMEONE HAS PHOTOSHOPPED MY HAIR! im pretty sure there are laws against that kind of nonesense, screw "don't touch my junk" how about "keep your mouse away fro my locks". Not only did they have the temerity to "comb" my hair, they've somehow switched the parting over and "pouffed" it so i like something out of "happy days".

when i wasn't being sartorially humiliated, I spent the mornings and evenings with my teammates from team type 1 and team type 2, in the mornings we rode to coffee shops, drank espresso and posed in the way that only skinny men in lycra can do without looking silly (hang on, apparently everyone else thought we DID look silly, arse). We ate some fantastic meals, and drank some great beer. Above all though i enjoyed spending time with my teammates, we all get on really well. There's never any friction and there's always someone to ride with. i love our mixture of deep conversation and ridiculous banter. Of particular interest was our debate on the acceptability of dipping fries in a chocolate shake, once again i'd love to hear your opinions, but only if they're in agreement with mine, which i wont be revealing until after you share yours.... at this point 47 scott in Tucson deserves a special mention. Our post - race dinner there was fantastic, great food, good portions AND a cocktail based on whisky and bacon - check it out 47scott.com. Honourable mention goes to el guerro canelo - once again bacon was involved, this time wrapped around a hot dog and smothered in, well everything really.

having gorged myself on enough beef to secure a positive test for clenbuterol any time int he next decade and visited Tucson's only 24 hour bike shop in order to make some last minute preparation i managed to sleep a recoverytastic 5 hours the night before the event. But if you want to know more about that you'll have to wait for the next installment.....

stripathons and such

2010-11-05T15:35:00.000-07:00

seems like it's time to climb back on the horse; my calendar says November (actually it doesn't I've just realised that and I'm going to stop writing and change it. Right, i'm back, crisis averted). i bet you're all excited to hear about the thrill that is logging base miles, not drinking (as much beer) and lifting (girly sized) weights. Well you'll have to wait until there's nothing more exciting to write about. right now i'm about to divulge a fascinating insight into the last few weeks of my offseason, peppered, as always with amusing anecdotes, top tips, uncorrected typos and even a sly recipe.

first up; halloween has been and gone: this is a great time to stock up on minature chocolate goodies which you can tote about in your jersey pocket. it's also a good time to buy pumpkins really cheaply. if you roast the pumpkin you can put it in oatmeal with cinnamon and honey and raisins and almond milk. it's pretty much the ultimate autumnal breakfast and it's sooper cheap and healthy. then you can roast the seeds with some salt and herbs/ spices. mix them up with raisins, your little goodies (i like peanut m&ms- they have a gi of like 48) from halloween and some almonds for a pretty damn fine trail mix for all those long slow miles you're going to be logging (or all those movies you're going to be watching).

Incidentally don't fall into the trap of thinking all this domestic godliness doesn't come without risks, right now I'm nursing a smoothie related wound. Apparently hot espresso in a cold smoothie machine isn't such a good idea. The glass cracked, the blade kept running and i was trapped in a frozen fruit/ coffee/ glass tornado. Luckily I'm harder than titanium coated nails and if ought my back to the blender and unplugged the little bugger but not before it had propelled some glass into my hands and some milk into every bloody orifice in my kitchen. 45 minutes and a roll of tissue paper later and i think I've avoided the potential for fermenting smoothie in the biscuit drawer.

I'n the brief periods in between all the eating and drinking i've been doing i have managed to poke my nose into the public sphere a little bit (yep Habermas reference on a cycling blog). Last Saturday i visited the TCOYD conference in San Diego. admittedly i wasn't quite as set up as some of the exhibitors; essentially my stand consisted of me, a bike and some rollers. What it lacked in grandeur it made up for in purple spandex and enthusiasm. I got to meet lots of really cool local people, share the 'betes knowledge and try to balance on the rollers whilst people poked my omnipod, all in a day's work!

I want to highlight a particular friend of mine called Art. Art went blind at 21 due to complications from type 1, he was on medicaid and it's not always easy. Anyway art has better control now and has started riding; with the help of his dedicated friend and stoker Don and my somewhat haphazard coaching he's making progress. He's not on cgm which makes it pretty tough for him to check often (imagine getting the blood on a strip when you couldn't see either) but we're working on it (help would be appreciated). His bike's a piece but once again, we're trying to find something better. What's important isn't the bike, or the 'betes technology it's the fact that Art is the most enthusiastic athlete i've ever worked with. i told him to set his goals high and he has; he wants to be, in his own words: "the fastest blind dude in the world"...watch this space (pun intended)

Art went blind when he was 21 but in parts of the world he'd be lucky to live that long with diabetes. right now the team is preparing for a stage race in Rwanda. this'll be the first time an entirely diabetic team will be racing in a uci level event. I'm aiming to make the team for this race next year. For now, there's a more important goal. Thousands of people in Rwanda live with diabetes but without the supplies needed to thrive or even survive. YOU can help. click here
and donate your unused strips, meters, lancets and pictures of ex presidents printed on green paper. These people need your help, they suffer from the same malady that i do and but for an accident of birth our roles could have been switched. I've spent a fair chunk of time in Africa, it's a place which is very close to my heart . It's pretty hard to condemn people to an ealry grave when we CAN provide what they need to thrive especially when it's simply by sharing things that we'd normally throw away. so do it NOW.

right Bob Geldof bit over (i think his hair is even messier than mine) I have to go and retrieve some pumpkin seeds from the oven. In other news listen to postcards from a young man by the manic street preachers, they've yet to make an album which i didn't like. (and yes someone else took that picture, and they twittered it, and i stole it)

stout's sartorial suggestions

2010-10-21T10:53:00.000-07:00

well folks, something needed to be said and although i am normally known for my retiring nature and meek disposition i have decided to speak out. whilst i wouldn't go as far as to label myself a "king of style" i do like to think of myself as slightly innovative in the field of cycling garmentry. perhaps some kind of sartorial archduke, the Framz-Ferdinand of fashion. in cycling fashion, as in all things, you cant go far wrong if you apply Wham lyrics as guiding moral principles so: "if you're gonna do it, do it right".

i thought i would begin with some guiding principles:
1) always wear less on the bottom half of your body than the top. legwarmers and short sleeves is a no-no. Furthermore work from the periphery to the core; armwamrers come before the gilet (not vest people GILET) then come kneewarmers (at this point AND NOT BEFORE) you may wear long gloves, then come legwarmers. Jersey wise, if you think it's funny, it's not it's freldy. if the team is still racing and you aren't on the team, don't wear it. if lance was on the team (it's nothing personal) don't wear it. Stick to club kits, block colours and pro teams over a decade old. the one pro jersey which is still ubr cool is the Mapei one, it says "i was into this before you, hell i was into this before lance Armstrong was riding a tricycle and when Greg lemonds mother was the only one who had to put up with his moaning"

2) helmets - they should be white or team colours. they should be worn when you don't have control over where or with whom you're riding. Peaked lids are absolutely never acceptable on the tarmac, ever. training in an aero helmet is also verboten.

3) bikes - matchy matchy is good but a few rules apply: coloured tyres are garish and nasty, maybe a bit of sidewall style but nothing more please. saddle bags should fit neatly under the saddle, you aren't a camel don't pack like one. Bottles: bring two, they should match, large bottles are not stylish but in a pinch you can bring one, put it on your downtube cage. need more than 2 cages? drink less. bar tape; garish colours ar e not okay unless you're olympic champion stick with white, white with flair stripes or very occasionally blue/red on the right bike. big, cushiony bar tapes are like big cushiony saddles; leave them for your grandpa.

2)accessorize! this is where you take style and make it your own. you can also make riding at this time of year a lot more comfortable this way. taking it from top to toe start with a quality casquette, when training alone favour the cap (if the roads are safe blah blah blah) and in particular the walz cap www.walzcaps.com - with earflaps if it's wet or cold. If it's below 15 celsius (60 'murican degrees cos everything is bigger in America) you shouldn't let your knees or throat go uncovered so break out the buff, i don't mean get naked i mean get one of those tube scarves. they taught us the 15 degree rule in Spain; that's why Bert always sports the buff in the training pictures, giving away all the secrets now, aren't i?

armwarmers should either be white, black or matching your kit. gloves can be long or short fingered, again white, black or matching. i do like the "lobster" style gloves for when it gets below freezing. i'm also not averse to silk undergloves (and socks) for the cold weather riding.

sunglasses; here's the deal, they should either match or clash horribly with your kit/ helmet. the arms go OVER the helmet straps and if it's foggy out i'm a BIG fan of the orange lenses, they make you feel better than amphetamine, i can say that with 0.00000000005% certainty (which as we know is enough to condemn a man so it should be plenty enough to buy some shades)

and finally,socks. my hosier of choice is the sock guy www.sockguy.com, they give you a chance to express your personality without the need to wear a stupid primal jersey that fits like a parachute and breathes like an asthmatic pensioner. generally socks should be light in colour and team colours/ white. black on the road is a no. the same goes for shoes, white, light colours and NEVER black on the tarmac.

and now the final rule; you'll notice i pretty much flaunt many of the above and here's why: you can break the rules but only if you know you're breaking them. think of me like the velo Vivienne Westwood.

The fredator, the 9 fingered man and other tales from the velodrome

2010-10-07T18:51:00.001-07:00

Well I'm on a plane again, so im writing a blog again. I'm off to Texas for a ride and some doctor visits as well as a press conference and a school visit. Yep, they have schools in Texas, this should be an interesting visit. Right now I'm pretty much resting. Ride my bikes because its fun, not because I have to train. If we're following the lego training analogy (forgot about that didn't you) this is the cup of tea and chocolate digestive which you drink with your mum after you've built your lego castle. I haven't been overindulging in the tea and biscuits but the ale and burrito portion of my diet has increased in proportion to the oat and electrolyte drink portion.

I flew from LAX on Thursday, just two days after closing out my bicycle racing season with the last night of Tuesday night racing at the San Diego Velodrome. Our velodrome is without doubt the coolest place IN THE WORLD to be on a Tuesday night. They say you can only have so much fun with your trousers on but this place pushes the limits of the amount of enjoyment you can achieve in a skinsuit.

Tuesday seemed to be the peak of what has been a really fun track season. We raced a points race and a scratch in which I distinguished myself only by a third place in a points sprint and a particularly poor time on the front: beer primes won ratio. Then we engaged in some novelty events, I match sprinted my good friend Mike Morton. Given that my pancreas doesn't work and Mike is one digit short, we figured it was a fair match. I decided the only way to go was to make it a kilo effort, mike has easily 50lbs and about 200w at max on me so I wasn't going to leave it late. I geared up for the sprint and this was perhaps a mistake, I got the 92 inch gear moving alright but mike got on me and then came around for the win, albeit not by a large distance. Bollocks.

On the plus side Mike's wife Kirsten furnished me with a delicious bowl of butternut squash soup and two very fine cookies. Somehow mike comes back every year lighter and faster. If I got food like that every day, my motivation to ride would be quoshed by the opportunity to stay at home and eat!

My next match sprint was something of a battle of Britain. My friend (and multiple Olympian/ world champ) Sean Wallace decided to throw down the gauntlet, this surprised me slightly given that he's a fair bit better than me. Then he turned up on the rail on a beach cruiser. I figured he wouldn't start if he didn't think he could win and we cut it pretty close, I could hear him on my wheel changing gear (yep, the beach cruiser had gears) so I kept jumping to make him close the gap. Sean's known for his timing and he wins just about every race by a wheel or even less but he nearly always wins. I backed it off a bit and sean made his move out of turn 4, I picked it up just enough to edge him out on the throw, ending my season on a (somewhat childish) victory. There was also some sartorial flair on display, yep for one night only I was superfred.

What makes racing on a Tuesday night special isn't the winning or the prizes it's the people. Its not that often I get to enter a race where everyone drinks beer and eats pizza together afterwards (how many cyclists drink beer and eat pizza full stop?). it's pretty rare that I split a beer hand up with a dude who just beat me in a sprint on our warm down lap! By the end of the evening results are totally insignificant, your legs hurt and you had great fun and that is important. Racing costs 5 bucks and has precisely bugger all to do with the USCF, you can't win money, qualify for nationals or get upgrade points. Despite having had the privilege to race with Olympians and world champions this season I remain a cat 5 on the track in the eyes of the USCF and I don't think I'll be upgrading any time soon, they wouldn't let me do a monkey bike Madison at ADT

in the absence of my witty prose

2010-10-05T21:03:00.001-07:00

you can listen to my little voice whispering in your ear https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B6Y9yMzs9ErvMjY2MjczOWMtNjBjZC00OTMxLWE5OWItNzE5MDdmZWIxYTNl&hl=en

little steps in the big apple

2010-09-15T07:38:00.000-07:00

the next installment of my riveting series of random musings is once again coming from the almost impossibly glam location of a small turbo-prop (sounds like a rapid rugby player doesn't it?) plane headed from La Guardia to Dallas. I'm just coming back from some athlete days with our sponsors in the Bronx.

first up i want to say i had fun, i stayed in a pretty swish hotel, ate food which costs more than i spend in a week on groceries and i managed to use my ability to fit through small gaps to sneak into flushing meadow. There wasn't much tennis going down but i did pilfer a couple of US open balls and one of those re-entry stampers which allowed me to liberally distribute the benefits of free entry to the people of queens. which brings me to my next point, those re-entry stampers are straight up racist - think about it. right now im writing a letter to Obama but he'll probably ignore me 'cos he's a muslim, or the antichrist, or not a real American, heck i bet he doesn't even drink bud light. Oh no , hang on, thats a load of rubbish he's just a lot more intelligent and less rampantly populist than Glen Beck.

anyway was i've started to get a teeny bit political i want to continue in a slightly more serious vein. Some of the stuff i saw in the Bronx was really upsetting. I met a lot of people who have lost, limbs, eyesight and loved ones to diabetes. I think that up until now, the people i had encountered how were not managing their sugars well were doing so because they chose not to but this isn't always the case. These guys want to be better, they want to see their children grow up healthy and even still be able to see their grandchildren and have both their legs so that they can walk around and play with them. In a rich country which can afford numerous global wars, is it too much to ask that these people are given (yes given, for free by the taxpayer) the ability to check their sugars more than 3 times a day?

I met a gentleman yesterday whos truck me as one of the most badass guys i'm ever likely to encounter, he was as tall as i am, covered in tattoos and he had shoulders which would put most carthorses to shame. Let's call him carlos, not because it's his name but because it helps to have a name when telling a story. I was talking to him about diet, asking him how large a portion of rice should be, he indicated his plate, all of it, and then motioned to show about an inch of thickness. I smiled and said no, that a portion should be roughly fist sized, he looked at me and told me he was a big guy and he liked to eat, this was his portion he said.

The community outreach co-ordinator overheard this and stepped in. Let's call the community worker Henry, because that's his name so it seems sensible to use it. He asked the carlos if he had kids and carlos responded that yes, he did. Then Henry proceeded to ask Carlos if he wanted to see his Kids grow up, Henry said he's lost 4 siblings to Diabetes; his first brother to survive to 50 was currently undergoing a second progressive amputation cycle, none of the others had got that far.Some of henry's siblings had children he said; he tries to be a good uncle (and having seen how caring he is in his work, i have no doubt he is an excellent one) but nothing would bring their parents back. Pretty soon Carlos was dealing with his disease, for the first time and the enormity of it moved him to tears, it was hard not to join him.

that night i went to the sugar babies club for children, we talked for a few hours about our diabetes. One girl was hugely resistant, she claimed she wasn't taking her insulin and didn't need to. We talked for what seemed like forever, i could see she was clever and a rebel, she didn't want to be told what to do. I can sympathize with that, neither do I. it was the hardest i think i've ever worked with a young person and i'm a teacher but we talked and talked. She said she wanted to start taking exercise and i helped her with some ideas, some strategies. When she left, i still felt partially defeated. then the pediatric endo who was attending came up to ame and said "you know what, right before she left she asked me if she could go back on the pump. She saw you had yours on your arm and she thought it was cool you were proud of it" that made me pretty happy.

What made me really happy were the three little boys. 5, 7 and 10 years old; two brothers and a cousin. the youngest kid pulled on my shirt and wanted to talk, so i bent down and asked him what he wanted. He wanted to know how he could sign up for the team, and could i teach him to ride a bike. i thought that was very cool, i hope i can go back and i hope they can get bikes and i can ride with them but i know it must be tough growing up in the Bronx. you're battling poverty, a cultural inclination towards poor diet and cheap food, a lack of options for exercise and provision for education and health care. Not to mention a language barrier, i only spoke for maybe 1 hour in English during a 9 hour day.

anyway it's nice to make a difference to one, or two or three people but that isn't going to solve the problem. the community there is afflicted with type 2 diabetes in a big way and big changes need to be made to help them.There are fantastic people like Henry out there giving of their time and opening up their deeply personal stories to make sure they don't get repeated. I don't know many people who would refer to their loss of an eye as an "educable opportunity" i think that's also pretty cool. Anyway, next time you think about health care reform or you think about giving to charity think about those little kids and big men who really really need help. Our friends in the industry are working to get them meters, strips and medications but it seems like an uphill struggle.

the love from above

2010-09-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

two blog entries in rapid succession - it's not often you get this lucky now is it. I wouldn't expect much at Christmas this year kids, with the sort of treats you're getting right now the blog-o-bank might soon become depleted.

Anyway, in the grand style of harry enfield and chums, this week i have been mainly; traveling. in fact as i write this i'm in an aeroplane. yep a freaking jumbo jet. unlike a certain mr Armstrong it's not MY plane, just A plane. but then again i'm not being spoofed by the onion either so it all balances out in the end.

the reasons for my jetsetting this week are wide and varied i drove to LA to see my friends (and of course to appreciate the free-flowing beauty of the interstate highways system). now im off to Ct to see a wedding. Then im back to san diego (because you can't miss tuesday night racing now can you) then im off to new york for an athlete day.

i thought seeing as i have been doing so much traveling i might throw out my top ten timely travel tips:
1)the bike boxes with the skewers that bolt in the side aren't great, if you use one, make sure to do up the skewers really loose, or they'll get snapped
2) sitting on your arse for ages does nasty things to your metabolism, so if you're afflicted with the 'betes check more eat less! they can hook up special meals if you ask in advance, they can hook up 2 if you bat your eyelids and flick your hair about a bit.
3) compression socks do good things to your legs - wear them int he car and on the plane
4) don't wear a really big belt buckle, or trousers that wont stay up without the belt in - it's awkward
5) don't tell them your insulin pump is a parole tag, apparently that's not funny
6) airport food is pants so is plane food but you knew that - i always stash some nakd goodies
7) you can get in flight wifi - how nuts is that?
8)earplugs and eyemasks rule for sleeping on the plane, but i still want to try one of those n shaped pillows.
9) ipod chargers/ radio transmitters in the car are cool. so are old mix tapes or cds
10) the drinks are free but they aren't going to run out, if you drink 4 cans dont expect me to get up 4 times for you to go to the toilet - you've got a perfectly good pile of receptacles in front of you.

oh pants the lights just went off and they told us to sit down - not sure i have any tips left for that.

snorkel summer

2010-09-01T21:58:00.000-07:00

well my trip back to the mothership is over and i've returned to San Diego where the weather, (like the majority of the population) maxes up for a lack of anything remarkable by being consistently "pleasant". I've had a fun summer pedalling around europe in what seems to have been a perpetual dirzzle but, like the weather my experiences were punctuated with some exciting thunderclaps and torrential downpours.

The last few race sin Belgium saw some interesting results, notably my foray of the front of a kermis where it was raining so hard we may as well have been racing on an ice rink. My attempts to secure the ultimate prize (or at least a crisp 10 euro bill) were foiled by a chap dressed in green who took a rapid dislike to my ability to go around corners faster than him. He informed me "you will no go up the left" i corrected him and in the next corner i illustrated that i would in fact "go up the left". Seeing his potential career as a fortune teller come crashing down around him.he decided to sprint up to me and inform me once again of my misreading of the impeding corner where i, once again, planned to move up the inside. By the way; if you're wondering why i kept moving up it's because i was moving backwards (not by my own volition) on the screaming fast crosswindy straights. Anyway our leprechaun lookalike decided enough was enough and, as i moved up on his left he hooked my bars and we both made one of the most dramatic entrances into a cafe which i can recall being involved with. Not wanting to hang around and pick up espresso mugs i tried to chase back on. finding the (not so) jolly green gimp in between myself and the bunch i decided to make use of his presence and went for the unsolicited hip sling. This didn't go down well words were exchanged in many languages and Matt stepped in with the night club classic "leave him mate, it's not worth it". Seeing matt and scott slipping off the back ahead of me and the incredible hulk look a like we decided the tactic best suited to our long term well being might be to hop in the corsa and bugger off before the hulk got angry, so that's exactly what we did. Fortunately the field had been shredded so far by this point that i still got a finish in the top half!

the next day my water bottle fell out on the cobbles and mashed my derailleur and put me in the ditch, that was really pants.

Having returned to dear old blighty (and ic an tell you it was quite the trip, but im saving that story for another day). I indulged in some good old fashioned national B chippers. Moments of amusement included the bloke who turned up in a porsche on a 12 grand bike, the porsche was absent at the end of the race, the 12 grand bike, and it's panting owner were absent the second time up the climb: you can't buy speed kids. Another notable James' moment involved my riding of the front of a race, going extra super hypoglycaemic packing in the feed thinking i was dropped, eating sandwiches and a coke only to see the bunch coming along. i joined back in and came a respectable 2nd in the sprint (albeit with a metric shitton of people up the road), nothing like a lunch stop to perk up ahilly road race with 2 inches of rainfall.

the last road race id id at home saw me achieving the unique distinction of being the first human being ever to roll a clincher and i picked a great time to do so. On the start finish climb with a lap to go i found myself 2 minutes adrift holding my ambrosio wheel up in the air (and let me tell you my arms are not optimised for holding anything apart from other people's attention). 8 miles of purgatory and 2 big piles of horse shit later ig ot back into the bunch after an epic effort from the follow car, i got in a good position for the sprint, popped in the clutch lined it up, pressed the button and engaged reverse. lame.

i hope you had as much fun as i did this summer, even if you didn't do everything you wanted to maybe you did everything you needed to. After a few weeks of "proper" racing i've got my enthusiasm back. bring on the time of year for riding bikes on mud :)

This is Kermis (part 1 of my Belgian oddesy)

2010-08-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

Bows, Belgium and the b-twin bidon curse part 1

Well it’s been an exciting week! An intrepid band of 3 of us set off on Friday for sunny Belgium. We loaded up the corsa and rolled from my house at the disgustingly uncivilized hour of 5.45am in order to make it in time for a good 45 mins of nose to tail 4th cat driving on the M25 and the insuing rush to make the ferry on time. I’m sure you want to hear all about the excitement of our ferry journey/car trip but I’ll leave you with the plot summary: we got to Belgium.
Having arrived we decided to stock up on waffle based products and speculoos (it’s a spread which tastes like ginger biscuits, a little teaspoon of heaven). We put away some serious calories before heading over to the café where the Kermesse began. We arrived 2 hours early, arriving early is frowned upon in Belgium so we laid low for a while but we were quickly found out by the local wandering alcoholic who insisted on escorting us to the bar, where we dutifully signed on. All apart from Matt that is who had decided no to bring his racing abroad letter, fortunately thanks to the benefits of my netbook and standing under a large oak tree we could scam free wifi from someone’s house (bdgag in Roselare – thank you very much). Thus, having arrived 2 hours early we very quickly found ourselves 20 minutes before the race, matt having just signed on scott and I pinning on his number and none of having done anything approaching a warm up. Luckily I had bought enough caffeine to compensate for any errors in preparation and arrived at the start line ready to go off the front, or piss like a racehorse depending on the length of the briefing. Luckily it was mercifully short and I spent most of it courting the local teenage female population trying to fins someone to hold my bottle. Luckily a gentleman of pensionable age stepped into the breech insisting “she can not do it, I can do it”. Realistically I didn’t expect to see my bottle again!
And with that we were away, not ten seconds into the race and there were guys flying past me on the pavement (sidewalk if you’re ‘murican). The other lads hadn’t raced in Belgium before but I had warned them about this, I looked down and noted that my wattage was alarmingly high my legs hurt and I felt like I was going to be sick. I assumed the pain face and kept it on for the next three hours.
Around 60 km into the race Matt rolled into a break and in true Belgian style I sat up and let it roll away, refusing to do a tap on the front. A chasing group went across and, seeing number 69 go up the road I realized I couldn’t leave a dude who was clearly having awesome luck that day out there on his own, so I bridged, along with one of his teammates. They were both from a lotto feeder team and didn’t have anyone up the road so I expected some stalwart work from them. I got on the front and proceeded to leather it at an entirely unsustainable pace, as I came into the finish straight the announcer was becoming audibly aroused by the situation. Having informed him about my diabetes before the race, my secret was out and he announced to the assembled crowd (and you can count on 300+ locals drinking in the bars around the course or playing on the assembled fairground rides) “Der diabetic english oop der weg” (the English, diabetic guy is up the road(or something resembling those words, my flemmish isn’t exactly fluent. Given the hearty support he was giving me I decided to stay on the front until the next corner, where I commenced flapping my arm like a one winged bird trying to take off. Apparently in Belgium this is the signal for “continue sucking my wheel like a limpet” as neither rof the boys came through. Seeing the break up the road I jumped and buried it, the others sat on and, the moment I looked over my left shoulder one of them galloped away to the right (on the pavement) pursued by his mate about 15 seconds later.
I decided to return to the bunch where much the same combination of refusing to work and the attacking like the mongol hordes (often catching unsuspecting spectators in the middle of the bunch) continued. I contributed to this, making at least one move on the wrong side of the deckchairs just to feel like one of the gang.
With about 20k to go I was hanging pretty badly and the race was severely strung out at 52kph, I was just beginning to think about whether I could finish when I witnessed my grandfather-like soigneur figure approaching the course, I remember thinking I’ll never get a bottle off him at this speed. The next lap saw us going even faster as the break returned and the top 30 riders were on the rivet around all the corners. We were riding the straightest fastest par tof the course when grandpa appeared again, only this time he was in the middle of the road screaming “bidon” in a very insistent manner. Not wanting him to have risked his life in vain I chinned it out of the line (I’d like to point out that I hit my highest wattage all race at this point) and stuck out my hand expecting the worst, but no, despite travelling in excess of urban speed limits I took the bottle (and nearly dislocate dmy other shoulder in the process) and received shouts of encouragement from my benefactor. The flat coke was just what I needed, sadly when I threw my other bidon it may have connected with the display window of a local vendor, we didn’t go back to check, I didn’t need a lynching on top of the pain my legs were feeling.
At some point 14 guys had minced away from the bunch unnoticed by most of us so the last 2 laps were spent accusing other teams of not working to bring them back. It occurred ot us that a sprint was in the offing (they pay 20 deep) and Matt and I had nothing more to give after our breakaway frivolities. I decided to compensate for my lack of sprint by pretending I was on a motorbike and lurching up the inside making barrrrrrrp noises and pressing on my navigator as if I were having engine troubles. Clearly the chap next to me was in a place of deep suffering and found this most unamusing, I know this because he spat on me. Anyway young scott, our companion for the trip who we bouth assumed had been dropped appeared and announced his intention to sprint. He made his way to the front and, following my advice from earlier took a unique route around some traffic furniture, opened a gap and held out from the main bunch for 19th and 10 euros – chapeau!

The alcoholic and grandpa came over to congratulate us in the traditional flemmish way, by anointing us with cigar smoke. Suitably knackered we limped back to the car, de kitted and took our numbers back for the 5 euro reimbursement (the race only cost 8 euros to begin with). Having dined well from one of the many barbecued wurst stands surrounding the course we departed to the house of our friend Cynthia who was hosting us.
Sadly the autoroute was 100% stationary but, given our excessive guarna consumption we weren’t going to let this bother us. Apparently they aren’t familiar with ghost riding in Belgium, or they weren’t until last weekend. I think it’s lucky we had bikes on the car, otherwise they might have just thought we were foreigners……

2010-08-02T01:13:00.000-07:00

report

Now I’m not in the habit of writing race repots, because nobody want to hear about my merry-go-round imitating failures in southern California crits so, until this stage I have abstained from such self indulgence, but I thought you might fancy a little window into my world and how racing is back home.
This week was the national B (read pretty fast, national A races only occur a few times a year and are billed as “premier calendars”) a couple of big teams were there, including stalwart of the British chipper scene Tony Gibb (he’s won some medals in some event or other on the velodrome and is, if the truth be told, a pretty accomplished rider)and his possee of plus sized gentlemen who were avoiding the premier race that weekend, most likely on account of it’s sawtooth profile.
Anyway I got to the race 2 hours early thanks to dad (who kindly gave me a lift) I went over to the commissaire and showed him my US licence (my friend in the licence dept had taken the trouble to email him and ask him to watch out for my devious underhand ways). Having duly noted that I wasn’t in fact doing anything wrong, the comm apologized for the treatment I was getting from the tie wearing desk-jockeys in the central office and went ahead to sign me on for the race. The rapidity with which this occurred was refreshing after a year outside of the home of brusk efficiency, sadly this meant I now had 2 hours of chamois time before the race.
I invested this time wisely, knowing that the race was likely to go hard from the gun I decided I would be best riding about in the car park and talking to everyone, showing off my insulin pump, checking tyre pressures and persuading some attractive young ladies to hold water bottles for the next 3 hours. Givent hat I allowed myself 120 mins to warm up it’s quite understandable that total warm up distance was 1. 2 mile, I think you would have done the same.
Pitiful warm up over I went inside for the briefing (don’t have those in the usa!) and then outside for the start, somehow I lined up at the front and off we rolled, at this point the plastic nose bridge fell off my sunglasses. Now sunglasses are a VITAL part of the style code and I wasn’t about to race 120k with my eyes on show, it would have been indecent. So I sat up and replaced said nosepiece, at the cost of looking like a bit of a berk riding the whole neutral zone “no hands” like a 12 yr old.
Once the flag dropped the race began, with 120km to go you would expect a steady pace but a load of idiots decided to slam it into the gutter on the other side of the road, dice with head on traffic and generally make life difficult for those of us who had failed to warm up. I figured prominently amongst said idiots.
After around 15 miles of aforementioned daredevil penis measuring we decided to slow down, which was a good idea, my powertap was showing numbers to which it is not accustomed. And so, for another 15 or so miles we rolled around, averaging about 25 but nothing too hectic got away, I followed moves, marked good riders and generally sucked wheel like a famous brand of Vacum cleaner. As we approached the feed zone about 45 miles in things started to go doolally along the rollers, not unexpected. What was unexpected was that just as we caught up to an embryonic break there was an equine intervention in the bunch.
Very tour de France im sure but, quite honestly when you’re trying to race your bike a horse running alongside is not quaint, it’s bloody scary. Especially when the horse is pulling some sketchy line switches like a jr 4th cat. Anyway, long story short the break was up the road and we were stuck behind negotiating with lady Tatiana inbred or whatever the horsey posh lady was called. And I’m not just running her down because she’s a horsey lady, I’m doing so because we’d already bloody passed her once and she’d continued on the course, the second time when the horse she was leading (yep, unsatisfied with the conspicuous consumption that is leisure horse riding she was riding 2 horses simultaneously) escaped, she shouted at US and asked us why we had continued on the same route despite her intentions. Well lady we live in something approaching a democracy, there were 120 of us and one of you, so yeah we’d win that vote.
After the intervention of dobbin the bunch rode piano, riders went back to talk to the comm. And a few of us went to the front to look important and ride slowly. As we approached a junction some riders signaled for a stop, we stopped and talked with the comm. Who agreed to restart the race. At this point my navi started bleeping like a mad thing and I realized all the stopping and stressing had sent my blood sugar through the roof, arse. I begged for some water but everyone only had mix. Lots of the boys seemed pretty concerned, which is nice. Fortunatley I could drift back in the bunch and mince about in the caravan until someone handed me up some water, thanks to whomever the team who ride in green is, I appreciate it. I also took the chance to draft some cars whilst dialing in a minibolus on my pod.
As the race continued the comm stopped the break and we all had a piss, he set of the break with the gap it had had the lap before – which had dropped to virtually nothing by the time we had encountered the horses but there was nothing he could do. The inevitable teammate shuffling occurred and the break now had 30 seconds and lots more horsepower.
We spent the rest of the race chasing, I had some pretty mean cramps thanks to the high bg but I wasn’t letting it bother me. Interestingly these cramps focused around my shoulder (alongside my legs) which was a new and exciting location for pain in a bike race, I had to ride with my arm hooked into my bibs, sling style, for about a mile and it eased off. We got the break back to about 10 seconds and I proceeded to retreat to the rear, drink more water and wait for the catch before launching my killer move. Oddly the catch never came and I was so busy drinking water and explaining to the multiple people who offered me gels that my sugars were high, not low (but all the same I genuinely appreciated their concern) that I didn’t do much work to help this situation. Going up the final hill several riders engaged the reverse gear on their bikes, this made it more like some kind of inverse super-G than a spring finish but I managed to limp in somewhere in the bunch.
After the race I made a correction and finally got my sugars back into the range I wanted them and set off for the 20 odd mile ride home, I rode with a mate for a bit and then he stopped at his home. At this point my sugars decided to continue their non-cooperation and dropped like a lead stone. Luckily there was a village shop on hand and a mars bar and some fruit pastilles got me home, where I checked again to find that my blood had reverted to treacle-like status. A protein drink and a megabolus followed. There’s something disconcerting about riding over 100 miles and coming home to a nice salad!
Anyway rubber stayed down, fun was had. Thanks to the ladies who fed me and to Mr ainstie who searched out water for me in the feed zone when I didn’t need any more sugar. Belgium next week, bring on the waffles, chocolate, cobbles and beer!

Raam bam thank you mam

2010-06-19T19:47:00.001-07:00

Im sitting on the plane from Annapolis to San diego, a journey of 5 1/2 hours. I spent the previous 5 ½ days doing the same trip on my bike. I didn't expect to have anything like as much fun as I did along the way, it was a great experience and one I would repeat again in a heartbeat (and I will, given the chance next year). I don't think I can really give a holistic view of the whole event very successfully, I'd love to say that it's a great way to see the country but it's not. It's a great way to see the top of an RV, the front wheel of your bike, little stars appearing in your vision, your life flashing before you and occasional snippets of the epic beauty and variety that the US has to offer.

I have memories of the race which will be with me for a long time. Riding wise there were many stand out moments: My first pull of the whole race during which I, predictably, went mental and absolutely cremated myself. My light was rubbing on my thigh and I gave my self the biggest, reddest bruise and a matching saddle sore on the other side which would last the whole week. The climb up to flagstaff in Arizona where I found rhythm which Bob claimed crushed "at least 16" souls. The descent we took before the climb where I was out for 15 miles carving around hairpins, overtaking semis up the inside in the gravel and blasting through groups of disturbed tourists. The climbs up through the Ozarks where the rhythm came back again, at one point I was climbing in 54-11. Sliding my bike through a corner in Trinidad co, the sex change capital of the world, and again in the Gettysburg battlefield with our follow car about 5 inches behind so I could see with the headlights.

Predictably it wasn't just the riding I'll remember but also the people. The application of litocane in place of chamois cream provoked much hilarity amongst the team, as did much of our inane banter across the country, highlights include: the scavenger hunt (swingseats, banjos, mullets, sweet tea, confederate beach towels, an Amish person driving a Honda, an armadillo and some genuine redneckery of the highest order), the aerodynamic benefits of Viagra, the strange and slightly inappropriate toy that turned up in the bus and could be easily manipulated to resemble a waxed guinea pig in some kind of self gratifying pose. Pink socks in Kansas and ripping down the road at 30mph with Bob offering to rub coconut oil into my chest on the tannoy. Adam and I going on ice cream runs which gradually moved from after dinner to breakfast.

Eating with the firemen in Maize Kansas (and the fact that there really is a town called maize Kansas) and meeting with our fans in Ohio was a great experience to. That all these great people took hours out of their day to come and encourage us was really humbling, but they really did make a difference, especially the firemen. That shower and those brownies counted for about 100w up the climbs the next day.

We wouldn't have got halfway across the country without our crew, they were fantastic, they made it possible for us to win RAAM by making it impossible for us to go wrong. We lost minimal time to wrong turns, impressible on a 3019 mile route, when we finished riding we had food ready, massage waiting and dry,clean clothes for the next pull. Our RV was by no means the lap of luxury (it smelt like the lap of something though, quite possibly the lap of one of those beardy-homeless drunk guys who you see in the park) but they made our race a comfortable experience. Individual highlights include: Dr bill appearing concerned as various members of the team staged fantastic hypos, Chef Chris'(@diabeticchef) feeding us with great food throughout the race, and being amazed at our ability to stack huge quantities of healthy food with large amounts of frozen dairy goodness. Leigh's ridiculous guinea pig toy, her little notes on our sandwiches and all our banter. Chris' Amazing massages and his daily changing of my nationality. The guys who drove our support cars were great as well, it was great knowing that Jason and Karl in the car were pulling 100% as hard as we were and doing everything in their power to help us win Jason's on the fly rebuilding of Jeff's bike was a particular highlight. Kyle's hilarious laughter at our silly jokes and constant provision of the "cold snake thing" to help this pale foreigner acclimate to the heat and the banter with Jeff (@jrichardson30) on twitter while we edged closer to RV with our dinner order were other highlights.

Bob's follow car banter provided an entertaining, if at times confusing to those of us who had not been in the same vehicle for 5 days (yep they NEVER left that car for the whole race, bob claims that atrophy is the new diet du hour). There's something about the guy behind you mocking your socks, singing karaoke or making mooing noises with the PA system to scare off dogs which just doesn't seem appropriate out of context. Nate and Monique were pretty good too, choice inspirational lines and our ability to scare the living daylights out of each other by demanding they followed 5 inches from my rear wheel when I was descending at night, and then double wheel sliding in gravel as nate, after 4 days living in a box of a size that I'm pretty sure you couldn't transport sheep in managed to swerve past my rapidly incoming back tyre.

I'll reflect on this more later. But I had a fantastic time, made great friends and rode my bike a lot. That race doesn't get anything approaching the respect it deserves, maybe some people ride it like a tour but I used all the cycling skills I have, more than once I had to use my 'cross knowledge to save a bungled transition with a 'cross mount on my tt bike, a car in west Virginia witnessed the ferocity of my armsling off its rear view mirror when it came across the lane, occasional forays into the gravel pushed the limits of my (limited) mountainbike experience. We climbed steep hills, descended on an epic scale, crossed whole states in the time trial position and did all of this in the dark. The officials conducted their job with an air of friendliness as well as professionality, throughout the course of the whole race not once was I forced to ride around an office park and we had one crash in 3019 miles, all in all this was a refreshing change to the other racing I've done in the US and given the chance, I'll do it again.

man down

2010-05-13T20:41:00.000-07:00

well hello there, it's been a while. i've been busy having adventures dicing with death on my bicycle, these life affirming few weeks have included the following episodes:

getting a pretty impressive dose of food poisoning in sonora county that left me flat on my back for 24 hours

being stung by a bee at sea otter and finding out that i'm hyper allergic and getting an epipen shot and IV benadryl

discovering that american people run the front brake on the left midway through the collegiate A mountainbike race at sea otter - and then flipping over the bars and being stuck in my (road) pedals until i managed to cartwheel my way back upright.

more mechanicals than you can shake a pedal spanner at

and last but not least, coming around a corner to discover an absence of road and ending up choosing tarmac over cliff edge. this resulted in me loosing a lot of skin and breaking my clavicle and dislocating my ac joint

But amongst all the bad things there have been some great times, foremost amongst these have been the chances which i have got tos pend time with some fantastic people and those are the experiences i want to focus on (let's face, most of the other stuff is straight up gory/scary). firstly i want to hank the amazing people who have taken me into their homes without knowing who the hell i am, anyone who is prepared to feed, clothe and quite likely nurse me out of the goodness of their heart is bound to be nice, i knew that but i have been astounded by just how well i have got on with the people i have stayed with. although i seem to have spent more than my fair share of time in motel rooms and even some time in hotels which cost more per night than i earn in a week the best experiences i have had have been having a dinner, or a beer with my hosts. So to Jan and Cath and Chris and family, thank you very much. to anyone else who feels like hosting me in the future - you might want to speak with these guys, and take a course in first aid!

the second really cool thing i have done recently was the long beach tour de cure where i was able to connect with some great people. Bizarrely right at the start of the ride i spotted an oxofrd university kit, assuming it was a recent ebay acquisition i rode over to chat with the presumed interloper only to discover Jeff, a cycling teammate from the good old OUCC days when the club reveled in my tenure as social secretary. i met a number of diabetic individuals who had inspirational stories, i'd love to recount them all but i am limited to typing with one hand. Suffice it to say that i got more out of that day in motivation than i would gain from a week of hard training.

im pretty sure that if i go on typing for much longer then my non crippled arm will become gimpy as well so ciao for now - i'll write more soon, i haven't got much else to do

;(