Etape Hibernia 2011

Like most cyclists, I hate other traffic. One of the definitions of ‘a great ride’ is little traffic. One of the delights of cycling in rural France is the lack of traffic, compared to the UK. Some of the ‘veterans’ on the club ‘cafe run’ talk wistfully of the years before Maggie Thatcher liberalised the [...]

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Bob 1 – Passo Giau 0

So after Sunday’s debacle, I was determined to see if it was the heat or just me that wasn’t fit enough, so I decided to do the ‘second half’ of the long course again, now that the weather has cooled down. I started about 8.30 and realised that the legs weren’t exactly fresh – we [...]

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2010 – Maratona Beckons…

So, I managed to get a place on the Maratona by the simple expedient of booking an apartment for a couple of weeks in the start village. Yvette had a moment of weakness and agreed to build our annual holiday around the event. The plan is to get a ferry over on a Friday evening [...]

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Thanks Mr Sainsbury

I just went to open a bag of mixed nuts from Sainsburys. The bag is made of clear plastic so that you can see it just contains nuts. Brazils, almonds, walnuts etc. On the ‘Allergy advice’ I noted that ‘This product contains nuts’. You don’t say!    

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2010 and 2011

I decided that to keep up the momentum and improvement, I really need a good challenge. The Etape has been a tough one, so what’s next? Well, as I now have the cycling bug, it seems clear to me that I should have a go at the big ride, the fabled ‘Marmotte‘. This is a [...]

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Sandwich Heaven and Hell

I was getting grumpy on the way back from the DisplaySearch conference in San Diego and sent this email to sandwich store Brioche Dorée. I was surprised that the email was bounced because of some forbidden words. I suspect that the email filter has not been ‘trained’ to allow through phrases such as  ‘congratulate’, ‘new [...]

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