VeloVeritas

Perfect Storm of Crap: Stage 2 (mini LBL) (0)

All talk of the Mock aside, holy crap. What a day.

Yesterday’s stage was dubbed a mini Liege-Bastogne-Liege as it covered a segment of the same course as that particular race. For those not in the know, LBL is one of the major Spring Classics on the calendar. It’s a tough race with lots of short, sharp hills on very small old roads. The weather was also particularly Belgian Spring Classic-esque: overcast with sporadic bursts of rain.

Always Fear The Mock: Stage 1 (bunchie) (0)

The Mock. Some would say that this is the most powerful force in the universe, and yet it has never been quantified. I for one am a firm believer in the Mock, and think that CERN should be turning their attention to investigating the power of the Mock, rather than the trivialities of the God particle, Higgs boson and what-all else you want to talk about.

Solid Kick-off (0)

Finally we’re underway! And what a start it’s been.

Time trial days are always long periods of surprising quietness (and the quiet is always a surprise) punctuated by flurries of furious activity. As team mechanic-cum-philosopher Kris Withington (NZ’s finest mechanic) says, “it’s either full gas work or full gas wait.”

One More Sleep! (0)

We are at the end of Day -1, which is the point where the whole team just want things to start already.

Admittedly I’ve been in that mood since Tuesday afternoon when I headed out from the team Service Course in Girona. Now everyone else has joined me in night-before-Christmas-as-a-seven-year-old land.

Are we ready yet? Are we ready yet? Can we start yet? (0)

Two days out from the start of the Tour. The whole team has arrived at the hotel, and the Show is about to begin! It’s very exciting, but not much is really going on.

It’s sort of like when the starter calls “set” in a track & field sprint: heaps of stuff about to happen, but nothing doing just yet. Yes I once sprinted. Yes, in this instance “sprinted” is a very loosely applied verb.

This is the first full day of the road show. We have a good whack of people here: 19 staff will be on the road for the full three weeks.

The Pizza Matrix Thwarted (0)

We have all been faced with, and stumped by, the eternal question when hosting a gathering: how many pizzas to order?

Until last night, I had thought the complex equation drafted by my good mate (and mathematical genius) BA in the mid 90s that he dubbed “The Pizza Matrix” covered all situations. For those unfortunates who don’t know the details, I shall go through the equation now. Concentrate…

Big Race: Small Race (0)

Mid June has been and gone, and I find myself up in the northeast of Italy once again (Arona to be precise), this time at a couple of tiny one day races. We came through the same area for the finale of the Giro, where Ivan Basso turned the screws over the final few days to win the overall.

A significantly smaller proposition awaits us tomorrow!

United Nations of Awesome (0)

Boombah! Or, as we like to pretend that the Italians say, Opahhh!

So the last post I put through (earlier today) was 16km from the finish, and included a series of “hopefullys” all of which came to pass, meaning we won today! A great result for the team, and a super performance by the team.

We knew that the finish was a little tricky, so got as much info back to the big bosses on the road as we could, meaning that the boys could plan their attack well.

Double Figures (0)

We’re now deep into the Giro, Day 10 in fact, and the cracks are starting to show! Firstly, there was a horrific incident of five of the team’s staff getting on the wrong side of some VERY raw, yet delicious steak, which fortunately didn’t lead to a team-wide outbreak of GIT problems. Thank goodness for Universal Precautions!

Secondly (and as ever, less importantly) the riders are now in the hurt basket pretty much permanently.

4hr Race”¦ 4sec Difference (0)

Yesterday was the Teams Time Trial (TTT) a 33km shot through northern Italy where teams departed five minutes apart and raced the clock up the road. The order of starting was based on the overall standing of the best three riders from each team, with the slowest team going first, and the team of the race leader going last (regardless of how their team was faring).

My job for the day was to check the time splits of our boys relative to the teams who had ridden before them. There was only one official time split provided by the race, and we wanted to make sure our boys got as much info as possible. I thus had to drive up the road behind one of the earlier teams and then start the clock.

The Giro: Good Times Bad Times (0)

CIAO! The Giro d’Italia version 2010 has begun. We started racing up in Amsterdam (which, while not technically* part of Italy, was a cool place to start racing from) with a time trial, followed by two road stages. The start of a Grand Tour is always cool — the whole team starts to find extra [...]

“Pre”-Giro Catch Up (0)

End of March Tallies Countries —3 (2010 Total 6) Hotel Days — 18 (Total 43) Hotels —8 (Total 14) Flight Distance —2935km (Total 26,193) Driving Distance — 549km (Total 4269km) End of April Tallies Countries — 5 (2010 Total 8 ) Hotel Days — 11 (Total 54) Hotels — 4 (Total 18) Flight Distance — [...]

Roubaix, Baixby! (0)

Paris-Roubaix. Hell of the north. The Queen of the Classics”¦

There is a great deal of hype out there about the latest and greatest event taking place. When it comes to Roubaix, the expectation and the event itself meet. This is a brilliant bike race!

February Chills (0)

So January was all sunshine and roses.

And then”¦ KERTHUMP! Along came Europe in winter in all of her furious unpredictability! My first night in Girona was one of the very rare times that it snows in town. We’re very close to the Pyrenees, so on clear days you can see snow on the mountaintops deep into May, but snow in town is rare. I’d love to have photos to show, but I was too freakin cold to be worrying about such!

A little late starting, but it IS a start! (0)

Allrighty. So I have been meaning to keep people in touch with what’s been going on, and have heard about this “blogging” thing ever since about 2004. I’m now getting it together. I’ll start with some stuff that I wrote, but never sent.

Things will catch up to the now quickly enough. But I feel for posterity’s sake (like posterity is an entity in and of itself, and if it were, would give a hoot as to what I did or didn’t do. Hubris. Pure hubris!) I should send the stuff from the earlier part of the year.