SwissVan

A balmy day in April with new wheels

Cyril's version of Stumblin in

Yes it’s live, both men’s and ladies short course today and xco tomorrow. Big decision tomorrow, motocross GP is live on Eurosport 2 at the same time 🫤 🤙

New set of wheels Roval Aplinist CLX2 Very nice and smooth, especially with those 28C tyres

Recovering from a wrist fracture and cappuccino training in spaghetti land

Here’s another video link, looks like so riders where quite lucky….especially the guy who jumped over the ditch narrowly missing the tree afterwards https://www.20min.ch/story/jonas-vingegaard-bei-ueblem-massensturz-auf-trage-abtransportiert-103078802#ratingSection

Done many years and hours on the IDT, due to work hours and Swiss winters. Riding in the dark, freezing cold and wet weather is not fun, did a Rapha 500 challenge once in December in all sorts of *** weather, NOT AGAIN THANKS! in the past I did some + 6 hour rides on the IDT, the key to these is as below and to move around on the bike frequently alternating sitting and standing, your soft tissue area will thank you 🤩 For long rides the key is to watch something like Netflix, before Netflix and YouTube I had a portable dvd player in my training room. Rouvy has great scenery and so many different route options, but for long rides some other visual entertainment is recommended. Have fun

It’s the washing machine I sweat like a pig 🐽 and wash my helmet under the shower with hair shampoo. The liner stays in the helmet and still looks and smells like new. Helmet is at least 5 years old. Taking the liner out of the helmet every time is probably contributing to the damage. My gloves go into the washing machine very occasionally, they never smell (well as far as I can smell….) but only for a cold wash with the lowest spin speed. I also alternate gloves having multiple pairs allows them time to dry properly indoors and not in direct sunlight.

A man walks into our office on Friday (no this is not one of those jokes) and with a heavy Irish accent asks if anyone speaks English, being the only person in the office whose mother tongue is English I jump up first and say to him, yes I do but do you….. immediately he bursts out laughing and says “you sound South African” Turns out he is a road worker busy painting yellow lines on a road nearby and has about 5 liters of already mixed yellow paint left over and wanted to know if we need any of this special yellow paint…. We called the airport manager who was very happy to accept the free gift of paint. Anyway he then goes on to describe his last holiday he had in SA and amongst everything that was fantastic he mentioned how friendly South Africans “always smiling and easy to talk to they are” and how big the steaks are that you can get for 5€ and the fantastic beach and hotels at a place called Omhlangi (Umhlanga). My Swiss work colleague asks me after the Irish guy left, “Why did you leave SA then….” 🤣

For the CE the costs end up being so much more, and if you are traveling from overseas it gets really silly expensive....hell i even went on holiday to the Maldives just to get an entry by entering from an exotic IP location like the Maldives 😁.... factor in air travel with a bike, hotels, renting a car in ZA 😢

Increasing the cut off time for comrades from 11 to 12 hours in +/- year 2000 helps those stats, the majority of runners finish in that last hour, now they can do it a bit more "comfortably" Ultimately like Shebeen suggested, trying to compare the 2 is silly unless you've done both and even then it will be a personal opinion, me I'm far more comfortably cycling for 10 hrs a day for a week than running for 11 to 12 hrs in one day... my legs feel sore just thinking about.

Jinna I dunno bud… Those runners sitting in the Avis busses and those trying to make the various cut offs might disagree, whilst never actually been there myself I have followed friends and my SOH on the route for many many years and have seen first hand the stress and 1000 yard stares when you try cheer them on….. I’ve done a CE at the back squeaking in on some stages just before the cut off, (and once even after the cut off (it was luckily extended) most of the time the other riders around you are still in good spirits, and bar technical issues know you can make it. Basically any cut off in any race is a B***H for someone. just wait until you have a broom-bus travelling at a fixed speed of 34kmh following you…. That’s a tad unpleasant

What Buff said, I doubt Burry or anyone meant it was the only race.

Daryl Impey is a natural story teller and funny as hell, love his cycling videos

IMHO If it aint broken don’t F*** with it. Replace it a week before CE and during the epic give it a clean and lube… without removing it. Bicycle chains don’t just break, and when they do it’s usually down to human behaviour, excessive cross chaining or chain removal. Removing and installing a chain everyday is a recipe for failure, even when the work is performed by a professional mechanic. Rant over