Well I never

Every time i think that Rapha lot have jumped the shark, they soon enough reel me back in all bulged eyed and fuzzy. I have always loved their merino base layers, I pretty much live in them and they know how to make good eye candy. Some of the emails between rapha and team sky are quiet funny and remember to refer to rule 7

I was in their air street store today for the first time and if you love cycling its hard not to be impressed, though perhaps being overly impressed with the toilets is a little wrong, but they're nice. I remember being dragged to a hawaiian themed bar in Kennington years ago, palm trees, grass skirts, inflatable animals silly drinks etc but when you went to the bathroom it was the worst toilet in south london, piss everywhere, graffiti, would it hurt to put a catcus in here? toilets are a theme too far in that theme bar. not here. Anyway enough about that. really nice application of their brand in a space basically. and got to watch cycling on a massive telly and drink nice coffee for an hour or so.

Condor x Lotus

Viva de Vivie

Just been reading about Paul de Vivie via the inner ring The guy coined the term cyclo sportive and lobbied for factories to make bikes not weapons at the turn of the century. Read the full story on the inner ring blog but he also wrote seven commandments Of cycling which still hold up today.
1. Stop rarely and briefly, so as not to lose your rhythm
2. Eat little and often and eat before you are hungry, drink before you’re thirsty
3. Never push yourself into such fatigue that you lose appetite and cannot fall asleep
4. Wrap up before you get cold, undo layers before you get hot and do not fear exposing the skin to the sun, air and water
5. Cross out, at least when riding, wine meat and tobacco from your diet
6. Never force the pace, ride within your means, especially during the first few hours when you’re tempted to ride hard because you feel full of energy
7. Never ride for show or vanity (#rapha)

Reflecting on whats ahead of me...

Spent the morning, a) worrying my winter training has been a little broken up and b) looking at the marmotte climbs against the last years etape. Now its half of one and however the rest of that expression finishes, stage 11 was either up or down with only a very short "flat" section of about 2km. Now while that middle section of the marmotte looks a bonus the telegraph & galibier kick up pretty hard with sections of 13-14%. and those 21 hairpins of alp d'huez are going to hurt. why do i keep doing this to myself.

tdf stage 11 2012 (etape)

profile marmotte