Quote of the Day

"It’s not as if I like the bad weather, I just go better that some of the others. We are more used to bad weather in Luxembourg." Kim Kirchen on his win last year at Fléche Wallonne on Cyclingnews.

Enough said.

Just like Cipplolini

So for you who thought Europe was cycling-crazy/ -friendly, let me tell you, you are wrong. First of all, the weather sucks ;-) but despite snowy conditions I decided to go ahead and do my motor pacing session as planned. I didn’t get too far though. We were cursing along at a decent pace when suddenly a cop car showed up and pulled us over… well, turns out that Mr. Police officer didn’t like cyclists (at least that’s the only explanation I could come up with) and started lecturing me and my dad on how dangerous “whatever-we-were-doing” was. As if that wasn’t enough he really wanted to drive his point home and stomped back to his car to browse through the fine-catalog and write us a hefty ticket. It took him forever (I guess he couldn’t really find a punishable action that fit motor pacing) but he finally presented us with a ticket over € 98 (that is $ 126). Actually, he gave us two separate tickets. One was for “dangerous speed” (we did 45 km/h through a village; max speed in Luxembourg in villages: 50 km/h...) and one for “use of hazard lights” (which we put on to warn other people on the road that we might be a bit slower then the rest; seems to be a bad idea, especially in the weather we had today).



Anyways, stupid stuff, but nothing we could do about it. So we paid the fine and I rode the rest of the way by myself (they wouldn’t leave until my dad had taken off, so no more motor pacing for the day). Let me tell you: riding at lt by yourself for over an hour is no fun compared to doing it behind a car. Plus it is really hard to hit the speeds you would like…

Well, at least now I can say I’ve got one thing in common with the big Cippolini: getting a ticket for motor pacing (even though I wasn’t doing 70 km/h on a highway). Europe might not be as harmonized as the States and cultures are very different but at least when it comes to giving tickets to cyclists, Italy and Luxembourg seem to be on the same page…

Motorpacing

Training is starting to pick up speed (in the truest sense of the word). I did start to pile up some miles behind my dad’s car as soon as the temps were above freezing for a day or so. Actually, weather is pretty nice here lately, at least we have sunshine; and, I must say, I can’t complain about cold temperatures here anyways after reading Sinead's blog.

Anyhow, here’s how the car looked after the motorpacing session this week: apparently, the roads aren’t all dry yet but we are getting there.



At this point I want to thank my dad again for enduring all the angry folks on the road and all the honking. Also, it must be pretty boring to cruise along a totally flat piece of road at 45 km/h for 1.5 hours. So, thanks again dad!

Flat Tires and Candy

I am starting to like the under aged-drinking law in the US… As you may know you can buy alcohol at a tender age of 16 here in Europe. That in itself would not be a problem but Friday was the last day of exams at German high schools and that usually means celebrations afterwards. This, too, is fine but this year the kids went a little overboard, it seems, and a lot of bottles shattered. As most of those “parties” happen outside, guess where all the glass ends up… Anyways, we went on a pretty nice ride yesterday, weather was good, we even had “summer-like” temperatures of about 50° (first 5h ride without winter gloves, yay) but I never had to stop so often during a ride to fix flats. At one point a friend and I had a flat at the same time! So we stopped to fix the flats and while we were standing at the side of the road, competing about who would change the tube faster, an older lady came out of a bakers shop on the other side of the road and offered us some candy! Needless to say, the flat-changing-competition lost its appeal immediately and we focused more on the right selection of sugary goodness. Turns out the lady runs the shop and saw us standing outside and thought we might need a little “boost”. I never had anything like that happen to me before in Germany and I must say I was very positively surprised. Maybe in need to change my perception of The Grumpy Germany to something nicer…

Sauna and Frozen Lakes

As part of the recovery process during off-week and because Christine took some time off school, I decided to tread myself to a nice afternoon of sauna. I guess everyone knows how it works but it’s more fun if it is really cold outside (which it still is around here by the way) and we got a real nice sauna place here around the corner. It is darn expensive but every once in a while it’s ok. They have a couple of differently themed saunas, I guess like three inside and four really cool ones in separate cabins outside. So you walk outside (only with your towel wrapped around you) though the cold (and snow) to get there to start with. Pretty cool. But the best part comes after you are done. As every educated sauna-person knows, you are supposed to take a cold shower after each sauna-session. This trains your skin to close the pores faster and become more resistant. It is also supposed to be healthy. Well, as an alternative, you can also take a bath in a cold pool… or a frozen lake! Yep, that’s right, they have a lake just outside the cabins and as it has been rather cold lately, it was (still is) frozen solid. Only a small hole enables you to take a short (!) dip. Now, let me tell you, if there is ice on top of the water, the water is pretty freaking freezing! It was pretty sweet though and today I really feel reenergized. We did this three times last night and, man, did I sleep well afterwards.

Anyways, we had a lot of fun. Nevertheless, as I said before, I can’t wait to get back: I had about enough of the cold now. Even worse, the next couple of days are supposed to be warmer but also wetter… great! Enough whining though. I’m looking forward to VoS in a couple of weeks. Hopefully, the next block will boost my fitness somewhat. After reading what the team did at camp, I feel like kindergarten where I am right now. But the next block will feature some good solid workouts and I should be ok by February.

Oh yeah, sorry, but I have to mention this: the above mentioned sauna-area was “textile-free”...

I'm glad that's over!

It is done! No more base miles (well, not really) but today was officially the last day of base training. I got to finish up the training block with some nice 6 hours in the cold (but it is already getting warmer: 25° F) but fortunately, I had some company. Thanks to Lorant and Johannes for getting me through the day. I rode with my cousin Johannes for two hours in the morning and, after dropping him off, rode over to Lorant's place to pick him up for another two hours. So I had some company for four hours at least.

Next week is going to be a welcome break from the bike (and the cold as I will be spending a lot of time INDOORS) but I am really looking forward to the following week. Finally, I get to put the hammer down a little in training instead of just that boring, monotonous base stuff. Should be fun.

I should have some pics from around here soon, so stay tuned.

Happy New Year

I nearly killed myself today during my training ride. It has been rather cold the last couple of days (sub zero) and I was quite surprised when it started raining on me about an hour into my ride. Well, rain isn't that special this time of year but with temperatures at about 25°F it was kind of unusual. Anyways, as you can imagine with a solidly frozen ground, it didn't take too long for the water to turn into ice (about 5 min or so). At first it wasn't too bad but after a couple of minutes the roads were covered completely with a solid layer of ice... those 23C tires are NOT made for ice, let me tell you. I had enough on my plate just to stay upright but apparently driving a car in those conditions isn't too much fun either as quite a few cars swerved by me in a somewhat uncontrolled manner. Nevertheless, I survived the ride (it took me 2h to get back home, the same way I had ridden out in 1h...)and made it back home safe and sound. Let's just hope that next year will get better ;-) That being said: Happy new year!

Oh, and here's a little something to cheer everyone up. It's kind of a tradition in Germany (at least with the people I know) to watch this little video on new years eve. I also plays on tv every year on the evening of the 31st. So, without further ado (do you spell this like that?), here it is: