The perfect riding weekend

Tired after an horrible week I got up on Saturday morning at 6:33.... kind of weird feeling after after experienced one of the worst week in my (relatively small) banking career.. It's too early and the curtains are down so I can't understand how clowdy or rainy is out there.. I got up and get some breakfast going and I realise that the weather is awesome. I do some domestic things (with the wife away there is a lot of things that needs to get done) and I pack my bike with destination "Turville"... I send a msg to Crespo who told me that he would have had been up for a Turville ride.. No reply... So at 10:05 I'm in Turville. Its one of the best day ever in Turville. Sun shining. I look up and I can't see any clouds, nothing just blue sky. It's 16/18 degrees and there are tons or riders out there. SHould i follow a peleton or keep riding on my own... I decided the latter and keep going... put the I-pod on.. Volume 8, probably 9..... I really want to get few hills today so I go down la "subida de la Muerte".. I feel very good on the way up.. I pass few riders on the climb... I feel more excited so i decided that I need to do it again.. So here we go I go down again and up again... a car overtakes me (on the way up) and says: c'mon, you look strong... I don't reply I keep pedalling.. I ride back to the pub.. feeling strong and the sun is very strong now... it's around 12:00 so I decided to do a bit more... I do another lap (the usual, one small and one large lap)... the small lap is ok.. the second more challening as there are more cars now... still a lot of rider out there... my legs feel very good... I do another double "subida, double hill".. very excited but tired now... I go ride back to the car... and drive back home.... What a ride............
Sunday wake up go to Richmond Park but I was tired, so I do two laps then I see rider-reido and we do a lap together then I decided to end there (as well as rider reido as he did a long ride on sat as well).... Good w/e...

2 Handsome fellas, enough said.

Carbdeath

Whilst the bread-eating, pasta-puffing members stuff their biker bodies with useless carbs at the wrong time, Rider Stem Cell continues to optimize and multiply his ATP Factors (mitochondria) through a strict regime of Meat, Nuts, Veggies and Fruit.

You will pay!!!! RiderStemCells monster thighs will pummel the hills during the next race.......and leave everyone begging for more Halva!!!!!!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halva

thats a good looking finish

Good old tom pitts limps across the finish at the granfondo prosecco after being dragged around for 6 hours on the wheel of the noshow. Good clean fun despite the fact i exhausted the all american lacross player - the same way a pony express rider would run his horse down to a foaming frothing mangle of sinew. So i sat - taking all the glory - sitting in +27 venetian sunshine - with dancing girls and booth babes open to canadian charms - and the noshow a quivering, spent lump of marblehead muscle.

YUMI

4 Ranchers decided to have a Pitts San tribute and decended upon Yumi for an informal Ranch dinner.
Cali and Noshow being the early birds arrived first at 7pm and assumed they'd be well into their meal by the time Crespo and Zinni arrived. Little did they remember that Yumi is not known for promptness and efficiency. Luckily they were hypnotized by the butchering of a giant tuna by our sushi chef Higashi which in broken english was explained as Easter. Zinni later named him Pasquale (Italian for easter) and that name stuck.

Crespo was second to the restaurant sporting mad max motorcycle boots with Skinni Zinni 10 minutes after.

Crespo's fluent japanese along with handsignals were one of 3 highlights of the night. The second being the young japanese girls drinking themselves into oblivion on cold sake. The one against the wall was seeing blurry eyed by the time we left at 10:30pm. The third highlight was the conference call with Tom Pitts at 4am HK time. A speakerphone conversation with the ranchers and a few words with Mrs. Yumi (the owner) and I believe Pitts was actually smiling.

Overall, a great evening spent amoung good people.

Saturday morning ride

Four Ranch riders met in the old village of Turville on saturday morning... Warm morning, for a change.... RiderCrespo, RiderCali, RiderNoshow and RiderZinni.... Beautiful 2hrs ride..
The effect of the recent Argentinean summer holiday were very evident on RiderCrespo body.... Too many alfajores (http://www.havanna.com.ar/) and too many Bife de Lomo... anyway he manage to climb la "subida de la muerte" strongly and that was important... RiderCali is still struggling with his knee injury but manage to ride for a fair bit.. RiderNoShow strong as ever... leading the peleton... Anyway it was good to see the ranch again and see Turville .... We ended up riding for two hrs, did the subida de la muerte 2.4times and rode strongly back to the car park... great way of spending saturday morning... If anyone is around this week we will meet up for dinner on Thursday night...

Giro di Lombardia - 19th October

I am thinking of doing the Giro di Lombardia this yearhttp://www.gazzetta.it/challenge/percorso_lombardia.shtml .
The race it's in October, so that leaves us with two months of training.
Logistics are very easy as the race starts/finish in Como so we can fly to Milano (Malpensa probably better) on Saturday and get back on Sunday night.