Malmesbury Bikes

No question about it, these are fantastic. . .

From the top, they’re comfy, well-made, Reef sandals that should last a good few seasons. . .

Reef sandal

But underneath they have an invaluable secret. . .  they have a beer opener. . .  probably the best sandals in the world, ever

Reef beer opener

The weather was dire earlier. . .  heavy rain and a gusty wind. . .  but I much prefer being out in extremes of weather, so it was a good run out over the Water Meadows to Cow Bridge and back into twon along the old railway.

The run felt pretty good - I was forced to walk for a while to get past a herd of heifers (male cows), as my yellow Gore jacket was attracting some of their attention. But the rest of the run was pretty painless and I was able to have a sensible conversation with Richard at Leonard Walker butchers, when I stopped to get a chicken for tonight’s tea.

The run back home was then like a strange rugby training session, with a good sized chicken tucked under one arm like a heavy-weight rugby ball.

Check out other triathlon-training sessions on the Tri page.

We’ve just been joined on our Sunday outings by another Specialized rider. So we will be writing a comparison of a current Hardrock Pro, a six year old Rockhopper and a very old (12+ years?) original-ish Hardrock.

The Tour de France has finally come to life and the teams are jostling for the breakaways. We had another downhill finish, which saw Jens Voigt (Team Saxo Bank) have a horrific crash as his front wheel bounced from under him, landing his heavily on his shoulder and head - I wonder whether he blew a tyre - we’re still waiting for an update on his condition, which is understood to be serious but stable.

Anyway, the personalities started to show their mettle and we had Euskatel’s Miguel Astarloza work with a small group to lead the tour for much of the stage, before sprinting off in the last three or so km’s. I’m still unsure why no-one tried anything like this in the first two weeks of the tour, especially during the Pyrennees stages, but it’s all hotting up now.

Bradley Wiggins climbed like a demon yesterday, leaving Lance Armstrong trailing on the way to Verbier, and put himself into third place in the overall GC of Le Tour. He’s only nine seconds behind Lance, so while there’s a very good chance he’ll be on the podium, there’s a distinct possibility that he’ll actually be second!

As for Cav, he seems to have been the victim of a ‘Thor-strop’, but the coverage is really light online. I would have expected there to have been an outcry about the decision to disqualify him from Saturday’s stage, but I had to dig really deep to find the details. Not good. . .  but he’ll get the points back and take the green jersey off of Thor in Paris on Sunday.

I’ve added a page dedicated to the Malmesbury Peleton - if you’re interested in regular rides out from Malmesbury give us a call. We get out most Sundays on mountain bikes or racers/hybrids - all depends on the weather. Today the weather was truly horrendous, but it was a fantastic run out around the Fosse Way and back in across the Common - wet, muddy, but blew the cobwebs away.

Bradley Wiggins has very neatly demonstrated the obvious by losing around 8 kilos in weight, since last years’ Beijing triumphs, and has turned himself into a capable montain climber. He’s moved up to fourth in the General Classification (GC) and stays in a group with Andreas Kloden and Tony Martin between 45 and 60 seconds behind the yellow jersey. It was pleasant, albeit slightly suprising, to see Ricardo Nocentini staying in yellow - he been there for a week and should last today before the peloton hit the Alps.

It was reassuring to see all of the riders wearing rain-jackets today, they suddenly looked like normal cyclists, it was just like a busy Friday afternoon commute up Lansdowne Hill.

After two days of predictable “flat, breakaway gets caught, Cav wins”, today threw up some real excitement. Reading the reports on BikeRadar, it seems that Nicki Sørensenwhizzed off with a breakaway before deciding that he could win on his own and disappearing into the distance. Well done Nicki for stirring things up a bit and showing some individuality. . .  here’s hoping that someone else does the same EVERY day in the Alps. . .  hopefully Euskatel will take the top three positions every day. . .  I’m allowed to dream a bit.

Our man Cav stormed to his eighth Stage win and back into the green jersey. Thre was a breakaway, but that was reined back around the 10km marker and Columbia-HTC had control pretty much all the way to the finish. The way they lead-out was really impressive - I was waiting for one of the other teams to take advantage of the lead and sprint past in the closing stages. As it was Columbia hel their nerve and delivered Mark Cavenish in first place as planned.

That’s the Tour De France update for today. . .  sorry, it’s not my fault it’s boring.

The most interesting on today’s coverage was the language (body and words) coming from Armstrong and Contador at yesterday’s press conferences. There’s clearly no love lost there, they’re both out to win and they’re not going to help each other along the way.

My heart hopes that these petty squabbles split the peleton wide open with either a complete outside winning it or Contador using the advantages made by other teams to sneak a win.

My head says that, for whatever reason, the Astana/Armstrong management have the peleton in an effective full nelson and won’t let anyone, apart from Contador, step out of place to guarantee a win for Lance. I’m sure that they have the best interests of the sport at heart with this approach, but 100+ team riders shouldn’t thinking the same way. . .  should they?