A happy-go-lucky English rambler dude goes to New Zealand for a year. Here he interfaces with some of those he left behind and details his nefarious activities. Or summat.
Recently clicked on MP3s - 7th June 2005 The Lucksmiths - Warmer Corners
Jens Lekman - When i said i wanted to be your dog
The Trashcan Sinatras - Weightlifting
Teenage Fanclub - Man Made
Laura Veirs - Carbon Glacier
The Decemberists - Picaresque
The Eels - Blinking Lights
Whatever the actual truth behind the amount of performance enhancing drugs he took during his career he was an amazing rider, who still holds the record time of 37 minutes and 35 seconds for the ascent of Alp D'Huez.
When I cycled up Alp D'Huez last summer, I took 1hr 30mins. Which either illustrates just how unfit i am, or how insanely fit professional cyclists are. And sadly, judging by the spate of recent sudden deaths of cyclists, perhaps it seems that to excel at cycling you have to be unhealthily fit?
Maybe drugs contributed to many of the deaths, but the hounding from the press and authorities the riders recieve when found guilty (at least in Pantani's case) surely contributed too. And as someone who has spent more than two days on the trot cycling up large mountains - let alone a month like in the Tour de France - i can fully sympathise with the desire to take some pills that might make the whole experience slightly less painful... (I only took Power Bars tho, honest)
Sign in honour of Marco Pantani's stage win on Alp D'Huez (Taken while i was having a breather on the way up)
7:43 pm Monday, February 16, 2004
Shock Horror Probe! I've managed to get round to scanning and fiddling with a bunch of not too bad photos from my recent snowboarding holiday in Andorra, with Alison & Graham.
Anyone hoping for a series of all action shots of me doing 360s while leaping off snowy cliff faces may be a tad disappointed, but frankly unsurprised, to hear that the camera only came out when i spent a day snow rambling. Although a 2715m peak, in the Pyrenees, in winter, does count as some fairly extreme rambling i'd like to think. To see more pics of Pico del Pedro, and me wearing hideously uncoordinated lime green and red clothes, click here
