A great bicycle joke!

I have always loved this joke. I first read it in French

A man walks into a bakers shop and says, "I'd like a loaf of bread please."

And the lovely girl behind the counter replies, "Certainly Sir, would you like brown or white?

And the man says, "Oh it doesn't matter. I've got my bike outside!"

So there it is. Funny isn't it!

Memories of the Tour (1)

                                          Alberto temporarily wins the Tour de France 2010

 

Whilst the intention is for Cotswoldcyclist to be  a repository of thoughts and happening ... I also want to place cherished memories here too....
 

...... one of which is the final day of the 2010 Tour de France on the Champs Elysees. In life it is so often a case of who you know ... and I knew someone who very kindly invited me to spend the final day in Paris, courtesy of one of the Tour Procycling teams. So as close to the finish as you can get.
 

So I saw Mark Cavendish take his fifth win of the Tour....

 

 

.... Bradley Wiggins round off his disappointing first French outing with Sky.....

 

.....and Lance Armstrong wind up his Tour de France career .... before it was comprehensively wound up a few short years later .......

All this after being wined and dined in one of the finest hotels in Paris!

Earlier in the summer we'd watched the Tour pass through the Alps ... more photographic memories to follow ......

 

 

Carrot Cake again - the bad news

So, having written about my lifelong carrot cake survey, later that morning I found myself  sharing a slice in Costa Coffee with Beautiful Wife Jo.

"Look up how many calories per slice, " she suggests.
Smartphone out... a quick check ..... and there it is ..... 491calories!

Once home I look up previous rides to find out how long that would take to ride off. And the answer is roughly 52 minutes at an average speed of 15mph, equating to a ride of about 13 miles.

Fortunately, we'd shared the slice, so only 245.5 calories to take care of on the turbo - it's far too cold to ride outside right now  - just touching 2 degrees Celsius!

Great things about cycling

Carrot Cake! And the ability to eat it, guilt free, because one had been out riding. 



But not only that. Cycling burns calories, and with a heart rate monitor, you can work out exactly how many calories you've expended. Fancy that piece of cake? Eat it! Then go out and ride for half an hour. Job done, your a little fitter and no fatter. Hurrah! 

Ok ... I know it's a little more complicated than that .... but we all need the odd treat in life so ....

 

At the moment I'm conducting a lifelong survey on the best providers of carrot cake to be found across the British Isles.

Top contenders so far..

• Electric Mountain Visitors Centre Cafe in Llanberis, North Wales. Huge and moist.
• Pete's Eats, also in Llanberis (more about this place another time). Gigantic, with quality icing.
• The Jane Austen Centre, Bath. Shown above, great care taken in the presentation! 

Wandering along Watery Bottom

After two days of continuous rain, Sunday morning presented a sunny disposition, so we decided to take our lovely French friend Sylvie for coffee in the Cotswolds.  Boots on, we strolled up Cleeve Hill ...... 

.....and descended down into Watery Bottom, a narrow ravine dropping down  to the The Washpool – a sheep dip built in 1897, and an enigmatic relic of the sheep farming industry once dominant in the Cotswolds.

Trangia boiling merrily, we sat on the hillside watching the mountain bikers contemplate the steep descent down into the valley. To a man they adopted caution and contoured down the gentle sheep trails instead. Shame - I wanted a Youtube clip!

Coffee made, the Chocolate Brownies eaten and back to the car - another mini adventure.

 

 

It's not a good look but .......

So, out on the road yesterday for the first time in a good while, sporting my Mo Bro moustache. November is the month were fellows across the globe sport interesting facial growth in the aid of Movember and Sons. The official reasoning goes like this..

OVERVIEW OF MOVEMBER

During November each year, Movember is responsible for the sprouting of moustaches on thousands of men’s faces in the UK and around the world. The aim of which is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and testicular cancer.

There's more to be found on the excellent website .. http://uk.movember.com/?home

This is mine. It's uncomfortable and I don't like it. Strictly speaking, it's not following the rules either, but as a member of a Common Room with plenty of active participants - I didn't want to feel 'left out'. All I need now is a Tweed Suit to wear for the last week! 

The tache was of no help ascending Cleeve Hill mind. The climb to the 'Col de Cleeve' is a regular feature in the Cotswoldcyclist retinue. As a fitness marker, three minutes off the pace is a poor performance. Considering the PB is 9 minutes 59 seconds, it's a bit of a climbdown. On a positive note, it was blowy, fresh and fun.

When graffiti works!

Ok. I live in a school, and as a consequence, all my IT activities take place behind a Firewall of the most prudent kind. Blogging has been frustrating, as all attempts at photography and design has been thwarted. However ........ all now seems to be working! Hurrah!  But we shall see .............

In the meantime .. here's a photograph taken on an old railway bridge, now part of the Honeybourne Path, a pleasant meander through Cheltenham along a converted railway line. A perfect example of the right kind of graffiti, complemented by nature itself.

A first attempt to load a photograph

 

Cotswoldcyclist Steve and Beautiful Wife Jo on the Coast 2 Coast

Enforced downtime!

Well .... it's not been the most classic cycling period of my life of late. Here's a bullet point summary.

• A viral infection of the most sinister and secretive kind. I've had antibiotics chasing it around all over the place - it eluded two doses. As a consequence cycling was a minimalist activity over the summer, much missed.
• That said - it did give me plenty of time to enjoy a fabulous summer of sport, starting with Bradley at the Tour and continuing with the Olympics.
• Autumn has now arrived and I'm tentatively back on the turbo, seeing how it goes and biding my time before heading out on the road again.
• I've fallen madly in love with Echinacea and sleep!
• My brother in law has kicked my butt in the annual mileage competition by a country mile!

Of course a lot more has happened in the meantime and I have enjoyed my cycling vicariously through magazines, books, the TV and Twitter. However, it's now time to pick up where I left off.