More Than Just A Chance To Ogle

My calf seems oddly better this morning. This is a good job too, because the rolling pin is sitting on the bookcase winking at me. I can see it’s itching for another go.

I test my fitness with a limp around the park with the dogs before we then get in the car and head up the M6 to the Manchester Velodrome. It’s round one of the World Track Cup and we’re becoming regulars. We arrive later than planned due to a predictable M6 nightmare where they close a lane on us and cause a 45 minute tailback.

As we kind of expected Great Britain dominated the day. Although even Chris Hoy had us worried at times. He was not leading from the front in the early rounds of the Keirin as he usually does but instead he was leaving it late and coming from the back to the win those races. Still, win he did, of that there’s no doubt. He certainly turned on the style in the final though, leaving everyone for dead including current world champion Maximilian Levy of Germany, the man who has the misfortune of next year having to defend the world title he took whilst Hoy was out injured.



Victoria Pendleton looked rusty in the sprint and had to fight decidedly hard to beat Olga Panarina of Belarus in the semi-final, losing the first race of three before winning the other two. She was also taken to a third and deciding race in the final by China's Shuang Guo before winning by the narrowest of margins.

She will need to keep looking over her shoulder as we witnessed the next generation of sprinters in Jess Varnish and Becky James, who although eliminated in the early rounds then ended battling through to set up an intriguing head to head for the lower points placings.

Here is the future of British track sprinting



Oops, none of the stars seem to have any qualms about stripping off in front of the crowd. Here they are again dressed and about to do battle.



Probably the most impressive performances came from a very tactically astute Chris Newton who was on top form to win the Points Race and then there was Geraint Thomas. Thomas is already an Olympic gold medallist in the team pursuit but doesn’t usually ride the individual version. However in only his third race in the individual he dominated the competition. In qualifying he set the second fastest individual pursuit time ever, bettered only by Chris Boardman's world record in August 1996, in what is now an outlawed riding position. He then went on to catch his opponent Belgium's Dominique Cornu in the final with two laps of the race remaining. Naturally he’s gutted that the event is set to be dropped from the Olympics

Then finally David Daniell, starting third last, set the fastest time in the 1km time-trial but was then beaten by the last lap spurt put on by, the last man to ride, current world champion Stefan Nimke, of Germany. Still silver behind the world champ isn’t too shifty. Keep a tight hold on that title Stefan, he’s coming to get you.

So a good day out, more than just a chance to ogle the Lycra clad women, while L ogles the Lycra clad men obviously, a great days racing.

All Is Not Lost

Today is Green Britain Day, as promoted by a carbon-free and lycra-less Vicky Pendleton, so naturally I’m keen to do my bit and I cycle into work.



I might even have given her a run for her money had I seen her cycling on my commute in that combo.

Oh dear. L emails me to say she's going to have a whinge and advises me to not read any further. So I don't but I assume this means she didn't get to the gym this morning. On the plus side she appears to be on her bike, so all is not lost.

In her next email, which doesn’t contain any unsuitable content warnings, she says she’ll have to do so much fitness work tomorrow to catch up that she'll be crawling into the Beer Festival and landing head first in a pint of beer. That’s as it should be. All fitness regimes should finish head first in a pint of beer. It’s as life was intended.

Here’s an odd story. A family have resorted to very unorthodox methods in order to try and be reunited with their pet Labrador Simon, who has gone AWOL. Their novel approach was to leave a scent trail for him, leading back to their house. How did they leave this scent trail? Well the same way dogs do and the whole family have apparently been contributing. It’s innovative for sure but their local council weren’t terribly impressed.

They have stressed that they didn’t use the direct approach favoured by late night revellers in Nottingham City Centre but instead put a little bit in a bottle and then diluted it with water before spraying it on the streets.

Vets are not optimistic the plan would succeed but if it works, the flood gates could open...

On my way home, as I wheel my bike across the bridge out of Pride Park, I am accosted by two teenage cyclists coming the other way. They don’t seem about to mug me and instead greet me in what appears to be jovial tones.

‘Whazzarup’ one of them says to me.

Well at first I didn’t think they were talking to me but they were. OMG, is that Albanian? Belarusian? Perhaps it’s Chav? or just Teenage? I never was any good at languages. I do what I always do abroad and just return the greeting verbatim, offering a ‘Whazzarup’ in return. Phew. It works. They smile and seem happy with this.

‘Chezzerez’ they offer or something like that but I’ve already pedalled away, hoping I wasn’t too rude.

Then as I approach Nottingham at the busy Priory Island a woman steps out into the road in front of me. I miss her by millimetres; the chap in the white van in the next lane almost has more luck. Her husband will be asking her tonight how she got the Mercedes logo imprinted on her forehead but WTF, there’s a pedestrian crossing literally five metres away. I’d have hated to have had to have cycled past another one those road side memorials every day.

All is not lost. L has her One-2-One gym session and earns her towel. Free water bottle last week, towel this week, t-shirt next week. This must be why the council has had to cut back on leisure centre opening hours because they’ve spent their entire budget on gym related freebies. True, it’s only half a towel, if you stick two together you’d have a proper grown-up towel but it’s bigger than the handkerchief sized thing we were expecting.

After gym, she runs to meet me at the pub. So as I said, all was not lost. She sends me with a bag of clothes for her to change into. She obviously trusts me not to unpack the clothes she’s selected and swap them for a short skirt in instead... hmmm tempting.