Another week of training, Italian classes,ebay and getting things done for my hols

Training
this has been a bit on and off since I've managed to pick up a sinusey cold and have been feeling somewhat average.  My SRM also sabotaged one ride's data and as a result I had to get a new battery...my version of the SRM only has one battery whereas later models have two and so last a bit longer.

I am never keen on riding the roads in the wet, so I've been indoors on the ergo.  I have all the Sufferfest training videos and even if I am doing my own training plan rather than theirs they are worth their weight in gold.  I particularly like the one with footage from the World Champs at Mendrisio in 2010.  Good tempo music too, although not actually  a style of music I go for.

Italian
The more you talk. listen and read  the more you learn and at Melbourne's Centre of Italian Studies once you've completed 3 weeks of a term you can attend as many classes as you want.  Currently I'm doing 2 level 6 classes, 1 x 6/7 level and a conversation only class.  The 6/7 class is ++challenging... I can understand what's being said but can't contribute much at that level. 

ebay
so good when things go right and yet so bad when things don't go smoothly.  I "sold" 3 things last week but the buyer of 2  sorta made a mistake  and actually only wants one of them.  Pity.

Holiday preparation
1. TT Brakes
Last week my TT bike's brakes started to give me some grief in that they wouldn't open properly once applied.  I'd been aware of this issue for a while but it finally went over the threshold of acceptability and so I've got it fixed.  The problem was with the Nokon cables

which apparently can't deal with being scrunched up in the way that my TT bike has to be when it's packed into a bike bag.  A road bike handlebars have to be pretzeled as it is but with the addition of extension bars, packing  a TT bike is waaaay more complicated.  Get a kink in the Nokon's inner cable and you're doomed.

2. Wheels.
I'm never really happy taking a disc wheel OS since no matter how you pack it into a soft case, the slightest ding in the wrong spot will ruin it.  So this time I'll be running a very deep dish wheel, and since it's got enough spokes to be legal it can double up as a road race wheel too. Same with the front wheel..ok for TT and RR.

Waiting for a tyre.  Despite having various valve accessories, I didn't have one long enough for this deep a dish! .

So I sent away for one..well 2 actually.....but I think I got a size too long!

No matter.  Now to get it glued on and trialled next Sunday when I race with Footscray CC in their club TT champs as an invitee (i.e. I can race but no chance of glory).

and this baby will do duty as the front wheel for RR and TT.  Its already had a coupla runs, but since it's got internal spoke adjustment and has managed to get out of true, I'll get it trued and glued but wont use it again until I race in  Europe...such a pain  with very little gain for me at my level.

Races still to come...Sunday  a TT,  then 3 x  RR and a TT over the QB long weekend and a final TT on the Boulie the weekend before I leave.

3. International Driving License.
I have no idea why I have to have one of these.  I've never been asked for one when leasing or hiring a car but the   Renault leasing people say I need one.  I could use my UK license (which is totally unblemished unlike my Aus one ;-) but it's an old version without a photo and so probably wouldn't suffice.  So again..off to RACV, fork out $$.

30 days to go!!

Racing and on learning a language

Racing
Yesterday I raced up a grade, being put into C grade.  As a time trialler and so able to stand long periods of a high wattage, but not so good at multiple mega surges, Criteriums are a challenge to my body and in the latter stages, my mind.

I'd been fairly comfortable  last week in D grade where the average kph had been ~35kph but C grade? meh...try to hang in for 40 of the 65 minutes was my goal...  the graph below shows how I fared...35 minutes with the bunch and then a prolonged surge up hill and into the wind plus a bit more and I was cooked.

Silly me.... the previous lap knowing that I was starting to struggle, I'd got closer to the front during the tail wind downhill hoon to allow my drop off to take me to the back but this time I was hovering near the back to begin with and so the elastic broke.....

The final bit of the graph is me riding solo, initially trying to get back on, then just TT'ing for the sake of it

the average speed was only 1.5kph faster but the surges killed me stone dead.  I had a ball though.

Language Learning
Learning a language is always a challenge with many, many pitfalls for the unwary, mostly to do with unwittingly saying something extremely rude. I  recall with fondness and a wide grin a German lady whose English was fluent (but who's pronunciation was.... hmmm...Germanic) bringing us all to tears of laughter when she told us that on this holiday (riding a tandem bike with her husband) it was her job to look after the sex.  Of course she meant sacks.ie panniers.   Poor girl she just could NOT understand why we were all ROTFL.

Italian is a phonetic language and with pronunciation what you see is what you get, unlike English which is definitely not and so I was a bit gob smacked the other day when one of my fellow Italian pupils said that English was an easy language to learn...was the fact that she was of Russian origin a factor in this comment???  Anyhow check out this web link for proof of my contention that English is so full of pronunciation traps that it cannot possibly be "an easy language to learn".