2016 On the road today...

[Gearjunkie]

What brings Robbie to Welly?

[glam2deaf]

Isn't there that legends of cycling dinner? I saw a photo of himafter Taupo, guessing he's just floating about.

edit. Scratch that, it's not till after nationals, no idea then.

[Tugboat]

What brings Robbie to Welly?

He came over to New Zealand as a special guest of the Great Lake Cycle Challenge (http://www.cyclechallenge.com) in Taupo. After doing the main event on Saturday he took a small group of invited riders (that I was lucky enough to be one of) out on Sunday morning in the wind and rain for a recovery ride and coffee.

[Mr.Gib]

Nice! Robbie looks skinny and fit.

[Tugboat]

Off the road today. Enjoying the longer evenings after work as summer approaches!

[JamieL]

Mixed bag over the weekend, Saturday was cold and grey, so first ski tour of the winter...


Driving up the Col Du Portalet






Then Sunday was a bit nicer... 18C and sunny Took a mate out to do his first col, he was so tired i pretty much had to push him home




At the top of the Marie Blanque... just about

[speeddemon]

[Antoine]

Stunning, do you ride to this place from Wellington after work ?

Off the road today. Enjoying the longer evenings after work as summer approaches!

[Tugboat]

Cheers Antoine. My work is across the other side of town so I put the bike and the car and drove to the MTB park after work. But it is riding distance from the CBD (about 10km) and a lot of people do ride it. You can actually hit MTB trails from the edge of the CBD at a spot called Polhill Reserve and reach this spot by almost entirely off road riding. Maybe 400 to 500m of quiet road riding at most.

Wellington is a fantastic city for mountain biking (and road riding)!

[MoPho]

[HammerTime2]

Too bad you didn't have une Thomann. Then you could have zipped right up the Pyrénées as if they weren't there.

I only just found out that l n’y a plus de Pyrénées had been a famous saying dating back to the year 1700 rather than something the marketing boys at Thomann came up with. But it took 225 years to turn this saying into reality when Adelin Benoit zipped up the Pyrénées (as if they weren't there) on his Thomann in stage 8, the first Pyrénées stage, to take the lead of the 1925 Tour de France. However, on the next stage, the Pyrénées returned with a vengeance, even though Benoit was still on his Thomann, and he fell by the wayside. End result: the Pyrénées no longer existed for only one day when riding a Thomann.

Après la mort du roi d’Espagne Charles II le 1er novembre 1700, Louis XIV, marié à Marie-Thérèse d’Espagne, accepte le testament du défunt. L’héritier du trône vacant est son propre petit-fils, le duc d’Anjou, désormais appelé Philippe V.

«Soyez bon Espagnol, lui conseilla Louis XIV avant son départ pour Madrid, le 16 novembre. C’est présentement votre premier devoir. Mais souvenez-vous que vous êtes né Français, pour entretenir l’union entre les deux nations. C’est le moyen de les rendre heureuses et de conserver la paix de l’Europe. »

Le duc de Saint-Simon, qui rapporte ces propos, ne mentionne pas la célèbre exclamation. C’est une publication mensuelle, Le Mercure galant, qui la reproduit: l’ambassadeur espagnol, marquis de Castel Rodrigo, s’écria avec enthousiasme : « Quelle joie ! Il n’y a plus de Pyrénées ! Elles sont abîmées et nous ne sommes plus qu’un ! »
Dangeau, dans son Journal, donne une autre version : «Les Pyrénées sont fondues ! »

Voltaire, qui n’hésitait pas à améliorer les faits, attribua la formule au Roi-Soleil lui-même, dans son Siècle de Louis XIV publié cinquante ans plus tard. Le livre a connu un tel succès qu’on a longtemps colporté cette version.

"Elles sont abîmées et nous ne sommes plus qu’un" I guess you could say for that one day, Benoit was one with the Pyrénées. Although, and only because, they no longer existed, so there's probably some Sartra-esque thing gong on there.

Which reminds me of a funny story from 4 years before Sartre died. My high school French class was conducted entirely in French, and we read French literature, such as by Sartre. One day, to have a little fun with our teacher (head of the high school language department, graduate of the Sorbonne, and all that, but by then she was just an ageing alcoholic).
As class was about to begin, Me: "Sartre est mort."
Teacher, with hand to forehead, almost in tears and close to fainting : "Oh, Sartre est mort, Sartre est mort."
I let that go on for about half a minute, then sad "Pardonnez-moi, je voulais dire Sartre n'est pas mort."
I think that knocked my grade that quarter down from A to A-, even though that will still the highest grade in the class (next best was B+).

[kingtom]

They looks so good, your pics, so warm

Here it is f***ing cold. [POUTING FACE]

[Rondje]

Foggy morning ride

[basilic]

Rondje, very cool!

[MoPho]

@ MoPho. Looks like Diablo.

That is correct


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