Argh.

Landis tests positive for testosterone... link

Chapeau!

As you'd expect, I've been avidly following the Tour de France. It's been incredibly exciting, especially when the race hit the Alps in the past few days. It's been great to see the pros riding in the area where Damon and I went about this time last year.

Pennsylvanian Floyd Landis (right), raised a Mennonite link, former Lance Armstrong team mate, former mountain bike champion and to top it all off...secretly suffering from a degenerative hip condition, seems the strongest in the race.

He takes the yellow jersey during the first mountain stages in the Pyrenees but then decides to "give" his former team mate, Oscar Pereiro the yellow jersey by allowing him to gain 30 minutes in a breakaway, to take the pressure off himself and his Phonak team mates for a few days.

On day one of three in the Alps, Landis regains the race lead and the yellow jersey with a strong display.

Day 2 he completely blows on the last climb and loses about 10 min. Pereiro back in yellow, Landis dropping to 11th. Everyone writes Landis off for even the top 5.

Day 3 (yesterday) he cycles like a complete psycho, breaks away from the peloton on the first climb of the day, gaps his main rivals by 7-8 minutes, wins the stage and is rises to 3rd on General Classification, only about 30 seconds behind the leader.

Landis' strong time trialling skills make it quite likely that he gains this time back on the decisive and penultimate stage on Saturday.

I've been wearing my Davitamon-Lotto team jersey link on the ride to and from work for the last couple of weeks as being from Melbourne, I've been supporting Cadel Evans link who is on track for the best ever placing by an Australian in Le Tour. I wasn't that keen on Landis winning because up until yesterday's effort, there didn't seem much panache to his race, despite his strength. But his performance of the last few days has altered my opinion; if he can make up the 30 secs on Saturday, he will indeed be a fully deserving vainqueur (victor).

Chapeau!!!*

Photo borrowed from an article on Eurosport which summarizes the recent events in the Alps. link

* roughly translated from French as "Hats off". Literally "hat" in French.

PS - I really hope he hasn't been doping/taking drugs

Stop complaining, you'd normally have to go on vacation for weather like this!

It's great weather today, in my opinion. However, all the Brits around me seem to be wilting after a couple of days of 30+ degrees.

Perhaps not surprising considering that the hottest July day ever was 36 degrees in 1911. link

It kinda reminds me of when I was couriering in Calgary and the weather hit 30 degrees even and all the Calgarians were suffering a lot.

Here's the latest reading in Oxford from the BBC weather website....

Current Nearest Observations: sunny 33°C South Easterly Wind (15 mph) Relative Humidity (%): 24, Pressure (mB): 1014, Falling, Visibility: Very good Observed: Wed 19/07/2006 at 1200 (GMT)

On being rained on in the Outer Hebrides

For those of you in need of a geographical orientation, please refer to the chain of islands off the NW coast of Scotland, that include Lewis, the Uists and Barra, as can be seen in the map on this site. Also known as the Western Isles or Na h-Eileanan Siar in Scots Gallic. Wikipedia entry on Outer Hebrides

After a couple of days in Dundee, we began by taking a ferry from Oban for 5 hours to Lochboisdale. Caught Brazil's opening World Cup match in the bar of the ferry which helped the crossing seem faster.


The next day we hired bikes (with racks and panniers) dropped off to us by a certain Mr T Macdonald of Cycles Rothan (link) of Howmore, the Isle of South Uist and began our journey northwards. That day we were fortunate to have fantastic weather as we explored the very southern tip of South Uist and the nearby isle of Eriskay. On the map, Eriskay is the little blob south of Lochboisdale which is actually connected to South Uist by a causeway. It was there that we spotted our first "Otters Crossing" sign. Sadly, no otters in sight.

We then headed north about 30km to Howmore where we ticked the first Gatliff Trust hostel (link) off our list.

These are 4 "rustic" hostels spread through the Outer Hebrides that are run by the aforementioned Gatliff Trust and affiliated to the SYHA (Scottish Youth hostel Association). No reservations, you just rock up, grab a bunk and pay the warden £8 when he or she shows up in the early evening. The hostels were all equipped with heating, showers, fridges etc. So IMO, they weren't really that rustic.

The great advantage of staying in the hostel was the variety of people that stay there. Off the top of my head we met, Canadians, Australians, English, Welsh, Scots, Americans, French, Germans, Estonians, New Zealanders and Swedes.

The second day we headed north, assisted by a nice tailwind that meant that we made short work of North Uist and Benbecula, but it also blew in the first of the rain that was to dampen us for the next 6 straight days. However once we'd dried off at the Gatliff Hostel at Berneray, we admired the beach front location that the hostel has.


We continued to work our way north, diverting into strong headwinds and 12% gradient hills to take in the 3rd hostel at Rhenigadale where we were greeted warmly by another Mr Macdonald, the Warden there.

I had a quite painful 0km an hour bike crash on some gravel at one point but at least that was after we the headwinds and the stinging rain that had accompanied it.

One other night (Ghana vs someone), we had an interesting Friday night in a local pub in Tarbert on Harris, described as "the last bastion of fundamentalist Calvinism (link) in Britain" on Wikipedia.

The fourth and last hostel we stayed in was at Garenin, which is quite close to the Callanish Stones (link), which date from 2000BC. Think Stonehenge, except a bit smaller and older. I did a few improptu dances around various standing stones during the holiday.


The hostel at Garenin was part of a village of restored "blackhouses" (link) and we spent 2 nights there. There was a fantastic sunset on one of the rare evenings that the rain clouds cleared and we were able to stay out on the cliffs watching the setting sun until about 11pm (being so far north).


Stornoway (link) is the largest population centre in the Outer Hebrides and also the name of a rather good Oxford band (link). Stornoway was also the port from which the ferry back to Ullapool on the mainland left from. From Ullapool we took a bus to Glasgow, where there was enough time to watch Australia vs Croatia before getting the sleeper to London Euston and then home to Oxford...where it started to rain on us again!

Otters crossing

Here are the photos from our holiday in the Outer Hebrides (islands off the North-West coast of Scotland)...more description later.

Charity F1 cycling

Gerard and I cycled around the Silverstone F1 track 14 times (70km/45mi) for a cancer charity on Monday. That's me in red in the video above, which was taken by a one of Gerard's work colleagues. Our top speed was just over 60 kph on the back straight.

Saturday night we're planning on cycling in the Dunwich Dynamo, 190km/120 miles overnight ride from London to the Suffolk coast (east coast of England). Wish us luck as it looks like rain.