marriage

yup its done :-)
we got married on the 28th at a little gazebo overlooking lake ontario. it was most nice.... then we sat in the sun, drank some champagne.... took some photos, then went to a place called tiara for dinner... which was pretty damn good. I had tuna carpacccio, then sweet pea gnocchi... cathy had a goats cheese salad and then rack of lamb... all washed down with some more bubbles..... all good. I can't really imagine a better way to get married!

bikey bike

so, we got some bike riding in today and yesterday.... we hired some bikes from a store... i got a dodgy hybrid thing with fat tyres, front suspension and seatpost suspension. cathy got a mtb that clearly had lead weights injected to it.

did a few miles towards lake eyrie/fort eyrie in the sun y'day which was good... sat in the sun, ate a picnic. excellent.

today we went to niagara on the lake on them and called into a few wineries too. for some samples, cheese and biccies.... yum.

however, i have since discovered that suspension seatposts are indeed a means of torture and my arse has been violated/cut off me/impaled. nice. or not. also, suspension on a bike is the work of the devil... why take it and convert all that hard earned forward motion into downward motion because of it?

at the copa...

... copacabana, they had 14 types of meat,
oh my word, oh what a treat.
they had chicken... beef pork and pasta,
it was all that we could do, just to not eat it faster...

anyhoo... enough of the dodgy lyrics.
we went to a place called the copacabana last night.... it was awesome. 14 different types of the meats carved at your table... as much as you would like. and it all just tasted amazing...

highly recommended!

posh rooms and nice wine

ps.
our room in niagara rocks. we have three beds... one of which is a king size badboy and as we all know the more beds you have the more important in the tribe you are.... there's a jacuzzi sunken bath doo dah in the master bed room... two tv's and then the other big bathroom.

yes, we are the royalty. and are still kinda waiting for the security dudes to kick out the irish people.

the bikes....

man, i need to get on a bike.
its been 4-5 days.... doesn't sound a lot... but my legs are craving some high intensity burns on some 700c wheels.... hopefully we will get some hired bikes and I can take a good run at it. i feel a touch like i'm losing some fitness and top end stuff....

get me a 53x12.... get me some shifters.... get me lyrca and a road bike quick! oh and some deep section tubulars too :-)

(yes, i brought my shoes and pedals with me...)

steak

so, me and cathy are in canada, to get married.... currently sitting in the room in niagara, feeling a little tired as its been a hectic few days. anyhoo... all systems go on the wedding front, documentation is good to go and we just need to pay a quick visit to city hall tomorrow.

anyhoo... toronto was excellent (we were there first)! lots to see and do... and i think we walked about 20 miles in three days.
highlights:
- steam whistle brewery
- the markets
- the italian dude with the fresh pasta at the market (amazing sauce... i think it was a mix of alfredo, pesto and arriabiata - wicked!)
- steak restaurant
- shopsy's lunch place - pastrami sandwiches rock
- hernando's hideaway - get the chimichanga-some-thing-or-others.
- eaton centre - how many shops do you need?
- meese on the reefs (yes it doesn't make sense but it rhymes)

man, just to go into a little more detail on 'steak'. this restaurant is just awesome. i got the rib of beef. on the bone, the NICEST beefs i have ever had. and it was the horse sized portion. cathy got a slightly different cut, but again just so soft and tender.... really you got to go here.

the mexican place is excellent too. we like refried beans.
and steam whistle beer? this stuff just rocks.... imagine a sunny day listening to a dude playing good music, a cold beer, a bbq and the toronto skyline. whats not to love?


lowlights:
- crazy taxi dude called al hasjif or something. man he was angry. and probably had plutonium in his boot. for a bomb or something.
- brewery in the hotel, with 4 beers, none brewed there.
- the chick who couldn't sing in the brewery.
- fat rugby players. like they need to start eating american/canadian portions.

anyways... lots to see in niagara, the falls were excellent and we plan to do the maid in the mist thing.... then get some bikes and get out to niagara on the lake!

more updates soon.....

race updates

bit out of order this... but anyways.

hillsborough road race:
bad race.... crashes on the first lap, david tweed into hospital, really not in a good way. race restarted, but me and rich pulled out, roads were wet and the group was twitchy as hell.... just as well... more crashes, cars in hedge, joe in hedge, other dude with broken collar bone. doh.

club road race @ hillsborough
heh... 3 laps of pain.... in the second last group... got caught by scratch quickly, man JN is flying. the back strecth with the hills is just hard... and i kept getting caught on the front... stupidity! anyways... last lap and a few guys were off the front, JN had no intention of catching them... so I did a sprint to get them closer... stupidity again! this just brought the group close to them... me burned out and then JN got the win.... he was playing mind games :-) and I sucked it up. ah well. i don't think i had the legs for the sprint anyways.
what is a bit irritating though is getting beaten in the last bit by guys you haven't seen the whole race.... but thats racing dude! next time...

the weekend cometh.

I don my race face.
I set my gear out.
I prep my bike.

Yip, its that time again.... racing tomorrow in the Tonny Givan memorial race. Sign on at Hillsborough village centre so easy to find. Its a rolling course I think, tight enough, but no major climbs to talk about ( I think )... although I could be proven wrong by this.

Looking forward to this tomorrow after last Saturday's debacle of a race. Got spat out the back after about a lap and a half. Just had nothing in my legs after being ill the week before. Hopefully I'll be back to form and ready to rip it up tomorrow!

team time trialling

tuesday night, team time trial.

was a good run in all, we did 58 mins odd for 25 miles. not too shabby, but still off the fast pace of the real tt men. In fairness though we were team doomed, in that I'd been sick, Joe'd been sick, Mert had been sick and Mick had been sick. All recently. Anyways! Excuses aside... the route is pretty much up and down the ballymena line. There was a bit of a crosswind which ate into us, so mini-echelons were formed.

I've come to the conclusion that time trials are about setting the pain meter to 'suffer' and sitting in till the end. nice.

wheels wheels wheels

so I eventually got my am classic carbon 38's. Yay! about 1050 grams of climbing goodness... they've been tub'ed up and are ready to go... minus the cassette. Which should arrive today! Got a 11-25 record cassette for it... so should be nice and light.

Weight all in: 1700g approx. Lighter than some clincher wheels!

needles

So I've been going to a Physio dude for a week or so now to try and sort out what he reckons is a dose of bursitis on my achilles heel. Basically it means that a bursa (soft fluid sac) hardens to the consistency of a marble and makes stretching difficult. So its near impossible to stretch my calf muscles.

Anyhoo... he's been doing ultrasound treatment, which seems cool, in that it doesn't hurt, but recently he's starting sticking needles in it.
And I don't like needles... but I'll tolerate it a) because it might help. but mostly b) because I can't see it.

its been a week...

.... or so, since the last post.
And a few things have happened!

Didn't ride on Saturday... was feeling pretty melted from last weeks training to be honest... and me Mick Orr, Joe H and Aero Mert had planned a Team Time Trial practice run on Sunday too.

Which went pretty well all things considered. The weather wasn't great, but we ploughed on anyways and got some good interval sessions in the TTT formation between hillsborough ballynahinch etc direction. All good stuff.

Then the sun came out to play on Monday and we did decide it was good.
So I took the wheels out for a spin... around 40 miles to Killyleagh and back... was a good run and the sun just made it better. Nice. Got some nice stuff for dinner and had wee Guinness to finish the day off....

Except... its 9pm... Tummy isn't feeling great... yuck... think I'll go to bed early... yuck... this isn't moving... I feel sick... 1am.... chunder. Yuck.

And it went on... for the rest of the night... till the morning, when the other end got employed. Yuck.

So lost my dinner, had to take yesterday off work, couldn't eat anything at all... I am owed about a million calories please. Exept I can't eat anything unless its really plain. Doh.

And I've to race on Saturday too... and travel tomorrow... so essentially no training this week... yay. Couldn't have been better planned(!).