I have booked tickets to visit Eurobike in Friedrichshafen, Germany at the beginning of September 2010. This is Europe’s biggest bike industry show and a key slot for manufacturers to release new products for the 2011 season. I am looking forward to seeing all the latest developments and to meet the suppliers I have been dealing with over the last few months. I will be taking my camera and may post a few photos and comments when we get back.
It’s a road trip – Tom and I are driving over to Friedrichschafen (in Germany, just opposite to Zurich) which should take 8hrs 45mins according to Google maps. Hotel rooms near the venue are hard to come by (someone described getting a room as like waiting for dead men’s shoes) and pricey so we are camping 1km from the exhibition halls in the municipal sports ground along with lots of other visitors. See the map below for our route.
photo by SussexSportPhotography.com
Well done Tom as he takes 2nd place at National Olympic Distance championships. Here is his report from Bedford on Sunday 15th August 2010:
“I’m happy to report a second place finish at the national olympic distance championships yesterday. It was a slightly frustrating race in which I was just on the wrong side of several traffic delays and had to watch my rivals riding off up the road. Nonetheless I am pleased with the result and it has further consolidated my consistency this season.
The river swim was more of a battle with weeds than anything else! At least half of the swim course was dominated by thick patches of submerged weeds which did an admirable job of slowing you down. I led my wave on the upstream leg by which time we were well amongst the swimmers from the waves ahead of us. What with the other swimmers and the weeds I didn’t know exactly where I was on the downstream leg but think I came out of the water second.
I had a pretty awful T1 transition with a persistent bit of weed that was wrapped around my ankle stopping me get my wetsuit off. Eventually I got out onto my bike hot on the heels of the leaders of my wave. Unfortunately at the first two junctions I had to stop for oncoming traffic and could do nothing but see the leaders riding off up the road. There was another slight delay due to avoiding a female competitor who fell off just in front of me . I eventually made up the gap to the leaders, the bike course was flat apart from a few short climbs and with not much wind to speak of I knew it was going to be hard to get any gap with the remaining distance. I was disappointed to see a fair bit of drafting, which really should not be prevalent at that level of competition and certainly did not help my cause.
I came into, and left T2 with James Ratcliffe. He ran out hard for the first couple of kilometres and as I felt the early signs of cramp setting in could not match his pace. With the cramping easing off I was able to get into my stride a bit more and felt OK. I was able to hold my distance behind James but didn’t have enough left to close the gap. He eventually crossed the line 30 seconds ahead of me.
All things considered I am happy with how I performed on the day. The traffic I encountered on the course is just down to bad luck and nothing to be bitter about. I am very happy to add another consistent podium finish to this year’s resume”.
SussexSportPhotography.com
Back from a week away in Devon it has been a busy sorting a lot of business practicalities. We’ve registered as a limited company (Strada Wheels Ltd) and submitted the forms for VAT registration. We have a consignment of C-4 Bicycle Component’s V-22 rims plus other parts enroute from California and are due in mid next week (24th August). I will be photographing the carbon rims which have been built up into wheelsets by Darren and they will be ready for testing by Tom next week. The 58mm carbon clincher rims have arrived and building these up into wheelsets is a priority now. The new website has been commissioned and the e-commerce aspect has been finally settled too. This should integrate nicely with my Sage accounting software to reduce labour and eliminate mistakes. Still planning to launch in late September 2010. Tom picked up a another great result at the Triathlon National Olympic distance Championships and a full race report will be posted as soon as the photos arrive.
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