Story of the day
The dinners with the partners are always a good moment of gathering inspiration and information. I wanted to take the last chair at the dinner table when Ben V. asked me the question whether I dare to join a table where no participants were chosen as the hero of the day. It’s not my goal to argue with a distinguished auditor but two of the table guests were already chosen, meaning Ine N. and Tom W., members of Ben’s team. Ben realized he made a huge mistake. So he asked me what he needs to do to become once the hero of the day. I wisely didn’t answer that question.
By the way, Ben’s wife is a loyal and regular reader of the blog. She sent a Facebook invitation to connect with Thomas C. and myself in order to discuss the duck tape approach.
Delicate topics were discussed during dinner. One of the side effects of intensive cycling is pain in the buttocks. After a cautious start, this delicate subject was discussed quite openly.
Stijn D confided in us that for him, the only solution to resolve saddle pain is riding faster.
So when Stijn accelerates we now know what’s going on in his lower regions…. Stijn thanks for sharing this trivia of the day.
This morning the breakfast was planned at 8 am. Phil and myself arrived at 7:54, we checked whether the door was open or not. It was unlocked. We entered the room at took some breakfast. Before the lady room manager could intervene, the unstoppable crowd entered the breakfast area. The lady was furious and started to blame the poor waiter. I said, my goodness, the poor guy is in trouble because of our action, Phil answered “à la guerre comme à la guerre” and he took a bite of his sandwich.
The beauty of the ride was beyond compare. The landscape we crossed looked like an impressionistic painting. We climbed mountains, we cruised along the picturesque ridges and we discovered the Spanich canyons.
Jan A. of Golazo travel discovered a nice spot to have a sandwich at noon. We were really spoiled, having a break with a view on the mountain-lake was marvelous!!
The God of nature was with us today but the God of mechanics was a bit against us. Our fellow Cycling Partner Tom BB, yes the victim of the yesterday’s sabotage, still coped with battery issues of his Bike gearbox.
Tom explained his problem yesterday evening to various consulting partners. The issue was examined and a solution was found. I don’t know which bill Tom had to pay. So let me try to explain the solution, the broken battery is connected to a power bank, a wire was wrapped through his sleeves and his cycling jersey to activate the power bank to assure the power supply of the gearbox. The result is that again Tom was due to ride without shifting gears. It took Kortweg 5 minutes to change the battery.
Glenn V. tested the resistance of his Pinarello tubeless ready tires on a temporary gravel track, his tires didn’t pass the test so the wheel needed to be changed. The God of mecanics decided that today all Pinarello riders must be punished.
It’s not all about punishment during a ride, also moments of glory were part of our journey. Let me give some examples.
After a day full of accelerations Stijn D. was happy to take a shower and have a relaxing walk with the fellow cycling partners in town. A young lady saw an adonis revelation in Stijn and screamed “I like you”.
We were confronted with various roadworks, road blocks. In Spain all is coordinated with walkie talkie communication between the road workers. They use a kind of flip over stop and go sign to give signal to the traffic. The first group of cyclists arrived and the sign ‘stop’ was shown. The blue collar road worker was talking a lot to his colleagues to open the road asap. As a responsible reporter for one week I tried to listen very carefully to his communication. Despite the fact that I don’t have Tom BB’s skills to understand the language of Julio Iglesias, I am convinced he was talking about “Ciclistas profesionales”. At that moment we experienced the same revelation Mozes received when the sea opened. All road workers waved at us, thank you Pierre, Marc, Christian, Ine, Phil and Patrick to give these men the nice distraction they deserved.
Dear fellow cycling partners, let me refer to our chair Nicolaas T’s words about sense of partnership. The same ideology is needed in a cycling partners team. It is human nature to envy successful fellow riders. In a cycling peloton the leader is protected by his teammates and cheered when he delivers a superhuman performance. Today, a secret conspiracy to beat and to bring down the leader was carried out. Nonetheless the cartel was defeated. Despite internal opposition, Nicolas VH, twinbro of Remco E., held his ground and will now likely be rewarded with the hero of the day medal.
Looking forward to the final ride tomorrow.
