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So the Summer of Cycling ends on rather a sour note. It is a pity, but at the same time it all feels rather remote and not anything to do with the cycling that I have actually been watching.
We really have been spoilt rotten, in terms of cycling coming to us. First there was the Halfords Tour Series in Woking (this is what started the whole thing off; coming off the train on my way back from work one day in May last year, I was about an hour late home because I stopped to watch all these unexpected cyclists whizzing round the streets of my home town, and decided that if it was going to happen again this year I had better know for whom I was cheering); then the Olympics round West Byfleet (and I still regret not taking the day off work to watch the time trials); and then the Tour of Britain (totally worth standing on Guildford High Street for four hours straight) - and it still says CAV GO J T-L GO on my ride to work. (Why, yes, it does make me feel inadequate...) Really, given all this, it would have been churlish not to have become totally obsessed by cycling.
All that said, however, McLaren have not moved out of Woking, and I am still fairly obsessed by Formula One. It's been interesting to compare the two sports, the cultures that surround them. Both have this intense focus on strategy and technology, one's own and everyone else's (wonder if Dave Brailsford's done something to the wheels; declare every Red Bull update illegal), but they're very different in attitude. Team orders, for example - a faintly dirty word in F1 ('Fernando is faster than you'); the only plausible way to win in road cycling. F1 seems so much tackier and more glamorous, but isn't nearly so riddled with scandal. I'm slightly more interested in the cycling at the moment, for two reasons, I think - firstly, simple New Fandom Squee, and secondly, the fact that there are more women to follow. (I watched Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday, largely because of Victoria Pendleton being in it...)
In completely unrelated news, I have despaired of ever finding a grown-up crib set (nativity, I mean, not for full-size infant) that I liked - they are mostly made of resin and are all hideously twee - and have bought three separate sets of Playmobil: yer basic stable - as is traditional, it is completely impossible to distinguish Joseph from the shepherd - the three wise men, and St Nicholas with an angel. The angel that came with St Nick is considerably more impressive than the one that came with the stable - apart from anything else, the latter appears to be missing its wings. I can't see them anywhere. Obviously it is not a seraph. It might be a cherub, having (like all Playmobil characters) sleepless eyes, but it only has two of them, so it depends on the translation, I suppose.
We really have been spoilt rotten, in terms of cycling coming to us. First there was the Halfords Tour Series in Woking (this is what started the whole thing off; coming off the train on my way back from work one day in May last year, I was about an hour late home because I stopped to watch all these unexpected cyclists whizzing round the streets of my home town, and decided that if it was going to happen again this year I had better know for whom I was cheering); then the Olympics round West Byfleet (and I still regret not taking the day off work to watch the time trials); and then the Tour of Britain (totally worth standing on Guildford High Street for four hours straight) - and it still says CAV GO J T-L GO on my ride to work. (Why, yes, it does make me feel inadequate...) Really, given all this, it would have been churlish not to have become totally obsessed by cycling.
All that said, however, McLaren have not moved out of Woking, and I am still fairly obsessed by Formula One. It's been interesting to compare the two sports, the cultures that surround them. Both have this intense focus on strategy and technology, one's own and everyone else's (wonder if Dave Brailsford's done something to the wheels; declare every Red Bull update illegal), but they're very different in attitude. Team orders, for example - a faintly dirty word in F1 ('Fernando is faster than you'); the only plausible way to win in road cycling. F1 seems so much tackier and more glamorous, but isn't nearly so riddled with scandal. I'm slightly more interested in the cycling at the moment, for two reasons, I think - firstly, simple New Fandom Squee, and secondly, the fact that there are more women to follow. (I watched Strictly Come Dancing on Saturday, largely because of Victoria Pendleton being in it...)
In completely unrelated news, I have despaired of ever finding a grown-up crib set (nativity, I mean, not for full-size infant) that I liked - they are mostly made of resin and are all hideously twee - and have bought three separate sets of Playmobil: yer basic stable - as is traditional, it is completely impossible to distinguish Joseph from the shepherd - the three wise men, and St Nicholas with an angel. The angel that came with St Nick is considerably more impressive than the one that came with the stable - apart from anything else, the latter appears to be missing its wings. I can't see them anywhere. Obviously it is not a seraph. It might be a cherub, having (like all Playmobil characters) sleepless eyes, but it only has two of them, so it depends on the translation, I suppose.
