Sunday, May 28, 2006

Förster wins Giro stage

This morning, after three days off work and a grand total of 97km on my odometer (yes, that is all of 60 pathetic miles in three days), it finally occured to me blame it all on the bike. Under the stimulating influence of my weekend morning coffee, I even briefly toyed with the idea of buying a new baby.

I'm much too cheap for that, of course. As long as something works, there is no need for replacement. But action needed to be taken. My fork had given me strage vibrations lately. Nothing I could pin down, nothing moved in the wrong places, but something was odd about it.

I went down to my basement and rebuilt the fork. One hour, two black hands and three pounds of grease later, everything was reassembled, and I was ready for a long ride. As soon as I was out the door, I could feel the difference. It was like day and night, and the bike behaved like new, its fork smooth and stiff.

And lo and behold, Silver still knows how to run. It took me through the Vercors for much longer than I was comfortable. My bars were eaten after 110km, and I hadn't packed a twenty for ice-cream and espresso. I ran out of water several times. Luckily, French villages present plenty of opportunities to refill, which narrowly saved my ass today. I reached home, delirious and shaking, right before darkness fell after six and a half hours out riding, easily beating last year's longest ride.

When I turned on my computer I read with great excitement that a fellow with the fine name Förster won the last stage of the Giro today. Turns out my namesake is riding for Gerolsteiner, and he is a fine sprinter. Today he surprised himself by winning in Milano, on the Giro's Champs Elysées. Chapeau!

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