Less than two days…

Good news! It turns out that my bike handles superbly under emergency braking! Even better, I didn’t even lose any skin finding that out!
It is very close to start time. I’m in Germany right now and I put the bike together the other day and took it for a spin to get the cobwebs out. It turned out to be a really good training ride for TCR – 192km into a strong headwind, and for about 185 of them it rained steadily. Very pretty places to ride through though, so I did enjoy it.
It is always a bit of a surprise to remember how much less room there is on European roads than Australian, but always pleasing to remember how much better the drivers are. As a proud Australian it pains me to say it, but on the whole the European drivers are a lot more skilled (they have to be, they have so much less room for error) and more importantly a lot more mature and less angry. That doesn’t mean that they don’t do stupid things though, and when someone pushed to overtake me in front of oncoming traffic and then slammed on their brakes when they saw a parking spot I really thought I was going to go into the back of them. Happily the bike handled beautifully and the brakes were strong but controllable, and I managed to wash off enough speed to go around them, even in the pouring rain. So that was reassuring.
Less pleasing was how well my electrical connections worked in the wet. I struggled to find the right connectors in Australia and it turns out that the ones I got are just not at all water resistant. The first splash and they just short out and nothing charges. Oh well, just as well that the weather is going to be good for the whole race.
Meanwhile, everything else is progressing. I’ve already hit 25% of my target for fundraising (if you want to donate you can do it here). I’m heading to the start line tomorrow, and if I don’t quite know where to go after that, well it just adds to the adventure really doesn’t it. But the start list is out and race numbers have been issued (I’ll be number 108) so in less than two days I’ll be starting!

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3 Replies to “Less than two days…”

  1. Great to hear on all counts bar the connectors. I’m sure the weather will be fine, especially in Belgium.

    1. Astonishingly enough, for the first time ever I managed to ride in Belgium without being rained on!

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