Dear Roulers,

I’ve been offline for a few weeks owing to an unscheduled house move and a short overseas holiday at Easter time.  It also meant 2 weeks of ZERO kilometres being contributed to my overall goal of riding 5,000 kilometres in calendar year 2015.

Unfortunately, I don’t have any cycling related holiday photos as I didn’t have my camera handy at the needed time.  However, I was amazed to see a small peloton, riding along the main street at Kata Beach, Phuket.  I had been ‘hearing’ about the emergence of cycling as a past-time/sport in SE-Asia for awhile now.  Seeing a bunch dressed in their best ‘pro’ gear was impressive.  Whilst there aren’t any significant mountains on Phuket there are several nasty hills with very steep roads. So combined with chaotic traffic and heat, they present a decent challenge.  Also, it explained why half the group were on mountain bikes.

Earlier in the trip, I was also impressed to see cyclists out commuting early in the morning in Kuala Lumpur.  If there is one place that car traffic needs reducing in, its KL.  Its central area reminds me an awful lot of the anarchic roads of central London, except with hills.  Having a large population commuting by car to the central area makes very little sense to me.  Apparently local authorities are of the same opinion as they schedule bi-monthly a car free mornings.  You can read about them here ->  http://www.klcarfreemorning.com/.  One of which was held on day the Wife and I left for Phuket….Bravo.

The Easter break  gave me an opportunity to read a few cycling related books, “Lanterne Rouge – The Last Man in the Tour d’France” by Max Leonard and “Gironimo!: Riding the Very Terrible 1914 Tour of Italy” by Tim Moore.  Lanterne Rouge is an excellent read and highly recommended.  I’m half way through Gironimo but its been very amusing and has once again proven to me that something both heroic and stupid occurs when a 40 something like myself attempts to ride a bike over a very long distance.

Finally, I managed to catch the Paris-Roubaix 2015 edition last night and was thrilled to see a close race.  Congratulations to John Degenkolb for a well executed race.  However I was appalled to the flagrant disregard by the peloton for the TGV level crossing boom gates.  Some of the last to cross were very fortunate not to be collected by a TGV.  If you haven’t seen the footage, click on this link to view the story published on the Guardian. This dismay turned to disbelief when race organisers ignored their own rules and failed to disqualify any rider for ignoring the signals.  Unbelievable.

That’s it for now, I’m looking forward to getting back on my bike tomorrow morning.

Marv