ah what a relief. internal crap not worthy even of a mention has left me with little choice but to leave the team I joined last July. suffice to say it’s hard to race for a team when you aren’t on the roster for any races.

meh, whatever. options are appearing. in any case, if there’s anything i’ve learnt in this 40-year stay on this odd planet, it’s that there is comfort in the realisation that when you meet ********, you can actually just walk away.

unfortunately for them, they don’t have that luxury…

i wrote this, below, a year ago, after the Genting stage at the Tour de Langkawi. there’s been quite a bit of WTF?’ to get through these past few days, but re-reading this was a reaffirmation of this two-wheeled way of life.

“…Back at the very grand hotel, romantically embedded between manicured greens and the rampant, oversexed jungle, I stood by two Pure Black guys (nice lads, the lot of them) on a terrace watching golfers. One of them turned to me, face lined and wearied beyond its 24 or so years, and said, “Man, we chose the wrong sport.”

Yeah. And right then, after 180km of hurt, I agreed with him. But after a moment’s refection, I didn’t.

No, fella. We choose the most beautiful. The most epic. The daftest. The most furious, the most poetic, romantic, brutal, life-affirming and soul-destroying sport of all, the sport that drives its flawed geniuses to destruction and its devotees to distraction. Itʼs the simple love affair of man with machine, human-powered machine, and itʼs the one toy from childhood we get to keep, that grown men and women still get to play with, all over the world, no matter how old, no matter what culture, race, creed or ideology. Itʼs the thing that gave you the freedom to leave your neighborhood and to explore the world around and when we race, itʼs the same barnstorming thrill you had when you sped down your block, racing home from school against Pete Barnes to see who could get to the edge of the cul-de-sac first. It’s that same rush, that same freedom, the same Breath of Sheer and Unadultered Life.

The sport of kings, kid. Beat that.”

boo

ya

ka

sha