As I write this, I'm looking out at the weather, which seems to me to be a glorious morning for a time trial - brilliant sunshine with a gentle breeze, albeit a little chilly judging by the frost on the grass.  And about now (8am), I should be getting the last of my kit together before cycling over to the race HQ.  So, what's the problem?  Another blasted cold, that's what - I learnt my lesson about training and racing with a cold a few years ago.  This gave rise to Team Grumpy's fifth rule:

Never train or race with a bad cough - it will destroy your entire season.

As you might gather, I have indeed caught another cold. It's intensely frustrating, particularly as the Icknield 30k is my usual season-opener open event.  I do hope this doesn't foreshadow another wretched season beset by illness.

I woke to find rather thick fog, but by the time came to ride up to this week's North Bucks Road Club club event on the Astwood course the fog had pretty much lifted. The same could not be said, however, for Astwood and the time trial course, were the fog was thicker than ever.After a bit of consultation, it was decided to cancel the event due to poor visibility.Oh, and the title refers to my puncture en route to Astwood. This would have been my third event of the 2012 season, and my second puncture while riding to or warming up for an event. 2012 may be shaping up to be classic puncture year.

 I woke to a grey drizzly morning, and then the weather deteriorated into quite heavy showers.  So it was with a distinct lack of enthusiasm that I pedalled up to Astwood for this morning's club time trial.  In fact, by the time I reached the course meeting point, the rain had eased quite a bit (but I was pretty wet and dirty by then).  But the wet and blustery conditions seemed to have deterred most riders, as only four turned out: a pair from Team Corley, Ian  from Chronos RT, and me.  And I was the only rider on a time trial bike.Heading out from the start, I got stopped after only a few yards, due to a line of traffic on the course. I got rolling again, to find that I was fighting a blustery wind all the way down to the first turn at Chicheley.  Never mind, I thought, it'll be easier after the turn.  It wasn't.  In fact the blustery wind didn't seem to give much assistance anywhere, and I felt I made quite slow progress what with taking the corners rather gingerly due to the wet roads, and dodging considerable numbers of muddy patches left by tractors.I finished in 24:42, which I'm quite pleased with... After a short chat with Tony after the event, the rain was back, so I hurriedly cycled back home to get cleaned up. 

Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
Two up TTT
1	2	Matt Jones	Team Corley Cycles	22.59	S
	1	Mike Smith	Team Corley Cycles		S
Solo TT
1	4	Rob Saunders	NBRC	24.42	V52	26.51	+ 2.09	1
2	3	Ian Markham	Chronos RT	28.08	S

I never upgraded from the first generation iPad to the second. I thought the second generation was more of a generation 1.5. But I was sorely tempted by the upcoming 3G iPad. Indeed, the improved cameras and retina display were what swung it for me, and yesterday I received my shiny new gadget. These are my first observations.First, that retina display. It's astounding. But not so much for photographs as for text. Where on my 1G iPad I had to do quite a bit of zooming to read fine print, the text is spectacularly sharp and clear. And when I return to my MacBook display, it seems pretty poor by comparison ( but not so my very old Sony Vaio Ubuntu laptop, which has tiny pixels).Second, the cameras. Friends tell me that the images captured are significantly better. Frankly, using the iPad as a camera is likely to be something of a minority activity (for me at least), but it makes it possible to use FaceTime.Third, the battery. The iFixit guys show that the interior of the device is mostly filled with battery, about twice the capacity of the second generation model. It does seem to take longer to charge, but the extra battery capacity seems to be needed by the screen, so battery life isn't improved.Fourth, the 3G model seems much snappier than the 1G model.So far, happy with the upgrade from 1G to 3G.

 As is now usual, Team Grumpy prepared intensively for the 48h prior to this event: a preparation which entails consumption of takeaway curry and Belgian beer.  We woke on the morning of the event feeling surprisingly chipper considering the quantity of preparation, and were somewhat disappointed to see thick fog blanketing southern Wales.  Fortunately the weather lifted, leaving clear sunny conditions with a light but rising wind.Team Grumpy performed pretty much as we expected: a good showing of 2-up technique with our overall speed hampered by inadequate training (illness and injury most recently).  That being said, we kept up a pretty good pace over the first half of the event, which is held on a section of dual carriageway, and really only found the second half, which is on an older road with a pretty damaged road surface and quite a bit of climbing a bit challenging - it was here that we found the defects in our preparation exposed.We crossed the line in 1:01:25, fairly respectable we thought - until we saw the winners did a long 53!  Our ride was enlivened by a puncture while warming up (Robert) and an unshipped chain at about 18 miles (Gerry), but was otherwise uneventful.

1	K DAVIES & R PAYNE	BYNEA CC PORTH & DISTRICT	00:53:42
2	J LEWIS & H PRICE	PORT TALBOT WHS	00:55:10
3	W BEVAN & J PILE	ROSS ON WYE CC VC SEVALE	00:56:39
4	J ASPEL & N CRAIG	FORZA CC	00:56:53
5	R HICKS & C WALLACE	PORT TALBOT WHS MERTHYR CC	00:58:09
6	B PHILLIPS & M PHILLIPS	BYNEA CC	00:58:55
7	C JONES & K JONES	M & D / KINETICA	00:59:05
8	R AICHELER & J PRITCHARD	CASTLE BIKES PORT TALBOT WHS	00:59:56
9	G GILES & I REES	PONTYPOOL RCC	01:00:09
10	S BENT & A MEAR	LUDLOW CC	01:00:18
11	C MATTHEWS & R WHITE	FORZA CC	01:00:27
12	J FRANKLIN & D GOUGH	SWANSEA WHS	01:00:49
13	M PORTLOCK & M WILLIAMS	VC L’ESCARGOT	01:01:11
14	G ORAM & R SAUNDERS	BYNEA CC NORTH BUCKS RC	01:01:25

Andrew Lansley continued his push for the NHS bill (which many view as the latest Tory effort to take down the NHS) with another secret hospital visit this week.  Here's a video of him being heckled through the corridors of the Royal Free Hospital.[youtube IBZMTWk1OgI]

Last year, when bemused physicists reported the apparent discovery of faster than light neutrinos, a shock wave ran through the news media, despite professional physicists the world over pointing out that it was almost certainly a technical cockup (ISTR the original experimenters suggested such). In the bizarre world of creationism, the potential upset to such a well-entrenched scientific theory as Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity was seen as evidence that the whole edifice of evolutionary biology was teetering on the brink. Here for example is a brief piece by David Klinghoffer at the oddly named Evolution News and Views (which is a mouthpiece for Intelligent Design creationism) - "Another One Bites the Dust?". Here, Klinghoffer makes a very brief point:

If you think Darwin's theory of evolution is as secure as Einstein's theory of special relativity, well...maybe you're right. [followed by a slightly longer quotation from The Guardian]

Since the judgement was sent down (finally) on Alberto Contador's clenbuterol case, quite a few stories have emerged detailing commentators' views on the matter.  The other day the Pez Cycling news website featured a comment article with which I pretty much agree (The Contador Case: What's Missing)

In the welter of knee jerk reactions to judge/condemn Contador and/or criticize the UCI, the real issues of this situation are being missed [...]

The author does, I think make valid points about whether Contador's guilt has been established beyond reasonable doubt, and adds to this the oddly variable sanctions following clenbuterol positives that have  been applied to athletes in a variety of sports (see for example this case of youth footballers in Mexico).I would add my often-stated position that any system where a positive result can be returned for any level level of a proscribed substance, even where the level is below the sensitivity required of a testing lab must necessarily be unfair as whether a sample comes up positive becomes a lottery depending on which lab the sample was sent to for analysis.  This is an issue that will return again and again.

Cyclingnews.com today reports that yet again Alberto Contador has had a delay in the announcement by CAS of a verdict in his astonishingly long-running doping affair (Contador Verdict Expected Today | Cyclingnews.com). I cannot believe the ineptitude of all concerned in handling this case, and I'm surprised Contador can maintain his equanimity.My own view is that the regulatory structures around clenbuterol testing are such that for individuals with vanishingly small amounts of clenbuterol in their system, guilt or innocence becomes something of a lottery, depending on which testing lab the sample were sent to - any clenbuterol is enough for guilt, even where the amount found is lower than the sensitivity required of a testing lab.In the mean time, all those blood-doping athletes who were customers of Dr Fuentes (and for one reason or another escaped immediate action) carry on regardless.Update: The announcement is on the CAS web page. Apparently the decision will be handed down on 6th February.  Maybe.  Or maybe not.  The CAS announcement concludes:

A confirmation as to the date and time of the publication of the decision will be given by the CAS at the end of this week.

In reponse to the latest crawling from a Student Union over the recent Jesus and Mo fracas, and indeed the recent example of intimidation at an event featuring a dicussion of sharia law and women's rights: