37.3 milesAfter seeing the weather forecast for today, we weren't optimistic, but after overnight rain, we awoke to another very sunny morning. After a vast and excellent breakfast, we set out to ride round North Uist anticlockwise. The biggest climbs were between Lochmaddy and the Berneray road, and even these weren't particularly tough. However, we decided after looking at the map that we wouldn't investigate Berneray, and we continued towards Solas. After a bit, vast sandy beaches came into view, and it was with some chagrin that we discovered that the batteries in the camera had run down.However, as we approached Solas we could see the familiar Coop green and sure enough there was a rather good Coop in Solas. Not only did we buy batteries, but we got a couple of bottles of chocolate milk as a substitute for banana milk.Pressing on, we paused for a drink as we eased round to the western coast of North Uist. Here B&Bs become more plentiful. It also got very much sunnier, and we were able to see St Kilda in the distance.We took a detour up the C83 Solas road to look for a standing stone indicated on our tourist map. As usual this was not signposted, but was visible from the road. Retracing back to the main road, we paused at an excellent tearoom for a cup of tea and a slice of cake (lunch still out of the question as we were still full of breakfast).At Clachan we turned towards Lochmaddy, pausing only to stop at the ruins of a chambered cairn. Once back at the hotel, we changed and popped out to buy a paper and stroll about. A highlight was a visit to an art installation in the form of a camera obscura buily inside a cairn. Then back to the hotel for beers and dinner.We are apprehensive about tomorrow's weather, and may not ride over the Quirang as originally planned. Still, we'll make it to either Portree or Broadford.
View 2010 Tour Day 4 - North Uist in a largermap

57.1 miles
Another glorious start, though we did see some rain. We left the B&B in what we felt was good time to catch the 9.25 ferry crossing from Ardmhor to Eriskay. Ofcourse, we hadn't figured on the stonking climb out of Castlebay, which had us huffing and puffing like Ivor the Engine. But not before we'd had to stop to persuade the front derailleur to shift the chain onto the small ring. Then to add further insult, the chain dropped up a gear when we were on the steepest part of the climb - I suggest this as one of the unwritten rules of cycling.
Still, we made it to the ferry with time to spare (though we did worry, and my usually cautious stoker exhorted me to not only go as fast as possible downhill, but to face down oncoming motorists on the singletrack!). The ferry crossing was very smooth, and we saw a variety ofseabirds and quite a few seals lying on rocks. Eriskay's a small island, with another beach. It's mostly famous for the wreck of the SS Politician, which was the basis of the film Whisky Galore. Apparently the wreck can still be seen at low tide. Eriskay's now connected to South Uist by a causeway.
South Uist doesn't offer much in the way of hilly roads, which was rather fortunate, as we were facing a rather stiff northwesterly wind. At around noon, we stopped to cook up some food (chili con carne and rice) on the trusty Trangia, and shortly after this, we encountered a light shower that lasted for about half an hour. This wasn't a major problem - we soon dried off!
By the time we reached Benbecula I'd acquired an irrational need for banana-flavoured milk. At Clachan (where the road to Lochmaddy splits off), there's a shop - but unfortunately no banana milk!
We rode on over a changed landscape. Rather than riding between small lochans and over causeways, we rode up over peat moors, with small lochans shining deep blue under the sunny blue skies, Finally we arrived at Lochmaddy, where we'd booked two nights in the Tigh Dearg Hotel.Lo and behold, the (very smart) room had a bath, and sfter getting cleaned up, we retired to the bar for a couple of pints and a bar meal. I had fish cakes for starters and baked langoustines on egg noodles for main course. C had fish pie, Desserts were Eton mess for me and sticky toffee pudding for C. Then to bed after watching the rather alarming weather forecasat for Thursday.It looked as though we'd be stuck indoors watching heavy rain...
View 2010 Tour Day 3 - Castlebay to Lochmaddy in alarger map

35.6 milesWe woke to beautiful sunny morning. The breakfast room looked out twards Kisimul Castle in the bay. We got set up, planning to spend the day exploring Barra and Vatersay - we took the Trangia and the bits'n'bobs for a drum up and lunch. Fortunately we also packed some extra clothing, as the temperature dropped steadily through the morning, as the cloud grew ominously (consistent with the last weather forecast we'd seen which was for light rain). We'd hoped to have a brewup on the beach at Vatersay, but contented ourselves with a stroll - something repeated during the other beach visits today!The beaches on Barra and Vatersay are nothing short of splendid, as are the dunes behind, with displays of primroses and many other flowers, though the yellow flag irises had yet to bloom.From Vatersay we retraced our path back to the B&B, then on to the main circular road round Barra. This proved delightful, if still quite cold and windy - the clouds seemed to be breaking up. We stopped occasionally to admire views and beaches, but still felt too cold for lunch. At the north of this loop, weturned north, investigating where the Ardmhor ferry terminal was, then on to the Barra airport - the landing strip is thehuge Cockle Strand beach - where we stopped for soup and tea. This was most welcome as we were pretty cold by then.Further north to Eoligarry, where we walked onto arocky beach with terrific rock pools. From there we retraced to the circular road and headed back to Castlebay, pausing occasionally to admire the views. The Cuillins in Skye were clearly visible.Back in Castlebay, we changed, had a cup of tea, then wanered into Castlebay. We photographed Kisimul Castle from a number of vantage points (apparently Castelbay was the model for Kiltoch and Kisimul for the Black Island in Tintin and the Black Island). A fabulous pint of McEwans 80/- in the Castlebay Hotel bar was followed by dinner at the Cafe Kisimul, which specialises in Indian, Italian and seafood. I had scallop pakora and spaghetti marinara (combining all the specialities, I thought) washed down with a bottle ofHebridean Breweries' Islander ale. Carol had the same starter and followed with Jaipuri prawns.Then back to the B&B.We saw loads of birds, including many we couldn't identify - skylarks, herons, hooded crows. Many starlings. Heard a cuckoo.
View 2010 Tour Day 2 - Barra in a larger map

After a staged journey via Leeds and two nights in Edinburgh (and along the way buying and replacing the tandem's chainset, we departed first thing in the morning for Oban. As per usual, we transported then tandem by car on the roof rack. The journey was pretty easy, with no delays and rather pleasant and sunny weather (but a little cooler than over the last few days).
We arrived in Oban about 3.5h before the ferry was due to depart - even after leaving the car in the tender care of Hazelbank Motors, buying tickets (Island Hopscotch tickets 15 and 21), and having coffee we ended up hanging around. Despite the brilliant sunshine, the temperature was falling by the time we queued up with a surprising number of cyclists to board the ferry. On this occasion, cyclists were boarded first.The ferry departed on schedule, and after a voyage of 4:50 that took us along the Sound of Mull (Tobermory clearly seen in the afternoon sunshine) and beyond. We arrived in Castlebay on schedule. We were a bit surprised by how cold it was as we rolled off to find our B&B (Ravenscroft).
From our window, we had a great view across the bay, with Kisimul Castle lit by rays of sunshine.
Pretty soon, though, we turned in - looking forward to exploring Barra tomorrow. But not optimistic about the weather!

So, I refurbished the transmission on the tandem before our cycling holiday, and on the evening before we're due to head north, I discover a serious problem with the chainset, and the thing needs to be replaced...the main (right hand) drive crank is seriously mangled and isn't in line with left hand crank. The granny ring also now strikes the chain stay.Cue phone conversation with the excellent Spa Cycles of Harrogate, and I've arranged to collect a Stronglight Impact tandem chainset en route to Edinburgh tomorrow.

Another lovely sunny evening for a North Bucks Road Club evening time trial, and a return to the Stony Stratford course for another counting round in the club league.  There was also a gentle breeze that promised to toughen the outward leg.  Oh, and a profusion of greenfly in the air!There was quite a bit of discussion as to whether we should use the replacement Nash-Whaddon circuit, as on our previous event at Stony Stratford when the course was affected by roadworks.  In the end, we decided to go with the usual course, as riders who'd ridden the course earlier in the week said the road was clear enough (and so it proved).  What was more worrying was the comments that travellers had caused problems near the turn on Monday, with kids playing 'chicken' with the riders as they passed.After a slightly delayed start occasioned by a parade of sports cars and a group of horses, we were off.  For my part, I found the outward leg really very tough.  The first few miles are quite twisty, and the winter has most certainly not been kind to the road, with even more potholes added to the existing unrepaired road defects near Beachampton.  Dodging the potholes, I reached Beachampton and began the climb up to Nash.  I really suffered on the final stages to Nash (probably I need to lose a bit of weight to improve my power to weight ratio!).  In Nash a motorist had kindly parked on the bend, leaving their car door wide open while they looked at the back end of their car.  Avoiding this stellar parking act (and hoping that other riders, and indeed passing motorists would too), I pressed on up to the turn.  A clear ride round the turn and off on the return leg, where I felt I wasn't reaching the usual speed on the first section back to Nash.  Once through Nash the speed was up well over 40mph at times - though tempered with concern over bends in the road and assorted road defects to come.I roared through Beachampton and on over the twists, turns and astonishing potholed surfaces, putting a big effort to cross the line in 27:19.  This was better than I'd felt I was doing, but I really need to work on the climbing!  On the other hand, it was faster than any ride I did on this course last year.Results

								Pos. on
Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	10	Tony Parks	NBRC	26.23	V45	30.29	.+ 4.06	4
2	15	David Glossy	Team Corley Cycles	26.29	S
3	7	Chris Dunwoodie	TeamMK	27.00	S
4	13	Robert Saunders	NBRC	27.19	V50	31.41	.+ 4.22	3
5	14	Glenn McMenamin	NBRC	27.35	S
6	8	Will Hilton	Virgin Active	28.06	S
7	5	Brian Primett	NBRC	29.12	V43	30.01	.+ 0.49	6
8	11	Aleck Hornshaw	TeamMK	30.18	V41	29.33	.- 0.45	8
9	6	Clive Faine	TeamMK	30.22	V63	35.05	.+ 4.43	2
10	9	John Buchanan	TeamMK	30.27	V40	29.20	.- 1.07	9
11	3	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	31.24	V67	36.13	.+ 4.49	1
12	4	Christine White	NBRC	33.01	LV45	32.26	.- 0.35	7
13	2	Gordon Batcock	NBRC	33.27	V69	36.48	.+ 3.21	5
14	1	Alan Lawson	NBRC	33.29	V41	29.33	.- 3.56	10
		Tandem
	16	Kevin Stokes	TeamMK	25.08
		Geoff Perry	TeamMK

And here's a map of the course (note that the northern end of the course has an additional section including a return to the car park).
View Stony '11.4' 19/5/10 in a larger map

Courtesy of Information is Beautiful, we now find out what the UK is best at (Because Every Country Is The Best At Something).So, where Madagascar is best at vanilla, the Netherlands is best at Ecstasy, and Estonia is best at Adult Literacy, what is the UK best at?CCTVOh crap!

In

Looking out of my office window before riding up to Astwood for this evening's time trial, one might have been forgiven for thinking it was going to be a balmy warm late spring evening.  Well, it was fairly balmy - there was only a light wind - but warm it most certainly wasn't.  As we lined up at the start, the temperature was falling quite rapidly, and it was quite chilly.We also didn't have a pusher-off, so watching riders start by failing to clip into their pedals was really quite amusing,  Until it was my turn to start!  Anyway, roaring off down the main road to Chicheley, I was quite pleased that my ride up from work had been brisk (rather later leaving than I'd intended): my heart rate was rapidly raised to a decent racing level.  I roared down to Chicheley, I think in part because of a gentle tail wind.  I stayed in the saddle and on the tribars all the wayto the Chicheley turn, then as usual took the bend quite cautiously as it's often rather gravelly.  On up to North Crawley, and I was convinced I could see another rider ahead of me.  But who?  I couldn't figure it out, and for the rest of the race kept seeing the rider, then not, as the mystery rider moved round bends ahead of me.  I tried hard to keep on the tribars round the bends after North Crawley, which I think helped to keep my speed up along those sections.As I approached the final mile or so, I reckoned the mystery rider was #10 (and so it proved).  I scorched down the final descent and nipped up the climb to the finish, again staying on the tribars, finishing with 23:49.  As it turned out, this was only 5 seconds behind Tony P, and good enough for second place.  Actually, my best time on this course is a mid-23, so this was really quite a good ride for me (and certainly my best this season).Results (map of the course follows)

								Pos. on
Pos	No	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Vets Std	.+ / -	Vets Std
1	9	Tony Parks	NBRC	23.44	V45	26.30	.+2.46	4
2	11	Rob Saunders	NBRC	23.49	V50	27.33	.+3.44	1
3	8	Lindz Barral	i-team CC	24.07	S
4	10	Chris Dunwoodie	TeamMK	24.36	S
5	12	Geoff Perry	TeamMK	25.01	V50	27.33	.+2.32	6
6	7	Kevin Stokes	TeamMK	25.09	V47	26.54	.+1.45	7
7	5	John Buchanan	TeamMK	25.25	V40	25.30	.+0.05	10
8	14	Graeme Freestone King	Team Synergie	26.38	V50	27.33	.+0.55	8
9	4	Clive Faine	TeamMK	27.04	V63	30.30	.+3.26	2
10	13	Ruth Freestone King	Team Synergie	27.41	LV46	28.25	.+0.44	9
11	1	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	28.20	V67	31.30	.+3.10	3
12	3	Gordon Batcock	NBRC	29.19	V69	32.00	.+2.41	5
13	2	Tony Brunton	NBRC	30.13	V45	26.30	.-3.43	11

Time Keepers:- Steph Cousins & Tony Farmborough NBRC
View Astwood '10' 12/5/10 in a larger map

A few days into the newest release from Canonical, Ubuntu GNU/Linux 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), what are my initial opinions?  On the whole the upgrade from 9.10 went very smoothly.  Since I'm using a customised desktop with Compiz effects, I didn't see too much in the way of visible changes.The seemingly much-discussed move of window control buttons from the right to the left of the window title bar completely passed me by, as this is how I've had my desktop for a few years now.Not much different in boot-up times, but this is a seriously tweaked notebook which slows it down post-login.  On my desktop PC, boot seems very quick, as does the post-login desktop setup.The new version of the Gwibber social networking app seems a big improvement.  It now seems to filter out the vile Farmville crap from FaceBook!  A simple interface as well, enabling access to different feeds (though I'm only using two Twitter accounts and Facebook).The big news for me is that iPod Touch support is there.  I believe that on a fresh installation this would probably work out of the box.  In my case I had to install ifuse (easy enough via synaptic).  Now I can add music to my iPod without having to go to a Win PC and load iTunes.  This worked well, but appeared to disrupt album artwork for those albums I'd already uploaded via Windows iTunes.  I restored the iPod, and repeated the album transfer, and this time, everything went smoothly - no artwork corruption, so perhaps this was just a coincidence.I picked up a tip (from somewhere out there on the web) to edit /etc/fuse.conf and uncomment the line

#user_allow_other

to

user_allow_other

This seems to have helped the upload of music files to the iPod.Related to this is the development of Rhythmbox as an alternative to iTunes.  I buy the occasional DRM-free mp3 album from Amazon: Rhythmbox has links to three other online music stores, including Ubuntu's very own Ubuntu One.  I decided to have a go with Ubuntu One.  This proved a bit interesting!  The interface is clean and easy to use: making a purchase of an album was pretty straightforward.  However downloading seemed a bit complex, though probably this was just because it was different to systems I'd used before.  Firs, the files get transferred to one's Ubuntu One cloud storage, of which there is 2Gb for free (you can upgrade to 50Gb for $10 per month).  From there, manual downloads are a bit of a nuisance: as far as I could tell you have to download each file one by one.Firefox was updated to 3.6.3 - no major issues.  (while this is nothing to do with Ubuntu, one of my plugins got updated and broke some website JS functions - this was Ghostery version 2.1, now inactivated until such time as the Ghostery developers get their act together - this isn't the first time the Ghostery plugin has affected Firefox function)

The weather forecast for the day of this race was annoyingly accurate: light rain and a blustery wind out of the north wind at about 15mph.  Still, this didn't deter me from riding over to Leighton Buzzard for the Bossard Wheelers '10' on the F12/10.  I gave it plenty of time, in case of punctures, and indeed rode along a part of the course to gauge how the wind would affect us during the race.At the HQ, I found I had a fairly long time before my start time.  It turned out that there had been a diesel spill at the Billington roundabout, but that the Highways agency had been along and sprinkled it with gritty salt.  While we weren't very convinced it would do much good, we were grateful that they'd made the effort!  I wasn't keen to go back out and get wet and cold, so held off till about 15 minutes before my start, when I nipped out to warm up briefly before the start.  All quite straightforward.  At the appointed time, I rolled forward, said hello to the start team and mounted the bike.  Unfortunately I had to dismount again rather quickly, to put my chain back on - I must have clipped it with my heel!Once off, I got up to a good speed quite quickly, but as so often happens on this course, came to a near standstill behind queueing traffic at the Billington roundabout.  The difficulty is then getting going again in the monster gear I'm usually rolling along in - this was no exception.  Up to spead again, and the wind seemed particularly blustery, particularly where I passed gaps in the hedgerow.  My computer kept dropping the speed display, and I was occasionally alarmed by how slow I was going.  The last mile before the turn were particularly hard as the course veered slightly into the wind.  At last I found myself riding up to the turn roundabout, and back down onto the course again - at a rather satisfying 32mph.  From here, the return leg was pretty quick, and I even had no traffic problems passing through the Billington roundabout the second time.  In fact, the worst aspect of the return leg was keeping an eye out for the myriad of small potholes that have opened up over the winter!Approaching the finish, I made a last eyeballs out effort to try and get under 23 minutes.  Unfortunately, I was thwarted and finished in 23:02 for tenth place.As usual the Bossard '10' was a well organised and very sociable event, even though organised by what must be one of the smallest clubs in the country.As it turned out, the ride home was a bit frustrating - my legs were a bit tired, and grovelling up the gentle climb towards Woburn was rendered rather tough by the headwind bearing drizzly rain.  I felt the beginnings of hunger knock, and ate the banana I'd conserved for just such a situation.  And I had a front wheel puncture just less than a mile from home.  Quite common round these parts after rain, as the rain tends to wash flints into the road.Here's a Google map of the course.  Results (top 15 places) below the map
View F12/10 8/5/10 in a larger map

Pos	No	Name	Club	Cat	Time	+/-	std	Std Pos
1	50	Steve Golla	Sigma Sport	Sen	21:29
2	15	Mick Hodson	St Ives CC	Vet	21:35	+	03:55	8
3	45	Tim Carter	Team Virgin Active	Vet	21:46	+	04:32	5
4	20	Ross Clarke	Team Milton Keynes	Sen	21:57
5	46	Dave Johnson	VC10	Vet	22:17	+	05:42	1
6	10	Simon Cannings	Team Milton Keynes	Vet	22:29	+	03:01	13
6	35	Mark Cook	Beds Road Club	Vet	22:29	+	03:01	13
8	32	Pete Lawrence	VC10	Sen	22:32
9	40	Robert Fletcher	VC10	Sen	22:42
10	19	Jim Moffatt	Spirit Racing Team	Vet	23:02	+	05:10	3
10	21	Robert Saunders	North Bucks Road Club	Vet	23:02	+	04:31	6
12	36	Gareth Pugh	Cwmcarn Paragon RC	Sen	23:08
13	7	Steve Clarke	Team Milton Keynes	Vet	23:12	+	05:26	2
14	42	James Fox	CC Luton	Sen	23:19
15	27	Geoff Bunyan	Spirit Racing Team	Vet	24:29	+	02:51	15

This evening's event was the third event in the NBRC 2010 time trial league, and the first in the annual series of interclub events with the A5 Rangers.  As it turned out, it was an overcast evening with a light breeze offering a little assistance on the opening leg.As I started, it seemed there was more traffic on the course than on recent events, and indeed ended up getting stalled at the first two roundabouts.  On the first, this was no big deal, as the road surface is so pitted and potholed that I always take it rather gingerly.  Anyway, I was riding with very little data on my Polar computer: since I'm using a Polar GPS sensor to relay speed and distance to the computer, everything depends on the GPS device working properly - tonight I suspect that the battery might have depleted a bit too much.  All I had to go on was my HR reading, but at least that was something to go on!Once on the dual carriageway section, things picked up a bit, and I felt pretty comfortable.  Approaching the turn, I saw Lindz, who had started two minutes before me, and I timed myself to the turn.  As far as I could tell, he was almost exactly two minutes ahead of me.  Redoubling my efforts, I pressed on, rounding the next roundabout and easily avoiding the potholes there.  From there it's downhill, and whacked in a nice big gear.As I crossed the line, I pressed the lap counter - it indicated 23:25, and since I started the timer when my minute man started, this meant I'd finished in 22:25 (or thereabouts pending the official results), this being my best time on this course since we started using it.  It's also my best '10' time for the last three seasons (at least), and a minute faster than I managed last season!  Really rather a fine results for me.

Pos	Name	Club	Time	Cat	Standard	Plus	Pos on standard
1	Tim Carter	Virgin Active	21.14	V44	26.18	5.04	6
2	Tony Parks	NBRC	22.10	V45	26.30	4.20	10
3	Dave Lazenby	A5 Rangers	22.25	V46	26.42	4.17	11
4	Rob Saunders	NBRC	22.27	V50	27.33	5.06	5
5	Dave Glossy	TMK	22.36	S
6	Lindz Barral	i Team CC	22.49	S
7	Geoff Perry	TMK	23.08	V50	27.33	4.25	9
8	David Carrington	TMK	23.27	V44	26.18	2.51	14
9	Darren Haydon	NBRC	23.36	S
10	Ian Stokes	NBRC	23.54	V50	27.33	3.39	12
11	John Buchanan	NBRC/TMK	23.59	V40	25.30	1.31	16
12	Kevin Stokes	TMK	24.00	V47	26.54	2.54	13
13	Rob Chaundy	TMK	24.36	V58	29.20	4.44	7
14	Ian Franklin	A5 Rangers	24.54	V61	30.02	5.08	3
15	Graham Mackie	A5 Rangers	24.56	V48	27.07	2.11	15
16	Tim Carey	A5 Rangers	25.48	V47	26.54	1.06	17
17	Trevor Parrish	A5 Rangers	25.53	V65	31.00	5.07	4
18	Clive Faine	TMK	25.55	V63	30.30	4.35	8
19	Murray Kirton	A5 Rangers	26.00	V69	32.00	6.00	1
20	Gilbert Wheelwright	NBRC	26.11	V67	31.30	5.19	2
21	Alan Lawson	NBRC	26.58	V41	25.42	-1.16	18
22	Tony Brunton	NBRC	29.05	V45	26.30	-2.35	19
23	Liam Barbur	A5 Rangers	31.11	Schoolboy 14

I see more about Valv.(Piti) in Cyclingnews.com (Valverde Accuses UCI And CONI Of Vendetta | Cyclingnews.com).  Perhaps to celebrate his rise to the top of the UCI points table, Alejandro Valverde has accused UCI and CONI of engaging in a vendetta against him, or more accurately exhibiting “an institutional and personal viciousness” against him.  He goes on in time-honoured athlete style to say:

No banned substance has ever been detected in my body and my biological profile is flawless.

Thing is, that's true of many dopers.  Until they got caught.  And the biological passport which would yield a biological profile was only introduced in 2008.  The antics of Dr Fuentes were exposed as the investigation into Operacion Puerto got under way in May 2006, so whey would Valv. (Piti)'s biological profile be affected by any supposed blood doping that occurred prior to Mat 2006?.What the report doesn't do is clarify Valverde's explanation for the match between his DNA profile and that of the blood labelled Valv. (Piti).  Is there a match?  And if so, how come a wider ban hasn't been applied?

One of the three riders named as having suspicious blood parameters is making an unusual defence claim (Rosendo's Blood Readings Due To Haemorrhoids? | Cyclingnews.com). Jesús Rosendo Prado has been suspended by his team, but the claim has now been made that there was an observed increase in oxygen transference between May 19, 2008, and September 27, 2009.Now, despite being a biologist, I'm not really clear what the UCI mean by "increase in oxygen transference", but Rosendo's team have fired back the defence that oddities in reticulocyte (immature red blood cells) and lowered haemoglobin and haematocrit levels were due to haemorrhoids.Blimey, one would have thought that not only would that volume of blood loss be awkward for a cyclist, but you'd expect a performance hit!  Poor bloke, having his troublesome haemorrhoids splashed about the interweb.

Well, what do you know! Dear Valv. (Piti), who's DNA has been found to match blood bags stored by Dr Fuentes of Operacion Puerto fame, is now leading the UCI World Ranking (Valverde Tops UCI World Rankings | Cyclingnews.com), despite suffering a two year ban in Italy as a consequence.  Meanwhile, Jan Ullrich, who's career was terminated after his DNA match must be wondering "what if"...In separate news, Cyclingnews.com also reports three riders that appear to be manipulating their blood, at least on the basis of the "Biological Passport" (UCI names riders snared by Biological Passport).  Apparently the three are Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas-Doimo), Jesus Rosendo Prado (Andalucia-Cajasur) and Tadej Valjavec (Ag2r-La Mondiale, and their teams are not pleased.  Disciplinary proceedings are "requested", but it's not clear what these "disciplinary proceedings" will be.So at least the UCI would appear to be making progress in the battle against doping in cycling, but it does always seem to the three steps forward, two steps back.  I wonder what's going on in other professional sports?

There have been a couple of stories over at Cyclingnews.com on the general theme of doping. In the first, Frei Explains The Motivation Behind His Doping | Cyclingnews.com, BMC's Thomas Frei explains his motivation behind doping with EPO.  He failed an EPO test, and declined to have his B sample tested - admitting guilt, he seemed to be relieved to have the truth out.  In this article, he touches on the motives behind getting involved in doping.  While I appreciate that there is always the possibility that his public statements may to an extent be self-serving, they do seem to me to be quite illuminating.

"Of course I would have gone on doping. The money tempts you, it is the same for everyone," said Frei in an interview with Swiss website NZZ.ch.

As for his slide into doping, this comes across as something straight out of Trainspotting:

As for himself, he said that he started his pro career clean. "Then came the hard stage races, and I learned that infusions were used for recovery. Everything was legal, but I still didn't want any of it. But at some point it started [for me], because everybody does it. The doctor gives you the first shot, and then it isn't long until you give yourself the first illegal shot."He said he took EPO, because "you stand in front of a huge mountain and don't know how to get over it. Your ambition eats you up. After all, you want to become more than just a helper."

The section I find interesting is how the teams work.  While they aren't directly saying to the riders "You must take this to be competitive" (well not since the days of Festina), there does seem to be a tacit acceptance.  Teams never enquire why a rider shows a sudden and dramatic improvement in form, and of course where not only is survival through long hard stage races an issue, but pay and future contracts reflect performance, the temptation to dope will always be present.  Frei finishes with:

"From the bosses you only hear, 'We don't want any doping cases.' But what they really mean is something else."

And this seems to be key. It seems to me that riders are victims as well as culprits complicit in doping. The teams want strong athletes that can deliver performance, and in the face of (probably hard to eradicate) doping practices choose to turn a blind eye in favour of disowning the rider when he's caught.  To my mind the teams end up being complicit.  While there's ostensibly a new anti-doping breed of cycling teams out there, the cynic in me wonders "says who?" - who can we believe in a murky world of black market doping, where investigations get shelved with only partial justice (e.g. Ullrich busted, Valverde still riding while dodging investigations), or cases where justice and retribution are so long coming that an athlete may well retire before punishment.A second story, High profile Italian doping case close | Cyclingnews.com, seems to indicate that a high profile Italian cyclist may be busted before the Giro d'Italia gets going next week.  This follows widespread analysis of blood values - the "biological passport".  So far, five Spanish and Italian riders have been busted for blood value manipulation.It does seem as though the response of the dopers (and one might surmise in the light of major doping rings) the doping industry has been less in the direction of stopping, or trying new products and more in the direction of fine-tuning the doping process with the objective of making detection less likely.  Much of this focusses on what's probably the most effective drug for an endurance athlete, EPO.  Strategies for evading detection have included microdosing (as in the case of Frei), and the use of modified EPO derivatives such as CERA.  CERA, of course, was being pushed as an undetectable form of EPO, a promise happily unfulfilled as the rash of offenders detected over the last few years testifies,

Still pottering around with Mythbuntu!  The PC I've set up as a MythTV PVR using the Mythbuntu distro seems to perform pretty well.  The only problem still to be resolved is that of the Hauppauge IR remote control, but since I discovered the MyMote app for my iPod Touch, this hasn't been too urgent.  I'm pretty confident that I can get that sorted out.At the moment I have this huge desktop PC case sat next to the TV with cables draped around connecting the sound and video outputs to the TV.  Added to this is an annoying blue LED that flickers as the hard disk is accessed and a big blue LED ring around the power button, and it's immediately obvious that I need to see to the appearance of the device.  A further point is that the hard disk makes just enough noise to be irritating in a quiet room.So, searching for an quiet and unobtrusive case has led me to order one of these:This seems pretty plain, with most of the front access sockets and drives hidden by flaps.  I was rather constrained by the components I'm working with - notably the full size ATX motherboard.

This year's cycle tour once again takes us round our favourite haunts: the Scottish west coast Hebridean islands. This year we're planning an itinerary that sees us visit some islands for the first time, and in so doing sees us take seven ferries (eight crossings) in nine days cycling! These are Barra (which we've never visited before), Berneray (only been as far as the ferry jetty before) and Iona (we've never even been as far as Fionnphort on Mull before).
Day 1 Our trip will begin by arriving in Oban by car, in time to catch the 1540 ferry, to arrive in Castlebay on Barra. This is quite a lengthy crossing, not arriving until 2040. We plan to find a B&B for two nights.

Day 2 This day will be spent exploring Barra, and it shouldn't be too taxing, as we can leave most of our kit in the B&B. We hope to visit the linked island of Vatersay to the south and the promontory of Eoligarry to the north. In the past, we've been on ferries that call at Castlebay: usually they are stuffed with birdwatchers.


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Day 3 On the third day, we plan to ride to catch the morning ferry (crossing number 2) from Barra to Eriskay, a small island now attached to South Uist by a causeway, and then on to LochMaddy in North Uist. This route takes us northward through Benbecula, a strangely wet landscape seemingly mostly composed of pools of water!


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Day 4 We're planning on staying two nights on North Uist, probably in Lochmaddy (we have our eye on one particular accommodation, which on our last visit looked to have a rather nice menu), in order to look around in more detail than we've done in previous visits. On one occasion, we stayed over a Sunday (because getting to Harris on a Sunday is pretty much impossible), but unfortunately bad weather in the form of appalling gales prevented us from getting far on that occasion. We're quite keen to have a look at Berneray.

Day 5 From Lochmaddy it's off to Skye, by ferry crossing number three, which should deposit us at Uig in the early afternoon. Probably just enough time to cycle over the Quirang to find a B&B for the night. An alternative might be to travel round the northern tip of Trotternish.

Day 6 We'll be remaining on Skye for another night - aiming to stay in Broadford, with the particular aim of enjoying seafood at Creelers, one of our favourite seafood restaurants.

Day 7 Skye, of course, is less and less of an island, now that the Skye Bridge is there. This has increased the amount of motor traffic and resulted in road "improvements" - we'll cycle down one of these roads to Armadale to catch the ferry to Mallaig on the mainland (ferry crossing number four), from where we hope to reach Salen for the night. We have an idea for accommodation, one whoich specialises in local produce

Day 8 For the eighth day, we plan to ride through Ardnamurchan, though the possibility of diversions to beaches really depend on the weather - last time we were on Ardnamurchan, the weather was unbelievably good. We'll cross from Kilchoan to Tobermory (ferry crossing number five) and stay overnight in or near Tobermory.

Day 9 We have visited Mull on a few occasions, but never got as far as Iona: on day 9 we plan to cycle down to Fionnphort to catch the ferry to Iona and back (ferry crossings six and seven). No idea where we'll stay, but probably try and spot somwhere en route.


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Day 10 The final day of the tour will see us ride from Fionnphort to Craignure, to catch the ferry back to Oban (ferry crossing number eight).

I've high hopes for this tour, it'll be an interesting mix of the (to us) novel and the familiar, of long riding days and short,of road and sea.

I was really looking forward to another excursion on the F1B/25, since I posted a 58:24 at the Beds RCC '25' a couple of weeks ago.  And, indeed, the weather forecasts earlier this week looked promising, with a headwind to the turn, and sunny weather.  Unfortunately as the weekend approached, the forecast worsened.  Last thing yesterday, I checked, and it looked as though seriously heavy rain would abate in time for the event.As it turned out, the overnight weather was appalling - I lay in bed hearing the wind and rain thrashing around the house, and I was dreading the time trial.  I was travelling over to the race HQ in Tempsford with Richard, and at the allotted hour, he turned up - we both looked apprehensively at the rain, but headed over to Tempsford nonetheless.  (I always try to ride an event, after all the poor old marshals have to stick it out).  When we arrived at Tempsford, there were only a few cars, and a bunch of folk hanging about: the event had been cancelled (quite rightly) on safety grounds.  A turbo training session now beckons.This event was the anniversary of the event at which Gareth Evans rider was killed on the F1, and there was a prize in his memory.  Probably quite fitting that the event was cancelled.Back home, I discovered a roof leak.  Something else that'll have to be dealt with.

I've been using the Firefox plug-in Ghostery for some time now to prevent web-tracking scripts, except when there was a buggy release that prevented Firefox from closing down cleanly.  I just upgraded Ubuntu GNU/Linux to 10.04 (Lucid Lynx), and as ever, the process was pretty much flawless.  The upgrade brought with it a newer version of Firefox (3.6.3), and when I started it, a few updated plugins were installed, including Ghostery 2.1.It seems however that Ghostery 2.1 might not be playing ball with a couple of websites.  In my work Outlook web access, all links (e.g. to open mail messages) are dead.  And FaceBook gives blank pages (no bad thing, one might think!  Disabling Ghostery brings back functionality to both sites.