Early winter day

Winter has arrived. At least up here in the North I think it’s safe to say that winter is here now. The temperature these last days has been around -10º. (C - Celsius. Of course. Celsius really is the only sensible unit of measure when it comes to temperature. If you insist on using another unit, I only have one thing to say to you: Change.) It has even snowed. 

To be honest I haven’t been out riding much anyway. First I was a little fed up with cycling, after having ridden the Kalmar Grand Prix race (at a personal record average speed, I might add) my butt was sore.

Yeah, I ride in a Giro d'Italia 2016 la maglia rosa without being Vincenzo Nibali. So sue me. 

And I had ridden quite much up to that race too, I was the first one to sign up to the race which meant that I was given the Number 1. And riding with #1 on my bike and on my back and do really bad just wasn’t an option. Not to mention going DNF or DFL… So I had been training really hard, including a bunch of 100+ km rides. (Miles? If you mean real miles, i e 10 kilometres, we can talk miles. If not, then no,) My longest ride – also a personal record – was 150,81 km, from Växjö to Kalmar. That was a really great ride, by the way. Instead of choosing what might have been the fastest way between Växjö and Kalmar I opted for the smaller roads, less travelled, calmer and so much more interesting. I hope that I can do it again next summer, and if you have the opportunity to do it I highly recommend it.

I concentrated on riding... and finding my way! So I didn't really take that many photos. For some reason, which I won't examine, the few photos I took were mostly of derelict houses.

Kronobergstrampen is a 350 km cycling route through the Kronoberg county, Sweden. However, it's hard to find much information about it, so I don't know how organised this cycling route really is.

Endless roads and dark forests in the Kalmar county, Sweden.

The Sankt Sigfrids kyrka church in Sankt Sigfrid, Kalmar county. I didn't go in, but the exterior is quite nice!

But after Kalmar Grand Prix my butt was sore and I was a little fed up with cycling, so I needed a pause from it. When I was up for riding again the weather was crap. After that I got ill. And then autumn came, with slippery leaves covering the roads.

And now it’s winter. Which means a couple of things. Firstly it means taking my road bicycle apart and meticulously cleaning every part. I won’t bore you with details about how I clean my bike, let me just say that it is as clean as I can possibly get it. (Without unwelding the tubes.) The second thing is continuing to saw through the stuck seat tube in a Kona Lava Lamp, that will eventually hopefully be my winter commuting bike. I really don’t get that many opportunities to take out the bike and the saw and go at it, but I haven’t given up! Actually it’s a matter of prestige now, I am hell bent on getting that seat tube out of the frame.

Actually this must be the ugliest f**king bike I have ever came across. So it's perfect as a winter commuting bike, since winter commuter bikes are (meant to be) routinely mistreated.

The misery...

The third thing is the most important: To get my son’s Christmas present (he doesn’t know English yet, so it’s safe to write this) – a Specialized Hot Rock 24” mountain bike pristine and flawless. Since it’s a second hand bike I have some work to do, for example the pedals are totally crap, but basically it’s a good bike so it’s totally doable. A good clean (no, not really like the one I do on my road bike) and some new parts will do the trick. The parts arrived in a big box last week. It’s nice to do something for someone else, even if it’s for my son.

It doesn't look like much now, but I hope a good cleaning and some new components will change that!

The new component came in this small, handy box!

But besides the above I don’t expect much bicycle-related to be going on this winter. You can always wish for more bicycles (n+1, anyone?), bicycle parts and bicycle clothing but I can honestly say that I don’t really need anything. All my projects – the above mentioned, a mountain bike and two road bikes that I will fix and then sell – will require some new parts but… I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. So if I get this blog more up and running, meaning that I will update more regularly (yeah, fat chance) I suppose I will focus on other aspects of cycling. And since it’s winter it’s not really bicycle race season either…

Yeah, there are some races in January through April, like Tour Down Under in January, Tour de Taiwan and Volta a Catalunya in March, to name but a few but I am always eagerly waiting for spring, summer and the grand tours. (Yeah, well, last year I boycotted Giro d’Italia, due to the race having the opening stage plus two more stages in Israel. And Israel occupies Palestine, as you might be aware. But that was last year.)

2019 might be a good bicycle racing year. Giro d’Italia 2019 is concentrated around Northern Italy, Tour de France will have its departure in Brussels, go through the Eastern and Southern parts of France before finishing in Paris on the 28^th of July and Vuelta España… Well, I honestly don’t know if Vuelta España has been presented yet. It would be kind of typically Spanish to not have presented, nor even decided on the route yet.

And I have signed up (and paid) for my two usual races, the Göteborgsgirot 140 km race and the Kalmar Grand Prix Open 130 km race. I don’t think I was the first one to sign up to the Kalmar race, so this year I won’t have the same pressure on me to do at least OK, but I will of course try to do as good a race as I possibly can. With a little luck I might even be able to have a go at the Växjö-Kalmar ride, or even ride from Göteborg to Kalmar. We’ll see. 

But here and now I finish,so ride safe!

P.S. What a coincidence! After I had posted this text I saw on instagram that Vuelta España actually presented the route, yesterday. They will concentrate on the Northern and Southern parts of Spain, and of course, on Madrid.