Why does it always rain on me? (A recapitulation of my racing season 2016.)

Admittedly I haven't been very good at updating this blog lately. I've been out riding! And that's exactly what I would have been doing today as well, if it hadn't started to rain... Yes, I'm a bit lazy. Or, actually I'm not that lazy - I just don't particularly like riding in rain. You get wet and sweaty, the chain might start to squeak (depending on which oil you're using) and the roads get slippery, which increases the risk of accidents. So most times I simply try to avoid it.

Bicycles are a part of my everyday life, though. Usually I ride my bikes to school or just to town, or I'm tinkering with my bikes or checking other people's bikes and bike riding people on instagram. Or in real life, for that matter! Well, summer is almost over and so is the the racing season for me. It didn't really turn out as I thought or had hoped it would

The Göteborgsgirot race was big fun. As I wrote earlier I entered the 140 km version instead of the 70 km version, in a fit of hubris, but it went quite well. My goal was to finish with an average speed of (at least) 30 km/h, but I didn't succeed with that. Other than that it was really hard and a lot of fun.

Race face on! At the last moment I decided to go for the Classic look with aviator glasses, instead of a more contemporary look. Why are today's bike sunglasses so ugly?

This is what you end up looking like, if you forget to use sunscreen. To be honest I didn't think that I would need it but Hello cycling tan!

Then the Nationaldagsloppet race was cancelled. Too bad! I wanted to enter the 108 km version of it this year, but c'est la vie. By the information on their website I get the feeling that there might not be a race next year either, but we'll see!

And then Kalmar Grand Prix Open race, or Hansa Bygg Kalmar Grand Prix Open as it was renamed, was cancelled too. Apparently due to a lack of race stewards and motorcycle police. Well, I have some thoughts about that:

1. Did they really need 120 race stewards and motorcycle police? That does seem a bit much.

2. Anyway, part of the problem with finding 120 race stewards might have been that the race was moved from the morning to the afternoon and evening. On a Saturday. I think most people would prefer to spend Saturday afternoon and evening with their family, maybe going out to a restaurant, rather than standing in some countryside village, handing out water and bananas to sweaty middle aged men.

3. And the race stewards didn't even get any salary or compensation. Instead money was donated, on their behalf, to research on child cancer, which is very nice, but really... If you were to consider spending Saturday evening handing out water and bananas to sweaty middle aged men on ridiculously expensive bicycles the thing that just make you decide to do that might be... at least something more than a free t-shirt. Were they even to get a goodie bag? I don't know. But a couple of movie tickets, compression socks or something else would probably have helped.

4. To be honest I wasn't too keen on riding in the afternoon either. What do you do all day, while you wait for the race to start? You certainly don't want to do anything too exhausting, as you want to preserve your energy and force to the race. (We're talking regular people here, not professional athletes.) So you were to spend a whole day mainly just waiting. That would suck.

5. And lastly, the name. Kalmar Grand Prix is a good name, it sounds classy and honours the town of Kalmar. But Hansa Bygg Kalmar Grand Prix? I have nothing against Hansa Bygg, it's a construction company, they're probably good at what they do, probably not much better or much worse than other construction companies when it comes to environmental thinking. (The construction sector is one of the sectors which has the biggest impact on the environment.) I was even impressed with their managing director, when he gave a short speech at the prize ceremony for Kalmar Grand Prix Elit. He talked about how he wanted the company and the race to be assets for Kalmar, to be something that would make Kalmar a better town. Great thinking! But it's still not a good name for a race. Think about it. Guldfågeln Kalmar Grand Prix? (Guldfågeln is a chicken slaughter company, which happens to sponsor the arena of the local football club Kalmar FF - Guldfågeln Arena.) Hennes & Mauritz Kalmar Grand Prix? IKEA Kalmar Grand Prix? It doesn't sound good, does it? Think about it some more. Leonardo-Finmeccanica Giro d'Italia? Schneider Electric Tour de France? Loterías y Apuestas del Estado Vuelta a España? It doesn't sound classy, does it? It just sounds commercial, and even though races are commercial... My suggestion is to rename it to Hansa Bygg presents Kalmar Grand Prix.

Well, anyway the race was cancelled. However, when I was in Kalmar on my holiday I learned that the Kalmar cykelklubb bicycle club were to organise a training round on the same day. It was a great initiative and it was great fun. They were really nice, I learned how to ride in a group, they were super cool with my mistakes and even though I said that I wanted to ride in a slower group we managed to keep an average speed of 31.2 km/h (Kalmar cykelklubb themselves claim that the average speed was 31.5 km/h, but that's not what my bicycle computer said.)

That's me to the far left. (As usual...)

I know that there are other races, I have been thinking about Tre Berg and Stockholm Velothon, but they are quite pricey and they would have required a lot of planning and some support, so... Maybe next year, who knows?

Race safe!