Let it snow let it snow let it snow 31st gennaio 2012

Let it snow let it snow let it snow 31st gennaio 2012

Snow in Siena is rare. At least, it is rare if you listen to one of the Sienese. From my experience, it comes as often and just as deep as anything in the UK. Of course, I have missed the last two winters and the hardest winter storms for 40 years, so more than even my life span, so I am considering previous years in the UK, when I have really seen very little at all. So, I am told that it only snows once every three years in Siena, and when it does it just snows a jot, yet over the past two years it has snowed pretty heavily. Today it has snowed again. The forecast, which tends to be very accurate, at least for the next 72 hours (http://meteo.it/), has predicted snow this afternoon, moving to 30 cm starting from 12 midnight until 6 am. Now that is some pretty heavy snow for this place. OK, it has been cold recently. This morning it was minus 3C when I was running and yesterday it was minus 2C. That is pretty darned cold for round here. We (ooh look at me - saying "we") have a lot of hills and the cold takes a long while to stick. So around 2 pm it started snowing, sadly it was pretty miserable snow and after a few hours of snowing there was just a wet cover, temperatures hovering about 3C so nothing was settling. Of course, the locals went absolutely ape and started leaving in droves. I thought that the Brits were bad when snow hit, but the chaos that happens when a bit of snow falls, coupled with the many steep hills make the roads absolute carnage when the snow descends. And this is despite it being a law for all cars to carry snow chains, snow tyre covers, or have snow tyres. Anyway, the upshot was that the office was deserted pretty early and tomorrow we may well be stuck at home. Peccato!

Of course - the best news of this is that there will be plenty of snow on the mountains so it could be a great weekend for snowboarding, and a bad weekend for cycling so no guilt even about missing training!

Back on the cycling front, I have still been struggling still with the ride of my bike. After last week when I seemed to have a mental block about turning left and ended up in a barrier, this week I went riding with Tobias and my Mavic carbon wheels are just worse than ever. My descending is pathetic and really holds back my speed. My confidence just isn't there with my wheels. Anyway, after my ride with Tobias he kindly lent me some old wheels of his. Well, they are not just some old wheels - he bought them from a friend of his, after the shut down of the pro team Gerolsteiner http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerolsteiner_(cycling_team) and they are pretty sweet. A long way away from Carbon wheels which he reckons may be too twitchy for me, plus maybe I am too heavy for them - when I am out of the saddle and climbing they are flexing so much that they are rubbing against the brake blocks.

So, now installed I have the Ambrosios running on Dura Ace hubs, also with some handstitched Schwalbe Ultremo tubular tyres. It's all great. Also, Tobias quickly looked over my bike and tweaked and townked a few things that I have been trying to put right for a while - all in about 5 minutes, amazing to see someone really adept work on a bike!

On Sunday, I attempted a mini-triathlon - a quick 40 length swim, followed by an hour long spin on the  "velodrome" followed by a 20 minute run. The hour spin was great, the wheels and the tubulars felt really smooth, and I am eager to get the wheels out on the road to see if I can get my mojo back.
I say "velodrome" - it was built as a skate park I think, and occasionally skaters do use it, but it is mainly used by older fatter cyclists. It is an outside concrete 200 metre track and is pretty smooth. I am very glad to have it as a resource. Thank you Siena. And it makes a great place to do a mini-tri!

Meanwhile, the triathlon training is going well, plus I am shedding weight which is a great bonus.

Onwards and snoward!