Hi to all STers from sunny and sometimes windy Port Ezliabeth.
Left Paris on Tuesday evening with AS airways and saw Herve Faure checking in at the airport. Went to speak to him and it appeared he had a problem with his ticket which was going to cause a days delay in flying down. Anyway apart from that I can say he looked race ready.
Weather is great here, hardly seen any wind at all but apparently the forecast is for a much rougher day on Sunday with winds early in the morning. Usually the wind picks up in the afternoon but I was informed by some local competitors that the SA weather bureau is predicting 5ft swell/waves on race morning. GREAT!!!
Went to the expo and spend some time talking to the Cervelo guy. Hoped that the exhange rate would be forcing to sell them at about 1/2 price for the SA market (everything is so cheap here) but did the maths and nope. Pity! As we were talking last year's winner Gerardus Shellens walks up. He'd taken a test ride on the rep's P3C the previous day and wants to run it for the race. Didn't seem to bothered at all about minor details like crank length, computer etc etc. Anyway to me it seemed that if a pro is willing to run a major race on equipment he has tested only once before then he musta liked it. Said he felt like he could just sit down in aero for 180K and feel great all the way. Anyway good luck to him. Gotta give respect to a 40 year old guy who knows that if he gets off the bike less than 10 minutes down then he's got the race won!!!
I tested one lap of the bike course (60K) and managed to average 33Kmh comfortably. Actually did 65K 'cos I overshot the out and back part. The last 20K was lightning with the wind behind! Gimme 3 laps like that on Sunday and I'll take 'em now!! Roads were a bit rough but hopefully will be slightly better on race day when we can run out it the parts more warn down by the traffic. Still sticking with decision to run on Conti GP supersonics with light tubes. Gotta go for it sometimes :-). However I did spend this morning practising tube changes just in case.
Seeing most folks going with 2 and 3 bottle holders on their bikes. Why would you need more than one with a station every 15Km? I don't get it!! What am I missing here?
Power Bar have seriously messed up here. They can't provide the drinks for race days because they don't have enough bottles in the country!!! I can scarcely believe that even though I heard it from the folks at the Powerbar stall at the expo! WTF??? Is this amateur night? Not only that but they are not providing cereal bars either on the course as advertised. What's with all this stuff about planning your nutrition for the race and training with the same stuff. Yeah well I've been doing all that and then they don't hold up to their end of the bargain for the race. Apparently the race drink is going to be Poweraid. Any comments on that anyone???
I'm checking the bike in tomorrow in one of the later groups so will have a good opportunity to get some good pics of the pros eqpt. If any particular requests then please let me know. I'll put up what I can on my website later, but probably after the race.
Neil Hammond [#1049] over and out
http://www.neilhammond.com/ironman/HPIM0010.JPG
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TriRaceBook.com
.
Hawaii Qualification Analysis
Left Paris on Tuesday evening with AS airways and saw Herve Faure checking in at the airport. Went to speak to him and it appeared he had a problem with his ticket which was going to cause a days delay in flying down. Anyway apart from that I can say he looked race ready.
Weather is great here, hardly seen any wind at all but apparently the forecast is for a much rougher day on Sunday with winds early in the morning. Usually the wind picks up in the afternoon but I was informed by some local competitors that the SA weather bureau is predicting 5ft swell/waves on race morning. GREAT!!!
Went to the expo and spend some time talking to the Cervelo guy. Hoped that the exhange rate would be forcing to sell them at about 1/2 price for the SA market (everything is so cheap here) but did the maths and nope. Pity! As we were talking last year's winner Gerardus Shellens walks up. He'd taken a test ride on the rep's P3C the previous day and wants to run it for the race. Didn't seem to bothered at all about minor details like crank length, computer etc etc. Anyway to me it seemed that if a pro is willing to run a major race on equipment he has tested only once before then he musta liked it. Said he felt like he could just sit down in aero for 180K and feel great all the way. Anyway good luck to him. Gotta give respect to a 40 year old guy who knows that if he gets off the bike less than 10 minutes down then he's got the race won!!!
I tested one lap of the bike course (60K) and managed to average 33Kmh comfortably. Actually did 65K 'cos I overshot the out and back part. The last 20K was lightning with the wind behind! Gimme 3 laps like that on Sunday and I'll take 'em now!! Roads were a bit rough but hopefully will be slightly better on race day when we can run out it the parts more warn down by the traffic. Still sticking with decision to run on Conti GP supersonics with light tubes. Gotta go for it sometimes :-). However I did spend this morning practising tube changes just in case.
Seeing most folks going with 2 and 3 bottle holders on their bikes. Why would you need more than one with a station every 15Km? I don't get it!! What am I missing here?
Power Bar have seriously messed up here. They can't provide the drinks for race days because they don't have enough bottles in the country!!! I can scarcely believe that even though I heard it from the folks at the Powerbar stall at the expo! WTF??? Is this amateur night? Not only that but they are not providing cereal bars either on the course as advertised. What's with all this stuff about planning your nutrition for the race and training with the same stuff. Yeah well I've been doing all that and then they don't hold up to their end of the bargain for the race. Apparently the race drink is going to be Poweraid. Any comments on that anyone???
I'm checking the bike in tomorrow in one of the later groups so will have a good opportunity to get some good pics of the pros eqpt. If any particular requests then please let me know. I'll put up what I can on my website later, but probably after the race.
Neil Hammond [#1049] over and out
http://www.neilhammond.com/ironman/HPIM0010.JPG
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TriRaceBook.com
.
Hawaii Qualification Analysis