Day 78.
Woke up feeling good this morning. After yesterday being a bit negative, I felt quite positive today. I got up and stuck the TV on to watch another cycling classic. Its the biggest, longest and most prestigious race in the cycling calendar. The Milan-San Remo is well over 300km long and 298km of that is the racing. I only managed to catch the last 50km of the race due to Eurosport ALWAYS showing something longer than they say they will. By the time the coverage started on the Eurosport HD, most of the exciting racing had happened. The peloton had already split with one of the big favourites left trying to chase back into the leading group. For Mark Cavendish, the race was over. There were other big named riders who stood a chance at winning in that group as well but no one wanted to take up the chase. In the leading group, most of the big names and contenders were battling it out on the last few climbs. The king of the classics last year, Philippe Gilbert is always going to be a contender and he has proved how to win classic races. Unfortunatly he crashed on the assent of the Poggio with a few other riders and was out of the running. The other contenders in with a chance of winning were Fabian Cancellara, Vincenzo Nibali, Simon Gerrans and Tom Boonen. All team leaders for this race, all the strongest riders from their teams. There were others that were in with a shout, John Degenkolb, Oscar Freire (3 time winner of Milan-San Remo), Matt Goss and Peter Sagan.
On the final climb up the Poggio, Nibali showed that he was in great form and went for it with about 9km to go to the finish. Cancellara went with him and Gerrans somehow managed to tag along and stay with 2 of the best decenders in cycling. All 3 stayed away until the end with Cancellara doing all of the work, pulling the other 2 along to the finish line. It was at this point the TIVO box stopped recording and I had to finish off the race on YouTube. Gerrans is the stronger sprinter of the 3 and showed it when he out-sprinted Cancelara and Nibali to the finish line. A deserving winner? Yes, he had to deserve it, he dug deep and his legs didn't fail him at the end. Simon Gerrans was the winner last year as well and is most certainly an early season rider. It was an exciting finish.
My cousins and I tried to have a bonfire this morning at Grandads field. We didn't have an petrol so it didn't last very long. My Aunty thinks my pyromaniac skills are getting rusty as I rely to much on petrol to light things.
This afternoon I cleaned a big brass doortop. We have had it for about 10 years and it was filthy when we got it and I decided to clean it with Brasso. I spent a good 6 hours with cloths and a toothbrush getting it shiney. Its not perfect and still has dirt on it but its a totally different colour and looks good! My room smells of Brasso now and it has made my nose go a bit funny. I did a before shot but I havn't done an after shot yet so I'll get those up tomorrow. I watched Daredevil. It was an alright film but not one I'm going to watch again in a hurry and then I watched Gone In 60 Seconds. I do like that film purely for Nicholas Cage. He is an awesome actor and makes that film work. My dream car is in that film. A 1967 Mustang Shelby GT500. Google it.
I hope tonights blog has been a little more interesting for my dedicated readers.
Until tomorrow.
Jim
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