The Return

It has been a while since I posted on the Positivo Espresso Blog as most of my cycling adventures these days are limited to the flatflands of Northern Germany and therefore of little interest to the mostly Japanese/US readers of this fine blog. However recently I have been made aware that one important person which had became quite often the subject of meticulous und objective commentary here in the past has been invited to the Oxford Union. I am talking about, if this hasn't become clear by now, of course about David Hasselhoff, aka "the hoff".

The Oxford Union is an old and venerable debating society located as you might have guessed in the city of Oxford. I have to admit that it is one of my small pleasures in life to watch youtube videos from their debates before falling asleep and my absolute favourite is the speech of Craig Murray at the American Dream debate.

In any case, many famous people have spoken at the Oxford Union, among them Winston Churchill, Jimmy Carter and Albert Einstein. On the other side of the spectrum we may also find Boy George, Paul Gascoigne or Malcom X. In recent time there seems to be a lack of good speakers; I cannot find a good reason to invite Sepp Blatter, PSY or any character from the games of thrones series.

But now, to my great pleasure after watching the complete speech of David Hasselhoff, I could not possibly hold back my feelings of utter adoration for the great Hoff and his rigorous analysis of the end of the cold war and his not too small contribution in this respect in 1989. As we all know, the Berlin Wall fell down in 1989 because David Hasselhoff convinced the world leaders (the good guy and the bad guy) that he should sing his superhit "Looking for freedom" in Berlin. At the Oxford Union he gives a vivid acount of the events that led to this substantial change of course in world history. We also see his contemplative side, when he reflects on the rather cheesy side of the jacket he wore during this night; however he still owns it.

The complete one hour speech is also available on youtube but let me just say that this 3:17 min segment about the night he changed the world  is more than enough to understand the genius within the hoff.

Enjoy. Or get the National Geographics.

Giro d'Italia enters the Dolomites!

I have been getting Beardy McBeard's daily glorious photo updates on the Giro d'Italia.  It was fun to see the photos of the individual time trial go down a road in Tuscany that I traveled many times during a week there last summer.  And it is even more fun now to see Saturday's Stage 14 as the Giro entered the high Dolomites, with 4700 meters of elevation gain while going over Passo Pordoi, Passo Sella and Passo Gardena ... as we did last summer on Stage 4 of the amateur Giro delle Dolomiti.

I want to go back!

*The pros add Passo Giau and Passo Valparolo on at the end to get to 4700 meters elevation gain.  We had maybe 3250 (?) meters if memory servers.

Normal week

It was a pretty normal week of riding for me.  

No epic 1200km events. Still, I did manage to commute 4 days out of 5, including one day that included a trip to Keio SFC and then into town, for almost 100 kms on a single, working weekday. 

On Saturday I took a normal weekend ride -- Jerome and I had planned something long I but ended up feeling fatigued and like my stomach was not quite right, so peeled off early, rode at a more leisurely pace and settled for 115 kms (plus another 12 kms later for a trip to an evening event and back).  So it was a normal week, and I still managed at least 300 kms.

It might have been the nicest day of the year for my trip to and from SFC.

Heading out Onekan on Saturday morning - we stop where lots of riders gather, at my request.

Yet another photo of the suspension bridge over Tsukui-ko

From a hillside SE of Tsukui-ko -- tranquil except for the poster of the omnipresent Kazuo Shii,
(permanent?) chair of the central committee of the Japan communist party

Very green on Saturday

I was distressed that another 7-11 (this one near Komae / Odakyu Line) has shutdown near the Tamagawa on the way out
of town ... until I remembered that at least 2 new ones had opened nearby in recent years.

Again, a pretty normal week.  The next big planned event for me is the Hokkaido 1200 in July. If I can just keep up this pace of normal riding until then, I should be fine.