Okay - spot prizes on Sunday's Liège - Bastogne - Liège

Pretty much as last year, I reckon...I liked the "Railway Level Crossing" Photo Bonus idea for 1 point in ride

for those unsure of what I mean... something like this...



- drink's a given - anything Belgian (beer/cidre - hell I'll even allow "Wifebeater"* on this occasion!)

*Stella Artois, for those who didn't get it...

- As Again, It's a bit too short notice for shopping, I'll throw the snack bonus open to 1 point only for anything mentioned on the "Belgian cuisine" wikipedia page ?? - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_cuisine

- usual "climb bonus" - 1pt for each 500m of total ascent up to a max of 3pts/1500+ metres.

Provisional Results now in...

2014_Ride9_Results by The Big Yin, on Flickr

full announcement to follow in the discussion thread.

05.10.2014 Giro di Lombardia

The Giro di Lombardia (English: Tour of Lombardy) is a cycling race, in Lombardy, Italy. It is the last 'Monument' of the European calendar, and also one of the last events in the UCI World Tour, making it potentially decisive in that competition. Its nickname is "the classic of the dead (falling) leaves" (Italian: la classica delle foglie morte) because it takes place in the autumn.

The first edition was 1905. It was then called Milan-Milan. It gained its current name in 1907. The route has changed many times. Milan, Sesto San Giovanni, Bergamo, Varese, Monza, Como have been start or finish place. In 2004 the race started in Mendrisio in Switzerland, and ended in Como. The most famous obstacle is the Madonna del Ghisallo climb that appears in the latter part of the race. A shrine there has a small museum containing religious and cycling objects.





Fausto Coppi won a record five times. Frenchman Henri Pelissier and Irishman Sean Kelly are the only non-Italian riders to win the race three times.

This race has a certain significance to me, I’ve been lucky enough to ride quite a bit in the area around Lake Como, and obviously, as someone with a certain amount of respect for and interest in cycling history, a “pilgrimage” up the Ghisallo was just one of those things that had to be done – Bikes ridden by Coppi and Bartoli, Moser and Merckx – plus the crumpled bike that Casartelli was riding when he crashed on the Col de Portet d'Aspet during the 1995 Tour de France.



I even got “Madge” blessed for me while I was there…



There's the usual great information on LaGazetta's website, regarding the Race Route, climbs and so forth at
http://www.gazzetta.it/Speciali/GiroLombardia/en/

Today appears to be a 2 Coffee Morning....

First to get the heart started... (so not qualifying as "recovery" for the ride - just recovery from yesterdays plaster-a-thon!)




and then something a little more rounded whilst eating breakfast...



(good god, that worktops filthy... combination of being full of cold and doing building works has left the entire house like a midden!)

and so to the ride...

http://www.strava.com/activities/203564456 - 93.9km, 540m elevation.

Cool, Crisp, Clear and actually quite pleasant, once my lungs had got used to the air-temperature.

No shots of fallen leaves, the relatively mild weather we've had recently has pretty much meant that the only fallen leaves are the ones that have come down with the Conkers from the Horse Chestnut Trees.

I did however manage to get a shot of a roadside church (a bit bigger than the chapel in my last years attempt...)



"refreshment" shot





TBY Edit: Elevation - 1pt, Food - 1pt, Drink - 1pt, Leaves - 0pt, Church - 1pt : Total Bonus - 4pt

Okay folks - provisional results for this installment (and the overall) are in the spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B2Sn-Pidrs4Gy-YP76sj9uwDnVxpBy7zAUZYVsyu5UI/edit?usp=sharing



Congratulations to Brett (@Kupe) - making the best of some Spring weather with by far the longest ride booked this "race"...

Rest of the podium was a close run thing, with barely 200 metres separating Alan (@harksy) and Me - which proved to be a very valuable 200m for the overall.


And, so to the overall competition. I'd said before it was going right down to the wire, and so it proved.

At the end of 10 Classics, with over 6,700km covered between us, it was impossible to separate me and Alan on points. So, it all goes back to distances covered, and therefore the worthy winner this year is...

Harksy - Congratulations Alan

TheBigYin wrote: »

As mentioned in the discussion thread - and as obvious to anyone who looks in here, LOTS of the entries have been lost in the move over from the old forum. I'm keeping this thread "stickied" for the moment, as I've reported the loss, and "they're working on it" - confidence levels chez yin are not massively high

Okay - I'll admit it, I was wrong - and a big thankyou to the MFP elves behind the scenes who rescued the missing posts...