Wheely good time

Today is the day we've been waiting for. After a winter of stories about the Blue Egg, twitter photos of sunnier climes, and British Pros thinking about the weather, it is finally time to get going with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the first of the classics (look here for twitter updates).

So, the first cobbled race of the year, the first Belgian hilly race, and the first race where we can start to see the real form of the Pros that will be taking victories this April. So, here is a brief run down of my predictions for today's race:

Tom Boonen.
Tommeke has been quiet for a few seasons now, he's been off form to what we all had grown to expect, and even with respectable finishes in the Classics he's been doing less than he wanted. In Qatar we saw than Boonen is back - two stages, and two jerseys won mean that Tommy is riding like himself again, and I hope that today will show him.

Heinrich Haussler.
I don't know what this is actually based on, but the buzz is that HH is riding again too. His name has appeared on my Twitter feed increasingly, despite a relatively quiet and low profile off season, and I am pretty interested to see what these rumours can do. Inrng have him down for a sprint win, if it comes to it, and I think I'd like to see that.

Juan Antonio Flecha.
The eternal nearly man in the classics, Flecha has spent most of his career looking wistfully towards to podium's top step, but only occasionally gets to stand up there himself. Another off-season with Sky where he has trained himself into the ground, and now we get to see if this year maybe it's all paid off. I hope it has.

I am so excited!

Clenbutador

Alberto Contador won the 2010 Tour de France. It was also the last Tour of French rider Christophe Moreau, the last (I believe) survivor of the Festina Affair to be racing at the top level. Yesterday Alberto Contador joined another list with M. Moreau as he was stripped of his title and given a drug ban.On the rest day of that Tour his urine showed traces of the drug clenbuterol, precipitating a drawn out inquiry by the Court for Arbitration in Sport that cycling really didn't need.

Food contamination was the official line that Team Contador peddled for the last 18 months. But the different theories that have been used have told the world plenty about the state of cycling since a car bearing the logo of a French Watchmaker was found to be filled with drugs in 1998.

• Contador ate steak that was contaminated with the drug. He was innocent of any wrongdoing but a farmer out there somewhere let questionable meat into the food chain and our protagonist was unlucky to have eaten it and to have been drug tested afterwards. He's a victim.
  
  Or...
• Contador has been taking clenbuetrol as a bronchodilator or decongestant. Sure, there isn't a huge amount of gain to be had from the small amounts found in his urine, but as the Team GB aerodynamic wheel-nuts have taught us, a few tiny benefits really add up at the very top levels of the sport
  
  Or...
   
• Whether it was his own blood in the off season or someone else's they shouldn't have taken clenbuterol so soon before it was removed. Because the body is so slow to remove this particular drug there was still some left when his rest-day transfusion went through.

I don't know which scenario is most accurate, or most likely, but CAS weren't taking any chances. I don't really like Contador, there's something about him that I just didn't believe. But I'm willing to accept that I don't know and not write a little hate campaign here. So for now let's accept. Contador is a remarkable talent, who rode fastest back in 2010 and whose ban lets him back on the road this season.

Yesterday I didn't give much attention to that. The day before Tomeke won in Qatar and I couldn't be happier to for the upcoming battles in Flanders and that suburb of Lille.

Last Days, First Days

Tomorrow I finish work at my job. Since last autumn I've been working as part of a small team at a cargo handling company.

On Monday I start my new job - a 3 month placement in a children's accident and emergency department.

There will be more than a little bit of a difference between the two jobs, but I'm hoping that four month spent auditing accounts, identifying revenue leaks, and writing reports that will potentially change the operating procedures. My new job will be days and nights of helping whoever walks through the door whilst trying to learn as much as possible and get the hang of new skills and techniques.

I haven't been writing much lately, because before I get back into my real life I'm working full time to earn some money to fund my travel, food, and coffee bills. Very soon I hope to be writing more again, and I'll be discussing work and life and all that stuff.

So, I am sorry that I'm not actually meeting the definition of "A Blogger" right now but I'm sure I will soon. For now, I give you the song that I am most likely to be humming to myself when I leave the hospital after a shift:

A brief break

Dear startling plentiful readership,

I have been having some sad problems of late, and they have been making me less productive and less Bloggy than normal.

I am hoping that with exams out of the way and some actual life to be living I will return to normal soon, but if you're wondering where I am, then this is the answer!

So, I will leave you with this completely awesome photo directly stolen from the awesome CyclingTipsBlog's coverage of the TDU criterium apptly entitled Welcome to Radelaide, and we'll speak soon.

So, that was 2011

So right now I'm writing an essay about Leukaemia, and the care nurses provide to children diagnosed with the disease (OK, not right now, but today) but I wanted to enjoy the lull between Christmas and New Year to put up a quick post I shall call "So that was 2011".

Thank you to everyone who reads this blog. Thank you to everyone who has posted a link to this page or has told someone about a story I posted here.

My favourite posts of the year are as follows:
There's the story of how my brother and I reported my mum to social services.
There's evidence of how I became a culinary genius.
This year I made loads of new cycling friends through twitter, especially during the Tour de France.
There's a post about my holiday across the pond.
My brother and I ran a half marathon for charity.

And, away from the internet I got engaged, nursed many sick children, continued working too hard, read lots, listened to lots of music, and watched lots of films.

2011 has been a very good year, and 2012 will be even better. I hope you all have a safe and fun winter break and will join me in living the fuck out of the next 12 months. Until next year, good bye.