longslowdistance
Posts:2886
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| 09/08/2021 10:04 PM |
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Not sure if enough of us are following this successor to the Milk Race to make this a viable thread for this forum, but here is a try. There is some fantastic racing in beautiful scenery and A list riders, But also small enough that some B listers can shine. Unusually warm and sunny there, too, at least so far. Today's stage finished with an uphill drag race between WVO and JA. JA overgeared, might have come out different, but IMO WVO is on a higher level this year. The Euro and World champs could be especially good this year, with these two and others contending. |
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smokey52
Posts:498
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| 09/10/2021 06:32 PM |
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| Ethan Hayter seems to be doing well. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2886
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| 09/10/2021 10:04 PM |
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Clearly he has the team and has the form. IMO this 8 day race has been more interesting than the Vuelta or the Tour. Helps that the UK can be stunningly beautiful when it's not raining and foggy. Which I know is just luck this year, but I'm good with luck.
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smokey52
Posts:498
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| 09/11/2021 10:16 PM |
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Top five within a minute coming into the final stage.
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On a personal note, I've never ridden in England, Scotland, or Wales. The closest I've been is riding in Ireland, and it was stunningly beautiful -- one of my rides was from Newbridge over St. Kevin's Way to Wicklow and back. I just had to watch out for the sheep and the cattle gates. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2886
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| 09/12/2021 02:34 AM |
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| Left side in Ireland too? I did a brief racing tour in England as a pup and found it easy to emerge from an intersection on the right (wrong) side of the road by muscle memory. Yikes! |
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 09/12/2021 06:17 PM |
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Never rode in any of those countries but drank beer in all of them.
Good two way race but had expected more competition.
Wondering if van Aert is going too hard again only to come second in big race. |
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smokey52
Posts:498
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| 09/12/2021 10:42 PM |
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LSD-
When I first read your post on "left side", I thought you meant the west of Ireland. When I was working in Cork, I flew into Shannon on the west coast and drove to Cork but never rode in the west.
When I re-read it, I realized you meant the left side of the road. So yes, Ireland drives on the left. I guess since I rented cars and drove without crashing, I was comfortable riding on the left. Roundabouts were no problem. Hedges sometimes were close and worrisome, but Irish drivers seemed used to cyclists on the road.
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OC-
One of my weekend centuries out of Newbridge was south to Kilkenny, the former but then current home of Smithwick's Ale.
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Hayter at least got points. |
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 09/13/2021 03:04 PM |
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The roads in rural Ireland are narrow enough that left/right is pretty meaningless; they just fit one car.
Left side driving is that much more interesting when the stick is also on the left. Driving out of Sydney in rush hour traffic, in an old Ford Falcon station wagon LOL. I'm sure I buzzed a few pedestrians on the sidewalk. |
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smokey52
Posts:498
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| 09/13/2021 07:38 PM |
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At least the arrangement of the foot pedals is the same. Left hand shifting was easy to accommodate, but a change in clutch/brake would have been an issue.
My biggest problem while driving was the rear-view mirror. I kept looking up at the door frame to my right. I ended up relying on the side mirrors. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2886
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| 09/13/2021 09:05 PM |
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At some particular time in the past Sweden or maybe all the Scandinavians switch from left to right overnight. That must have been a wild ride.
Meanwhile here in the US, miles to km a few decades back was too much and we bailed. |
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smokey52
Posts:498
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| 09/13/2021 09:26 PM |
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We are way off the original topic, but okay.
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It was just Sweden that switched. Norway and Finland already drove on the right, one of the reasons for the change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dagen_H
Iceland changed a year later even though they don't share any drive-able borders.
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Returning to my Irish experiences, the first time I drove a Volvo with a manual transmission was from the Dublin airport. It took a while to find reverse when I drove into a dead-end. |
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longslowdistance
Posts:2886
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| 09/13/2021 10:05 PM |
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Why? was it written in Gaelic?
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Orange Crush
Posts:4499
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| 09/13/2021 10:06 PM |
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Haha Smokey. One of my first cars an old Tercel at some point lost its reverse but other parts of manual transmission still worked. We continued to use it for a while and were always looking for parking spots we could forward out of. Student life. Dirt poor back then. I actually had to import this car from US (arriving from California) to Canada (Ontario). They were going to charge me a thousand bucks or something like that. Told them I don’t have that kind of money. You can use credit. I don’t have a credit card. What do you have? I think that came down to about 100 in cash. Done deal, they let me in.
Scariest left side drive incident wax getting a lift from Brit soldier stationed in Germany. He passed someone but never merged back and I could see a car coming in distance. Uh, maybe we should go back to right hand side? Oh, yes! He must have been tired. Anyway he picked us up after we had trespassed and exited from a tank target practice area (we didn’t know what it was until exiting) but that’s another story. Cold War era adventures |
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