My Big Fat Italian Passenger

This whole gender issue with our South African 800metres WOMANS world champion, Caster Semenya, got outta hand. I had to stipulate that she is our woman’s world champion in the 800m, as we also have the men’s world champion, and not from that same race either. Poor girl, just because she is not aesthetically blessed with the most womanly features, isn’t strange for a woman athlete of this calibre. Maria Matola, more butch than most of the Blue Bulls players, and definitely more butch than all of the WP Rugby team, but she didn’t get this treatment. Most, if not all the former Soviet Block and Eastern European Athletes were far more manly than our petite Caster, but then again, they probably were men. All those genetic cattle modifier hormones, surreptitiously found their way into a human bloodstream..
I, on the other hand, had no such help when I rode this last weekend. ’Rode”, would actually be unkind to the effort my legs put out, “raced”, was more to the point. It all started very childishly, once again by Keith Milner and it became a stand- off between our RBS Team and an opposition Vets race team called Superwatt, and riding for them, Brett and Nico. Lots of fun, mainly at high intensity, race simulation type riding, lots of fun and great training. In the end we did 4 hours 50 with 129kms and 1515m of ascent. Good day out. This was mixed in with a coffee stop in Noordhoek at the farm village, a short and sweet celebration for one of our riding mates, Brit, who is shortly going to Ozzie to race Triathlon World Champs. Good luck Brit....stay clear of those gender tests, not that you would ever be mistaken.
A woman in Italy, who weighed 99kg, was told to buy two tickets on an Easy Jet flight as she was too fat. She was told to stand on the scale and pretty much faced public humiliation from the other passengers checking in and was told she was too heavy and needed two seats. The policy, according to an airline spokes person, was that if there was less than 43cm gap between seats, then a person would need to buy two tickets, for comfort sake. There cannot be any comfort if you’re so broad that you need to buy two tickets. Comfort and that person’s life do not deserve to be in the same sentence. Lose some weight and come back when you can fit into one seat you enormous rotund individual. No sympathy for people who cannot respect themselves, unless they are medically unwell and obese as a result. Massive sympathy then.
My mate Rich brought me down some chilli jam from Kwazulu Natal, delicious. I am a chilli nut, love it! Thanks to Jan, for making it so brilliantly, need to get hold of that recipe.
I went out to view the most marvellous property today. A development out on the Karwyderskraal Road near Bot Rivier. Simply gorgeous, but more about that as it developes into something more definate.
Other great news is that newly promoted Burnley are making a mockery of some top flight Premiership clubs, but the best result was the absolute thrashing of my not so favourite Manchester United. 1-0. Sorry Stuart, (a Man U fan, who also hasn’t ever been to Manchester, along with 90% of their other fans). Stu is a powerhouse on the bike, almost gender test material, but has bad taste when following football.
Brilliant that England re-took the Ashes, not that I care either way, but it’s good for the game, globally. Basically, just like last time, it was a South African at the Oval who helped win it back. Kenny was there, and must have loved watching his brother get a Test hundred on debut, well done Trotty. Now you’re stuffed though, you have to stay and play for England for a while and when England tour here at the end of the year, will get an absolute trouncing, and Trotty will soon have wished he was playing for the opposition. Freddy Flintoff can at least wave goodbye on a high from Test cricket, having been a steady servant (when he played), but fell miles short of the original label given to him years ago, of “The Next Botham”. He never drank or womanised nearly as much as Beefy, except for maybe during the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. That was the best Botham impression he ever did, capsizing the peddalow, pissed at 4 am before a match.
Finally, I hope our RBS training weekend this weekend in Wellington is a great team building experience. We should have good weather, awesome hill training, the opportunity to work with our manager Donnay and to get to know each other as cyclists and team mates a bit better before we start racing together on 20th September. If we have a quick ride, we may average 37.6km/h in a race, the very same average speed of Usain Bolt over 100 metres when he broke the world record and ran 9.58s. Ridiculous thought.