Three Cups of Tea

No, no, no. You were probably thinking I was going to drop some wisdom about Greg Mortenson's (allegedly) incredible and moving tale of service work in Afghanistan. It turns out three cups of tea is also the magic amount of pre-ride PG Tips that will cause me to stop and water the hedges every 40 minutes or so. That doesn't sound so bad, but on a 3.5 hr ride it can get pretty annoying. My problem might have something to do with the "cups" of tea that I'm having. Your typical English cup of tea might look like this:
But I've been pounding three of these bad boys before I ride:
Boom! UUUUUHHHmerica!

Stopping was only a real pain today because we finally got a taste of true English weather. 40 degrees and drizzling. Niiiiiice. Normally I'm enchanted by the scenes of rustic, country life, with sheep, cows and geese happily meandering through verdant fields bounded by stone walls. But when you see those furry buggers, and worse, smell them, then every bit of muddy road (read: all of it) becomes suspect, and you can almost feel yourself getting sick. Nothing like like the thought of sucking manure off the tops of your bottles or grinding goose grit in your teeth. Whatever. What doesn't kill you only makes you horribly, horrible ill... or something like that. I managed to slog through my whole workout depsite the weather and my taxed bladder, and I'm sure it will make me stronger in the end.

Jamie, on the other hand, chose to forgoe the manure luge today and put himself in timeout. I had to ask him if he'd done something wrong, because riding a trainer at night, alone, in a garage just staring at a brick wall sure seems like punishment to me.

I managed to snake a live feed of the NFC Championship game the other day and got to see Green Bay stick it to the backstabbing bears. Wilbur, this one's for you:
We had to get an internet feed through Sweden and during the commercial breaks where I'd normally be getting blasted by Bud ads I got to watch Ivan Drago's Swedish cousin discuss football with Colonel Dietrich. It turns out I speak quite a bit of Swedish! "Jaslovar nich de sharhur first down. Veeden ei Jay Cutler sink de verhun. Svis nu holding." I actually have video of that commentary, but I'll spare you. For now...

I Gotta Squawk

I can't help myself. I'm pumped! I finally got on my new rig the other day and she absolutely flies! No, it's not even the race bike. It's the post-pre-training training bike. Ludicrous. Not only that, but Chez and Eddie sent us a proof of the team's entry in the Raleigh catalogue, and it is legit:Boom! Talk about motivating. They sent that over in the evening and I just hopped straight on the rollers. No, just kidding. I don't know how to ride rollers. But I would have if I could have! THAT PUMPED!!!

Not much by way of news to report at the moment. We're mostly just riding the bikes and settling in. So I figure instead of some long winded tripe about getting whooped on by carnies I'll just toss you a few pics of life in jolly old(e) England:

When we're not out riding we're mostly just kicking it in our cozy little living room and making up for lost time on the sweet, sweet internet.
This is a little Dutch specialty that JJ whipped up.
Between this sandwich and his sleeping bag I'm pretty convinced he's out of his mind. He pointed out that a butter and chocolate sprinkles sando is pretty much just a nutella sandwich broken down to its basic components. Can't argue with that.
This is a pic of the boys at Breedon Priory. It's up on a ridge overlooking Derby about 10 minutes from our door:

Self-shot: Our very own French Superman, Gael Le Bellec. He's so fly he doesn't even need a bike:
This is where he gets changed:
Don't worry, I'm sure the water's fine:
It's been amazingly sunny so far, but it's also been colder than a pimp's heart. That means a disturbing (clearly) coating of frost in the morning and, as Phil discovered, thick sheets of ice near stream (aka crik) fords at all times of the day. Phil managed to keep himself from sliding into that stream and thereby saved himself from possibly the most miserable ride home ever.

Big team ride in the Peak District tomorrow, so I'd better clean my bike so I don't get a bollocking. Don't worry, American readers, I'll have an in depth explanation on this versatile term sometime in the future.