IN OTHER NEWS THIS WEEK... (in case anyone is not ''super excited'' about reading about me and Torsten cycling again)
Notorious poet and drama queen Patrick Byrne successfully ran a half-marathon in Ljubljana on Sunday (24th October). The previous night was unusually quiet in Metelkova, the old and fragmented 'Poljanski Nasip' posse safely tucked up in bed by midnight. While the rest of us, present company included, slept in on Sunday morning, the long haired 'self-styled' lothario was on the blocks at Slovenska Cesta in the Slovenian capital, readying himself for the 21km (sounds more than in miles) of excruciating battle-winning. Win it (with himself) he did, and I was astonished to be photographing him nearing the finishing line at 11 o'clock (him finishing in a pretty respectable 2:15).
There not being a jacket at the end for him meant that he had the perfect excuse to run straight from the Cilj (Finish) via Tromostovje to his favourite local, Na Plac, not for tea and biscuits you might be guessing. You'd be right... glorious post-marathon shots were had - Laško in hand - at the Krekov Trg boozer. A quick exit made for an all round successful visit for the wordsmith-cum-athlete, after all, ''life is all (and only) about winning''.
Will Dunn
----
Cycling the Alps! 5 mountian passes, 4 countries, 3 bikes, 2 mainland European Germanic guys... 1 Englishman (and a frisbee) ... 600km!
Hold your horses! We're not at the top just yet, read on to see how we made into the above picture...
As we ascended the mountain I noticed more and more British cars (with their GB plates), and wondering why, I realised that this was the pass driven by the Top Gear presenters a few years earlier. For those of you who are not aware, Top Gear is a British TV series about cars, or rather these days more about the hilarious presenters and their boy-ish adventures: the aforementioned trio being middle-aged men who every week dream up hair brained tests and challenges around the world. See all their crazy antics here. And so it was with a British greeting, ''Alright, where yer from?! Bristol - nice one, I'm from Manchester!'' that I passed a Golf GTI obviously inspired by Jeremy's receding hairline, the hamster's fearless drag-race or Captain Slow's amphibious Morris Marina (or similar).
The road may look lonely but 'fellow Brits' (sigh) were never far away
We came to the house below the last phase of the climb, the spaghetti of Stelvio swirling above and below us, and most importantly the end in clear sight - and drank coke/ate chocolate in the now freezing air.
When we set off for the final haul my thoughts quickly turned to competition. I knew that Torsten would try to win when we came close to the end, so I started pushing much earlier, and after initial failure put two hairpin turns between us. My confidence and energy swelled and bolstered by cheering motorcyclists, pushed on... soon reaching a '200m' spray-painted on the road.. then 100.. 50.. (snow and ice all around us by now)... and romped home. Amazing!!!
Well, the rest of the day, needless to say, comprised of boundless joy, freezing hands (-3oC on top), warm tea, thrilling excruciatingly astoundingly... views, another pass (Umbrail 2501m, nearby ;-), expensive Swiss coffee, a D-tour into Switzerland, and scorching hot brake discs. Oh yeahhh!!!!
Photos by William Dunn, Geert Luteijn & Torsten Klafft
All rights reserved, William Dunn 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment