ULM Germany

After the TDF i called in on a Ski Buddy from the mid 1990's living in ULM area. His partner had recently moved out and his house was in need of extensive renovation.

The roof was missing tiles , the water was cut off so water is being piped in off the neighbouring house through a hose pipe and there are other less serious issues needing attantion.

I always knew that George was a good cook but hopeless at getting going on practical issues. Fortuneately he is reasonably fluent in english so communication should not have been an issue.

One demand i made in July was that the internet be connected so that i could deal with my communication issues, well a variety of excuses ensued through until i moved in after returning from the Vuelta in early October. Since the beginning of the residency i have chopped the winters wood ,cleared the garden of falling leaves and chestnuts spending mornings before going riding the local roads on the wintery afternoons. Fortunately i have not had to put in much time on the tacx as though cold and bleak there has been little rain.

The past two weeks has seen 70+ hrs of my time digging a trench 12m long by 1.4m deep and 1.2m wide to accomodate the new water pipe. Can you believe the local regs(DIN 4124) call for Wood hoardings using 5cm thick wood at each end of the trench which is mainly solid mud not unstable loose soil. Topping all this is the lack of Plans to show where the Electricity,telephone,television cables are buried and in addition there are no plans for the existing Water and waste pipes. Regardless of all this effort not only has "Prof. Workshy "decided to short change me on recompence but offered the opinion that the work was good exercise . He also revealed that he was in no hurry to connect the internet since he is in the process of changing telephone suppliers. Thought i should have bought a "stick" since i have 2 for Austria.

Well any of you wondering why i have not added to my blog recently will now see the difficulty i have had baring in mind the nearest internet cafe is about 12km away with parking difficulty both for car and bike. Those of you who helped me out during the TDF and Vuelta will i hope be patient as i plan on return to Austria to set to work reporting on those events. I had also planned to have thanked some of my "Sponsors" during the past year by this time but lack of facilities has deferred that task also.

Currently i am seeing little interest by "Para Athletes " in joining me next year so i think that any efforts next year will be directed to assisting another segment of the community. Sad to think that these people do not wish to help themselves.

Recently i have offered a few "comments" to SBS Cycling Central and Roads.cc amongst other blogs. Georgethecyclist.blogspot.com offered me the opportunity to join his latest jaunt in Turkey but after reading his recent blogs i am in two minds as to which situation would have been the more enjoyable way of passing the last few weeks.