Slowcolnago's latest weigh-in: 162 lb, down from a hefty post Christmas 171. Anything in the 150's will be fine, and apparently, attainable. Sounds like Sud is doing Yeoman's work mapping out the Bari area routes. He's pegging some serious km, too. Thank God I'll have someone to push me up that 9th col.

My new weight training programme is great. I think it will really help my climbing endurance. I've been trying to think about how to describe it in an e-mail, without any success. But, I will try anyway later this week.

The ride with Beetle on Saturday was great. It felt good to put some de(s)cent speed on after those escarpment climbs last weekend. Here's a funny one: I took my back wheel in to the "curator" of High Park Cycle. I call him that because his store specializes in obsolete componentry. It's a Meca for somewone trying to upgrade an older bike. Anyway, I asked him to rebuild the wheel as the non-drive side spokes were very loose. He looked at it and asked me if I'd been doing hard climbs. When I told him that a friend and I had climbed the escarpment around rattlesnake 5 times he walked away muttering in his Slovenian accent "once is too much times". He's a funny old curmudgeon, used to race against Scats.

Slowcolnago out.