another incredible week

Just to round off my last post, I feel almost obliged to tell you about the awesome week I had. To start with, we went skateboarding instead of ice-skating on Sunday. It was raining through the weekend so Denis offered to give me snowboard lessons instead. So we took off for a town called Sion (the city bid for Winter Olympics 2010). I must admit snowboarding is a lot more fun than skiing. It’s a whole new world when you have both your feet fixed onto the same piece of wood (or composites!), and you don’t have to worry about them going off in different direction without any prior permission. And to top it all, we had a rather severe snowstorm there. But that didn’t deter us, or the many others who continued to ski and snowboard. So two new experiences in one day – snowboarding, and snowboarding in a snowstorm!

And then came the visit to the International Cycling Federation in Aigle on Friday. A short bus journey early in the morning, a few boring lectures to sit through, and then the highlight of the day. A chance to cycle on the Velodrome! The real thing! Think of people riding on sharp curves going up and down at speeds of 55 kmph. So you say its fun? Ok then… top this. You get onto a super light bike, your feet are kinda fixed to the pedals so you can’t suddenly decide to jump off, there are no brakes on the damn thing so you can’t slow down, the pedals are 100% engaged which means you can’t stop pedaling unless you are stationary, and the elevation of the wooden track is definitely more than 60 degrees on the two sharp sides! How in the heaven’s name does one stop? Go figure!