Today we didn’t have time booked on the track until 5pm so the team went on a bit of a day trip. First we went to the “Chateau d’Aigle” for a little bit of history and culture in the day (before we went into town for the eating and shopping). It was actually quite interesting to see how it was all laid out and to see how the use of the building evolved with time. There was one room that was used for a prison at one point back around the 13^th century that went though quite a few renovations over the years. When I first went into the room, I was wondering why there were parts of the walls that were plastered over and other parts where there was a lot of graffiti. After reading the signs that were around the room, I realized that there were multiple centuries of layers of graffiti that were revealed in different parts of the room. The oldest layers of graffiti were written in blood from prisoners close to the turn of the millennium and then the newer writings were more along the lines of poetry and artwork. There was also a torture room at the top of one of the towers, but I didn’t get a whole lot of time to look around in there. Apparently there were shackles hanging from the ceiling and I noticed that the floor was covered with some sort of carpet-like material. I think that it was there to cover up many years of dried blood :) Then the rest of the Chateau was mostly for wine making, entertaining and sleeping quarters.

Our times on the track were a little disappointing today, but there were a few contributing factors that slowed us down a fair bit. On a race day, we wouldn’t have even thought about walking around on our legs all day and we would have paid a lot more attention to our nutrition. It wasn’t until we got off of the track that I realized I hadn’t eaten a meal in over 9 hours with only a couple of granola bars and cookies in between. Not a good formula for success. Although, when I say disappointing, I mean that we would have been around the right time to tie the Canadian record. We want to beat it.

OK, I got Brian’s camera hooked up and here are the photos from the last little while.

Here is a picture looking out from just outside of our window... The camera can't capture it fully. plus this picture was taken on a day when the visibility wasn't as great as other days. When I make my millions and I don't need to work anymore, I will definitely retire in a little mountain town :)

One of the other athletes asked me today what my favourite part of the trip was so far and I didn't give an entirely honest answer :P This morning I got my bag full of national team kit so I would say that my favourite part of the trip thus far was throwing on the maple leaf in a foreign country representing Canada. What can I say? I am a bit of a fanatical patriot at heart.


Then, up top is a shot of our speed machine kitted out with the national team front disc wheel. Apparently, there are only a few wheels that most tandem riders will trust on the track. Brian said that he saw a Mavic Io crumple during a match sprint in Athens... ouch! Not only would that have been a front wheel exploding at over 60km/h, but those things run close to 3000US!