Friday Round Up - South Pole > Snowmagedon > Cyclocross > Tea

I've not been out on my bike this week, on account of spending my waking hours filling boxes with all my earthly possessions and stacking them high in the garage. With only a couple of weeks to go until I move to Switzerland, the bike is getting neglected... sad times. 

But even if there is no time for actual cycling, there is always time for reading the blogs and checking the news, then regurgitating that into sloppy prose and publishing it on this fair blog. So hit it...

The biggest thing I came across this week was Maria Leijerstam becoming the first person to cycle from the edge of the continent to the South Pole. She did it in 10 days, beating all other speed attempts. That's pretty fast. And that recumbent is pretty kick-ass. 

However what I find equally fascinating is that the actual South Pole looks like something robbed off the front of a barber's shop, and glued on the bottom of a Christmas bauble. Not to mention the massive shopping mall in the background of this shot...

Yay! They have a Primark!

Maria isn't the only one who has been shivering their bits off, during pedal pursuits this week. It's also been a cold week for those cycling around in North America. Which I'm sure you've read in every newspaper and blog. Because things don't happen outside the US. When something is happening in the US. Which is all the f-bomb-ing time. 

Anyway. A friend of mine posted this image of Snowmagedon, taken in Downtown Chicago. It pretty much shows why the bike messengers are the only ones mental enough to take on the roads...

Home of the Brrrrr-ave. Yeah I went there. 

I get it. It's cold. It's icy.

Meanwhile in Canada...

The weather did mean that driving was temporarily made illegal in Indianapolis. Which lead to Americans doing nothing. Which was somehow newsworthy. 

Anyway, I'm British. I bloody love talking about the weather, which is why the Cyclocross news of late has been rather exciting. Not because I'm massively excited that the UCI and IOC announced that they'll meet to talk about getting the sport into the Winter Olympics, or that Trek released this beautiful machine, but because it means that the world is excited about riding around in the mud and the pissing rain. Which is pretty much what every British cyclist does. Daily.

We're cool now. I'll put the kettle on to celebrate. 

And now go, go ride you bikes because it's the weekend. Whilst I drown under a mass of cardboard, bubble wrap and brown tape.