Belgians Time Trial Special

Inspired by the perspective that I could now start officially at a time trial, I decided to give it a try. On the continent we do not have a weekly 10 miles TT or something like that, but we do have the Stoppomats. A Stoppomat is a timing device for a given distance, having a start box, where the time is stamped on a piece of paper and a finish box to stamp time again. Now comes the problem: this distances are usually uphill. Guess the French expression for TT (contre la montre) was translated by someone with of similar knowledge of French then myself: I referred montre to the Latin mons, montis, which translates to hill. Guess what: I had Latin in school and no French.

One of the Stoppomats is installed in the Elbe valley, roughly half way between Dresden and Meissen. Distance 4.5 km with an elevation of 187 metres. Maximum 12%.Using this service is free of charge, take the card and stamp it with the time at the start (pictured above) and stamp it again at the top (pictured below).

If one drops the card in the box at the finish, the time will be published on the website. 15 mins and some seconds is actually not a good time. As they said in the old Rom: tempo fugit. I mistimed me effort, as I lost too much time in the first half. For more excuses follow the link.

Dresden in the classical Belgian style

Not only can one ride time trials in Dresden, but also cobbles, lots of them, worst of them between Neustadt and Blaues Wunder on Körnerweg, major problems are the gapes between the stones, so I decided to take it slowly instead of going full speed. But also inside the city of Dresden many cobbled streets can be found.