Fortress, now almost swallowed by new houses
Tour of Oman starts in 2 days so things are heating up. Last news are that Cav crashed in Qatar but comes to Oman, on contrary Philippe Gilbert is going home due to “high temperatures in asian penninsula” – he should come in May and ride with us, softie! Lil’ bad news – Kenny Belaey, former World Champ in Cyclo trial and oh my god of cycling is not coming, I just received mail from him: “No man, municipality and the organizers didn't agree on a good deal for us so we don't this year”. Pitty…
Last Thursday ride started from Muscat Private and the group was 12 man (sorry: and 1 woman) strong – Simon (on his new weapon of choice imported from Dubai), Gill, Monique, Biagio, Ricardo, Colin, Simon nr. 2, Sarath, Hassan, Ingmar and Ronald (sorry if I misspelled).
After usual 5-min-before-the-ride fixing of Hassan’s bike we set of direction fortresses – and we were (at least I was!) stroke by amount of ignorance to historical heritage – now there build house just literally 2 meters from fortress! However we carried on on our usual tracks thru back gardens and wadis. Monique decided to decorate her elbow with few scratches, close encounter with the wadi and as usually – wadi won, but fortunately nothing serious.
We had short stop by hot springs in Bowshar village and climbed “camel road” over the jebel to Ghala village. (I think) Colin had flat tire so I took slower riders ahead.
We regrouped again near one of pylons on undulating graded roads passing shooting range (again nobody was shooting). We ended on pipeline road behind Ansab village and then few kms on black top over the hill back to MPH – nice ride, we finished just before sunset. 26 odd kilometers done in 3 hours… oh well.
