just two months anda fewdays until the start of theTimbuktu Tour so i started my preparations for the tour. The flight is booked, arrival in Dakar November 14th, i received the visum for Mali and got my first injections against rabies and other tropical diseases. Still 4 shots to go.

Besides that i got a brandnew gadget, the Spot Connect http://findmespot.com/en/. With this device my Ipodconverts into a satellite messenger so i can send messages even in areas without cellularrange and it sends out GPS messages every ten minutes to a website so i can be followed live from anywhere in the world. I will place the link to this siteon soon. Iteven sends out sos messages whenever needed. So its not only a nice-to-have gadget but also a piece of mind for home. (but to be honest, i really like the gadget part of it:-))

As for training...cycling has been a bit slow lately. During our holiday in northern greece i had some really nice training in the local mountain-gravel roadswith 35c. and even in some parts where there was no road at all so that was a tru practice for the african plains, especiallyas theareaappeared to be full of snakes.

Afterourvacation, back to work which slowed down training. But yesterday i joined the100kmRide for the Roses in Aalsmeer with 10.000 other cyclists, acharity ride for KWF Kankerbestrijding which raised 1,5 million euros for this good cause. In spite of the huge crowd riding was pretty fast at some stretches (topspeed 48km/h) and at times was not the leisurely ride i expected. Although it was not a race, some thought it was and then you go with the flow. Not so good for my knee though, which isslightly overtrained andworries me a bit for the time to come.

So next few months i will have to intencify training, mostly in the weekends. A further update on my training-schedule and preparationswill follow soon.