To The Victor Go The Spoils

6 August - Despite being locked in on the previous night managed to be up before the afternoon for the latest of the festival activities - found a New Yorker at the university who was heading into town with the same destination (he turned out to to be a bike advocate, who had replaced nathan, my longterm houseguest from Sydney last year - bike advocatts ... You've got to tolerat tthem). Upon arrival in town looked for the couriers - for the first time since i've arrived the city seemed to be devoid of them - tried Stephens Green and Smithfield but nary one was to be found for hours. There was to be a group ride through the city where the various other events would be randomly held. Eventuallygave up and drank coffee in the green for a little while before all of a sudden a small posse whooshed by - jumped on their tale and found ourkselves beingled to the beach where sudenly there were hundreds of them - missed the naked trackstand but I don't reallythink I missed it after all. Rest of the events of the day were all a bit silly - backwards circles, bike tricks, bunny hops, texas twins and more drinking by many of them. Rain came down sporadically (this is Dublin) and eventually took a brief respite for some food and local catchup - back to Temple Bar for the rest of the night's events (i'm reallystarting to get a little tired of the Eamon Doran but it seemes to be the onlybar that will tolerate so many cyclists at the same time) where I attended the open forum (bicycle messengers actingas bureucrats ar very amusing) - a few changes to the IBMA council - a couple of vocal Americans who vowed to shake things up on the running of events and promising to do more for the conditions of messengers throughout the world and a couple of Europeans who just wanted to be a part of the whole thin - a new president was elected, Scottish sAndy from the Netherlands - all things considering it seemed a bit of a farce - every thing that was put to a vote got unanimous support except for a couple of non voters - I think most of the guys stuck in the forum just wanted to get back out to the pub to keep on drinking.Shortlyafterwards there as the awards ceremony - was a little surprised that the controversy with the main race resulted in the top three riders all beingdisqualified and the winner was not brooklyn austin but another American, Pete, a road rider who actuallydid the full london Dblin ride with us - he was far too drunk to make a coherent speech but he seemed pretty happy about it.