Marianne Vos World champion cyclocross

Marianne Vos has done it again and is World champion cyclocross in st Wendel Germany.  It wasn't until the last lap that she jumped away from Compton (USA) and Nash (Czech rep) and arrived solo. Its the fourth World championship for her in this discipline but the 24 year old Dutch is a multi talent since she is also active on the road and track.

Porsche, affordable?

Porsche CEO Matthias Muller has given hints about what's in Porsches pipeline for the future. They want to expand and grow and bring more versions on the market. Some based on current models like a Cayman Targa or a Panamera Coupe or convertible but it could well be a model under the current Boxster or Cayman. Im sure loads of Porsche purists will not be happy with this but for average Joe like me it could mean that a Porsche will become affordable like the (not so nice....) 944 in the past.  The new model will most probably share the platform with Volkswagen and might use parts of the Golf or Audi A3. 


Below's picture gives an impression of how the baby Porsche might look like and I like what I see. 
Mr Porsche, I will behave this year, can I have one????? please.

Brussels car show

Today I went to the Brussels Car show also known as the autosalon. A regular car show like most big cities have these days. Every car brand presents their whole fleet use the same stand as the show before and the show before, and the show before.......

This one though had a secured area with only dream cars as they called them and had an extra 7 euro entrance fee on top of the regular 11 euro ticket. This meant that it was alot less busy so more room to walk around the cars and to take some nice pictures. The cars I liked the most are below. Which one is your favorite?

 Ferrari California

Porsche GTS

 Porsche Speedster

Wiesmann

Over 350 km/h in a RUF Porsche 996 GT2

RUF is one of the big Porsche tuners and has shown again that they know how to make fast Porsches even faster. This video is proof and shows their 730 hp 996 doing over 350 km/h in Germany. God, do we love the autobahn without a speed limit? :-D

Lance Armstrong under investigation..... again.

Today Sports Illustrated magazine announced that they have additional proof about the alleged doping abuse of Lance Armstrong. Now in fact this is  nothing new coz we have heard these claims for the last 10 years I think. What makes it's rather sad though is that they announced this now coz Armstrong rides the tour down under at the moment wanting to use this race as his last and sort of farewell appearance.

Armstrong , by far has been the most tested cyclist or even athlete in the world and they never found any trace of doping. Im a fan of Lance and being a cyclist myself (Ok, an weekend warrior....) I know how difficult it is to keep motivated and to maintain at the top, let alone win 7 straight tour de France's. Hopefully they leave him alone after his retirement this month so he can focus on his cancer foundation coz it would be perfect if all these Lance hunters open their eyes and start to put as much efforts in his foundation as in harassing him.

Audi RS3 hmmmmmm!

I used to have an Audi A3 a couple years back as a company car and I must say that this was the best car I ever had (not that I owned it but I was allowed to drive it and park in front of my house for 3 years....). I drove almost 180000km with it, and never had an issue. No weird lights on the dashboard, no cracking sounds, or other weird noises. I had to return it to the lease company coz I had another job but if I could I would take another A3 any day!

The new A3 will probably be introduced in 2012 but just before the end of life Audi announced the RS3. For those who don't know, RS with Audi does not stand for Ridiculously Slow or Rather Sad but for the fastest version of a particular model. In this case the RS3 has 340hp and 450nm, has the same 2.5 liter 5 cylinder turbo engine as the TT-RS and does 0-100 km/h in 4.6 seconds. It's for sale in Holland in April 2011 starting at 'only'  68.900 euro.

What  a pity my current employer doesn't think 340hp is necessary......

Iphone 5 to hit stores in summer.

Unconfirmed but the all new Iphone 5 will hot stores in summer this year. The all new Iphone 5 will be completely redesigned and will have an all new A9 processor. No spy shots yet but its only a matter of time. Im curious to see what the ''completely redesigned'' means. ;-).

We do have some shots of the Ipad 2 which will have a better screen, abit like the Retina display of the Iphone 4 and have 2 cameras.

Below pic shows an Ipad 2 dummy shown at the CES.

New bike Andy Schleck.

The Schleck brothers quit Saxo bank last year and set up a new team, based in Luxembourg. The name of the team, Leopard, was announced last week and their new kit was presented the same day. Cycling news now showed a picture of the team bike of Andy Schleck and I must admit that it is a nice combo and color scheme, as opposed to their rather boring team jerseys........

Im always shocked by how long the stems are on those Pro bikes and how deep the drop is of the handlebar. A riding position not suited for the average weekend warrior!

New Ipad with multi-touch gestures!

Rumors are flying around that the next generation Ipad (and Iphone) might lose the physical home button. This would mean that there wont be any visible buttons on the front of the Ipad. My first thought when I read this was......why?? NOOOOO! But after having seen this movie I must say that it looks very promising. What do you think?

The expected release date of the new Ipad is April 2 or 9 according to Mac Rumors. I wish the release dat could be tomorrow.

Porsche 918, for real this time.

I already posted some shopped pics of the awaited 918 but nor there are some real photos and footage. I say, approved and now we can both be fast and be environmental friendly.......... ish.

The 918 has 2 electrical engines at the front , both pushing out 102 bhp and a 573 bhp V8 in the back from the RS Spider. The combined power is 767 bhp.

Cervélo S3 voted Cyclingnews Best Team Bike

The Cervelo S3 has been voted best team bike 2010! Last season the Cervelo test team used the S3 in most of their races and with Thor Hushovd winning the rainbow jersey in Geelong (Australia) it aint no surprise this is the best bike in the world.

Cervelo bikes can be found at the authorized dealers in Holland and Belgium through the Veltec dealer locator http://www.veltec.com/nl-nl/content/storefinder_cervelo.aspx .

Apple App store, do we still need an Ipad?

Apple launched the App store for the Mac and after downloading Im wondering if we still need an Ipad....
The advantage of the Ipad as far as a I'm  concerned was the App store so you could download small and big programs. Now that the App store is also available for my Macbook I can also get those apps and on top of that have a full keyboard and loads more memory and speed for bigger programs. Of course the Ipod is handier but then we also have the Macbook air so that is no longer an advantage. The Ipad has a lovely touch screen and is about half the price and that is the only big advantage over the Macbook. Half price....... well thats a big advantage actually. Maybe I should seriously consider the Ipad as a real mobile device and keep my lovely aluminum Macbook at home.

Now its another wait.......for the Ipad 2!

Porsche 918?

Porsche lovers are awaiting the big announcement at the Detroit motor show. Loads of speculations are flying around but below impression of the 'could be' 918 racer made me smile. Not street-legal unfortunately but I don't have the illusion to ever own one anyway :-)

Porsche has my approval. Bring it on!

Mass bird death..........

Mass bird death......? Is this a joke? No it's not unfortunately. Thousands of birds died over new years weekend in 2 states in the US Over 5000 birds died in Arkansas and more than 500 in Louisiana. So far experts have not be able to determine the cause but its  rather strange to say the least even more so because the birds died in a timeframe of an hour and were spread over a square mile.

Some animals sense danger and us humans can learn from that and see it as a signal like what happened shortly before the tsunami in Asia in 2004. Do we have to worry or is this a very April fools??? Anyway, crispy wings at KFC are for sale this week!

fast, faster, Fiesta!

After owning 3 Ford Fiesta's I know these are nimble little cars and (mostly) fun to drive. Imagine this with a big engine and a world class driver.............. Ear candy!

World Bart Blog

Welcome!

A new blog from a new guy. Thats what it is! Through this blog I'd like to share my interests and thoughts with you all. Feel free to comment but above all, enjoy your stay.