The Capital.

Well, I just realised I’ve started the last 4 blogs with the word ‘well’ and now is no time to stop. The last week saw quite a turnaround in conditions, up until now it’s been a little bleak riding down roads with bare trees and dark skies to accompany you. But in just seven days everything has changed, the trees suddenly grew leaves, the sun came out and best of all, the temperature went up. It was because of this riding got a little nicer and you actually wanted to spend the day on the bike rather than doing the bare minimum. We got in a very nice long ride in on the Wednesday going up the two local cols, the Col du Pigeonnier and the Col du Pfaffenschlick. One can only imagine the hilarity that ensued when we first found these, and then the pain felt climbing up them after. We skirted Wissembourg (without managing to actually make it into Germany) and headed south back to Haguenau. It’s only when the weathers good that you realise how good cycling terrain can get and Alsace is turning out to be quite nice.

On the learning French front, it’s still pretty tough for me as some days I really feel like I’m making progress and others I don’t think I’m getting anywhere. But on the Friday while I was cleaning my bike outside alone, one of the older residents who possibly lives in the same apartment building came along. He said ‘Bonjour’ from a distance, like they do, I replied and thought that was the end of it. But no, he took an interest in my bike and started to walk over. ‘Oh no! What do I do? I don’t speak French, what if he starts talking to me? What do I say?’ But I remained calm and collected for the flurry of words that would signal the start and end of the conversation... But no, he spoke and I recognised a few of the words but wasn’t thinking to put them together. So I looked at him with a questioning face and asked “Pardon?” and he repeated what he had said. This time I was more attentive and worked out he was asking if I had a race at the weekend. “Oui, á dimanche, c’est pres de Paris.” To be honest I was pretty disappointed he knew I was English as I was pretty sure I had the accent down to a tee. He went on to ask a few other questions, most of which I was surprised to find I could answer, nothing complicated though and I still can’t actually ask the questions very well. This gave me a little confidence in my ability, which was soon lost once the next jumble of words was shot in my direction, none of which I knew, by another less understanding Frenchman.

By the Saturday we were ready to roll and started our five hour drive from Alsace to the other side of Paris for our UCI 1.2 race Paris-Mantes, what fun. I can’t really remember how we passed the time, sitting mostly and breathing occasionally I think. We stopped for a nice meal just outside Reims which provided a little respite but the journey still took it’s time. When we arrived we went straight out for a ride around the surrounding area, it was at least 20 degrees and I was wearing shorts and a jersey...great! My legs felt well rested and ready to go for the following day’s race but I still wasn’t particularly looking forward to it. My mental state before races has turned into is a strange mix of apprehension and willingness to finally do well, it’s more of a twilight feeling than anything, somewhere between motivation and not caring. It’s because of this I get delusions of grandeur occasionally and then the other side of me thinks “HA! You must be joking mate.” After our ride we ate in the hotel’s restaurant with the other teams who were stopping close by, these included the Lorraine regional team, VC la Pomme and the Groupe Gobert Belgian pro team. We then had our briefing for the next day’s race where we were told, amongst other things, that if there was a break at least one of us was to be in it every time, hurray.

The next morning we were up ridiculously early as the race started at 8am due to it being situated close to Paris. We rode the 16km to the start with VC la Pomme, en route we came across what looked like a very fresh and what seemed like fatal car crash. Not the kind of thing you want to see ever, never mind when you are trying to psyche yourself up for a big race. When we arrived we went straight to sign on and then went to find the team car, which hadn’t arrived. It didn’t arrive until 15 minutes before the start and there was a mad rush to get leg warmers off, food in pockets, jackets in car etc. We just about made the start in time after a hasty warm up and we were waved away. Now imagine the best start you can have in a road race, not much scope is there? You could get in the break but you’ve still got 100 miles to go, you could save yourself but there are 100 other people doing the same. Now imagine the worst start to a road race you can have, now there is plenty of scope there. I didn’t have the worst start imaginable but it was pretty bad, after 5km sitting nicely near the front of the peloton there was a large bang followed by the obligatory looks of “well it’s not me”, but unfortunately for me, this time it was. My hand was in the air for quite a while as the whole bunch came passed and the team car came up to me, the change wasn’t particularly fluid but I was moving just as the last few cars of the convoy came through. The team car paced me for a little while, but the moto commissare came back and told him to stop, we hadn’t even done 10km and they wouldn’t let me get back on. Fortunately the Aix en Provence team car was willing to help me and they gave me a little respite before moving on with a quick wave of thanks. The chase then brought me into a small village with windy roads and I was closing in, then once again, disaster struck. It was downhill into the village and I was going a full pelt when out of nowhere came a speed bump. The jolt knocked both my bottles out of the cages and several swear words followed in both English and French (the only type of French I’m fluent in). Because we hadn’t passed 50km yet I couldn’t go back to the team car for more so I carried on my chase finally making contact.

Thankfully, Tom gave me a bottle on the premise that when I did go back, I’d fetch him another, unfortunately he’d be even more unlucky than me. I spent a little time recuperating in the middle of the bunch and then moved to the front to watch the skirmishes before we came to the first climb. This wasn’t so bad go up and over the top and I thought that despite my bad luck, I may finally have a good day, I was wrong. There was a long descent into the second GPM and on it Tom punctured, this was at an even worse time than I did. Because of the immediate climb after and the high pace, Tom could never regain contact. The forth climb of the day came at about 100km and I wasn’t well positioned, the reason for this I’m not sure of, but it was the case. I saw the words “GPM 1.4km” painted on the road and thought it was a bad sign, I was suffering. I gave it everything to stay on but towards the top there were splits that couldn’t be brought back and I ended up in a small group off the back. At this point I could make up a load of bull about being tired from my chase earlier, but I wasn’t, I had recovered fine and this was just a bad case of pain. This group (including 5/7ths of the VC Rouen 76 1^st cat team, the team I was going to join) quickly lost time and after a while a small bunch of us formed ahead of the rest that at least wanted to make a good training ride out of it. Not the worst way to get a tan I thought. At times we weren’t exactly sure which way to go and had to shout at people at the side of the road but after a while a moto came back to us to guide us round the rest of the course and home. This group rode for a long time following this moto and it finally started to look like we were getting to the finish. At this point 3 of us decided to press on and left the rest behind and then something strange came into view, the back of the convoy. Could we have possibly caught them? Hell no, I realised this quickly enough and started to try and work out why we weren’t so far behind. We came through the finish only 3 minutes down after rapidly riding the last 5km together, considering we had ridden at least 60 kilometres off the back something was up.

After having a nice shower and getting changed I realised we were missing a rider, he appeared just as we were leaving the changing rooms. I was pretty sure he was still in there when I went out the back so why had he returned after me? Well the answer to this question is who knows? My group obviously skipped out some of the course but where and how much I have no idea and I’m not about to tell the finishing judges in a hurry, they placed in me a hollow but finishing position nonetheless of 75^th. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry... I ended up laughing (and then crying).

After the long drive home we found that after going out the back, the rider who finished late had stopped to steal one of the signs that pointed the way of the race. Why he did this and where he kept it while he was riding I have no idea (he’s slightly crazy). But it could quite possibly have been that this sign was the one that could have pointed us in the right direction and not made us cut off some of the course.

After feeling cramped on my bike, this week I’m going to play around with my position a little and see if I can get a little more comfy. Since starting riding I have only really just stopped growing and never had my position properly set up and measured, I’ve just winged it. I need something to make me feel different anyway as on Thursday we have a 1^st cat race that we have to win. We should do really, the team easily has the strength but it’s a very hilly one so it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out.

Until next time,

mabuti

Deutschland ϋber alles

Well each week it seems like I’m telling you about how bad the weather has been, so this week I’ve decided not to. Instead I’ll tell you about a few of the things that I’ve noticed about France. First off, the make up of their regular villages, which I suppose isn’t that much different to England but there are more of them and they all must have certain things. For example, any village in France must have one place of habitation and to accompany this it must have an exceedingly large church along with Mairie (village hall). If it’s lucky it may have a boulangerie but all villages must have at least four pharmacies, each of which must have a large Green flashing cross, the flashier, the better. Of course I jest, but in England we only really have one pharmacy, Boots and that’s usually located in the nearest town centre. The French love them more than (or at least as much as) their wine, which is saying something. Another thing that the French have an abundance of is hairdressers, although you wouldn’t know it from some of the hairstyles going round (unfortunately I’m not really one to comment on this front as my hair has never been good, from the day I was born till now I have never had “cool”, “stylish” or even “smart” hair. I think it’s because it grows out of my scalp at strange angles and then continues to change direction seemingly each day.). Where was I? Oh yes, the weather, well on our long ride on the Wednesday we were ok for the first 3 hours but then I decided it would be a good idea to head to and under the nearest black cloud. This, apparently, was a bad idea and so we spent a good hour getting thoroughly drenched while going through the two stages of emotion felt in such weather conditions. These being annoyance and then humour and then back to annoyance and so on...

I’ve kept a pretty stable weight throughout the week, so this has led me to believe that maybe I am at a suitable weight and I was born to be a fatty with wrists smaller than a seven year-olds. In other news, after several washes all our white clothing and towels are now either red or a light pink. This is due to our kit being a deep red and shedding any colour given the opportunity. I’ve also been working on blowing out candles with the resulting air disturbance of one of my “one inch punches”, I don’t think I quite have the necessary fast-twitch muscles fibres (or any muscle fibres for that matter) in my arms to pull it off, but I shall keep trying. The week was spent looking forward to two 80km criteriums in Germany, criteriums aren’t usually the type of races I enjoy, mainly due to a couple of bad experiences and the fact that my frame is too large to have the centre of gravity necessary to go round corners at any speed. So I was cautious but also had an open mind, the kind of crits I was used to were all out from the gun and by the second lap you were either coughing up blood or you had pulled out. Maybe an 80km crit will be run off differently? The time soon came for me to find out.

The first race was just an hour and a half’s drive south and then a short hop over the border into Germany. Here we drove around for about 20 minutes wondering where the hell this race could be, in the end we resorted to asking some German folk about our whereabouts. The thing I found strange was the fact that neither nationality spoke any of the others language, I find it strange because of how close these two places are and there is absolutely no crossover. Germans speak German, French speak French. It’s like every English person knows 3 words of French and 1 word of German, but the French know 1 word of German and 3 words of English. Luckily after some school German lessons had paid off, we managed to find the place and it was no surprise we couldn’t see it. The circuit was round a large industrial estate car park outside the specified town, the loop taking in all the nice scenes, the trucks, the lifting gear, the factory buildings, lovely stuff. Due to our searching we were already late and this wasn’t helped when we came to sign on. In a show of typical German efficiency, they were taking the details of each licence and putting them into a computer while writing your number on a small sticker and putting it on the licence before placing it in a box, taking your 8 Euro transaction having to give 90% of people change and then, finally, giving you your number. With a queue of about 20 riders ahead of us this took it’s time and by the time we came to warm up, we managed 3 laps before getting ready at the start.

For crits I have learned a sly trick for starting at the very front, rather than getting to the start early to guarantee your position, keep warming up. But once the whole front line is taken and a mass of people is starting to appear behind them, don’t carry on round to finish your lap and come in behind them, no, turn around and reverse your ass into any space at all in the front row. Obviously no one will like you for it but they won’t like you when you beat them all either. It didn’t matter that I was on the front row because once we were waved away; I missed my pedal trying to clip in and instantly lost 40 places coming into the first corner. That was where I pretty much stayed for the rest of the race, 40-60 places from the front. I tried moving up several times but the circuit seemed to be designed to stop you (me anyway) doing so, I’d sprint down the side on the straights then get to a corner where I had to slow down, lose motivation, cry for a bit and then try again. Apart from the break I watched ride away it was a pretty uneventful race, for me anyway. It split up a little early on but luckily I was in the group at the time and didn’t realise. Sprinting out of every corner has to be good training though and because the course wound back on itself a couple of times you could see who was attacking and knew when it was going to get a little harder. The finishing straight came after the last fast corner and every lap was a mass sprint to get the speed back up again, in fact, the only time I didn’t sprint up it was when I actually finished. This was due to our group coming in for something like 20^th place meaning that anyone who wanted to finish in anything like a respectable position had to come in the top 10 of the peloton. Considering the peloton was still 60 strong, this was not going to happen for everyone. This meant most of us just rolled across the line contented that we had passed.

The next day the race was later in the afternoon so in the morning I went out for an hour’s tootle because the weather was fine and dry. There were fewer of us doing it this day and none of us were responsible enough to actually find out where the race was. After a few panicked phone calls and some more German asking (possibly a new sport), by a minor miracle, we found the place. This time the race had more soul to it as it was run in a town centre, be it a small town. The circuit was almost a square with not quite straight lines; one side climbed up through the finish, then flat, then a fast meandering descent and then flat again. It was soon race time and with one slow lap of reconnaissance and a hasty warm up, we were just about ready. This time I leant against some railings to make sure I didn’t have to miss my pedal when attempting to clip in and we were away. After a few laps of settling in they started to ring a bell and occasionally say something. At first I thought it may be primes as the pace picked up after they had rang them, but they rang it seemingly every lap so I thought there may just be some bell happy German at the side of the road by the finish. Because of this (and also because it hurt) I stayed in the bunch moving up when it was easiest. I was most pleased that when it got really hard and the bunch began to split, the four of us were always in the front group, either already there and coming across. In the final few laps I decided to have a go at the sprint and moved myself up into a not good but not bad position. Rounding the final corner I started my all out effort for the finish, but people were sitting up, why? Usually if any rider can finish in the top 20 they’ll risk death or at least injury to get there and I was coming in for what must have been about 15^th. Even as I crossed the line people where freewheeling, so I thought something fishy might be going on, I was in Germany after all.

It turned out that the whole damn race had been a big point’s race and every time they rang the bell we were supposed to sprint, position on the last lap had nothing to do with it. Also there were a damn lot of primes that if I had of known about, I would have at least had a go at trying to win a few. Luckily two of the guys won a prime each so we got a bottle of German Rosé out of it and went to MacDonald’s afterwards (although the prime wasn’t enough to pay for all of us...or even one of us). What was crazy was that the guy who had won got 27 points, 2^nd had 19 and 3^rd had 13 and after that everyone had 5 points. One of our guys unknowingly finished 6^th after winning a sprint and getting 5 points.

Oh well, good training and the weather was superb for the weekend, although as I write this there are heavy overcast skies. Next week I have another UCI race, Paris-Mantes, I’m looking forward to it and I’m hoping to keep the finishing streak going.

Join me in my next adventure next week, but until that time,

안녕

That familiar sinking feeling..or is it?

Well, another week of abysmal weather conditions for the most part, up until the weekend at least. It rained pretty much none stop from Wednesday evening till Friday night which was pleasant. This meant a lot of sitting around promising to make up for the lack of training when the weather was good, so far we’ve got a backlog of about 30 hours. This meant that once again it would be a pretty easy week, but this I didn’t mind as I knew we had another double race weekend ahead. To pass the time I mostly sat at my computer scowering the internet for anything of any interest, unfortunately, despite its size, the internet can only be so interesting...even if 95% of it is porn. So to pass some more time I played on the Xbox, but this got boring, so I decided to have some food. Once I had done this I went and looked at the internet some more (I found a site which hosts some of the Futurama episodes this time). It was because of this doing nothing that I began to question my weight, I’d always been about 72kg but now I am nearer 76. Now whether I’ve grown at all or I’ve just put on some muscle I don’t know, but 4 kg is quite a lot when you think about it. I’m sure I’ve grown an extra roll on my stomach (the extra one being the first). So now, in my quest for Bruce Lee-dom my new task is to find a good race weight and stay at it. I reckon it’s probably around 74kg, but I intend to not over eat and to keep the training up and hopefully it will drop before levelling off nicely.

After the previous Saturday’s reasonable performance I was still actually thinking about the Sunday, which was a pretty dismal performance. If they had been the other way round I would have been much happier, but never-the-less I did my best to put it out of mind and concentrate on the positives...at least I had finished. I needed every positive I could think of coming into the weekend as it consisted of two Elite National races, races I hadn’t had a good experience of in the past. Not that I’ve done many of them, but they are pretty daunting if you think about them too much. The first would be the Tour du Charolais, a relative Brit fest, with 8 on the start list. At 154km the race would be pretty hilly, although with no major cols it is either up or down, but usually up. The Sunday would consist of Dijon-Auxonne-Dijon, a completely flat and fast 160km race but this time with only 3 Brits riding. I now know that any race with two place names in with a dash between them is going to be tough, this also applies to races with the words “Tour du/de/des” followed by a town, area or name of a country... generally, the bigger the harder. So the weekend was shaping up to be a toughie.

It came around slowly but surely and it was finally Saturday morning. The first race was a hell of a long way away with a 5 hour drive, if you are from England, imagine driving from Birmingham to Newcastle (if you are from anywhere else just imagine driving 5 hours) to get to your race. After finally arriving we signed on, picked up our numbers and went to warm up, little did I know it would probably be my worst ever day on a bike race wise. For the race I would be using an earpiece, a first for me, although it’s probably best if you understand the language being spoken into it, he might as well have been speaking...well... French, it wouldn’t matter in about an hour anyway. We lined up for the start and I had managed to wriggle my way to the front once more and here I stayed for the first few kilometres which were more of a procession. The action kicked off soon enough and I was quickly having to move up as riders attacked and then slowed. The road began to roll up and down and we were suddenly on the first climb of the day. Cleverly, the organiser had put a rush sprint half way up the climb, 2km before the top. This meant the pace was pretty rapid up the hill, but I still felt it was manageable being not too far down the peloton, but then 1 km after the Rush Sprint, disaster struck. There were a few wobbles just ahead of me to the left and these soon turned into a tsunami of a wave, causing riders to touch wheels and come down in a sort of domino effect across the road. I wasn’t one of them, but I was exactly 0.5 metres away from becoming one of them and because of this came to a dead stop unclipping in the process. What happened in the next kilometre decided what I would be doing for the next couple of hours and it wasn’t my preferred choice.

Basically, I panicked and tried way too hard to get back into the string of riders, this put me into my weird overload mode that I have only ever experienced during this season of racing. It meant riders where coming past me at an alarming rate and although I desperately tried to get on before the top of the hill, it was only a matter of time before the string of riders ended and the cars began. When this did happen I was sort of able to go again, but the peloton where motoring and I was struggling to hold them. The DS told me over the radio to wait for a small group behind and try to get back on with them but this turned out to be the final nail in the coffin. Only 30km gone and my race was over. I spent the next 70km thinking how rubbish I was and wondering if I’d ever finish one of these damn races. Once I got to the finishing circuit I pulled out and spent the next 30 minutes looking for the team van, before waiting for the rest of the riders to arrive. I was pretty non-plussed to say the least.

Luckily our drive was short as we were staying in a hotel for the next race which wasn’t far away, so there wasn’t much chance for question asking from the rest of the team. We had a good meal, got rested up for the next day’s race and joked about how rubbish I had done. We arrived at the race with plenty of time, but this time I decided to warm up on my own for a bit and made myself work hard so my body knew what it was in for. I was coming into the race with about 0% confidence and so decided that I no longer cared how my race went as long as I got past 20km. I felt a little better for my warm up and at the start I once again managed to weasel my way to the front somehow. The race was waved away and the attacks came from the gun, with me in and around the front wanting to avoid being swamped at all costs. The pace was very fast with the roads being flat and the wind not being as ridiculous as it has been in recent weeks, so we soon reached 20km and I had achieved my goal for the day...now what? Well I kept going, and going...and going, hell, I even ventured off the front a couple of times although never gaining much of an advantage. Up until about the 130km mark I had kept a reasonable to good position in the peloton (on a scale of 1 to 10, I’d give it a 7.5), but after this I seemed to lose impetus for some reason and slipped back. I think it had something to do with the fact I’ve never finished a race any longer than 140km and so didn’t really know what to do with myself.

After slipping back the pace began to really pick up occasionally as riders chanced their luck in an attempt to get away in the final kilometres. At about this point I saw a board saying 10km to go and it was then the pace really started to hot up. The peloton lined out in the gutter and it was impossible to move up, people began to pop in front of me as the length and high speed of the race wore them down. But unlike the day before and all the other times before that, I could come round them and close the gap. It was only with 1km that the pace got too much for so many riders in front of me the gap became far too big to close and I rolled across the line a handful of seconds behind the back of the bunch. I had finished my first Elite National, be it 102^nd, but I had finished none-the-less. I was jubilant to say the least. The rest of the team were annoyed that they had missed the small break at the end and messed up the sprint, but I really couldn’t have cared any less... I had finished.

There is something horribly depressing about not finishing a long hard race when those around you have. You miss out on all the stories about how you nearly crashed, how you closed the gap, how you nearly made the break. Whereas there is something incredibly fulfilling about finishing a long hard race, you do get to tell those stories and you feel 1000% better walking to the showers afterwards knowing that you crossed the line with everyone else. It’s something I want to experience more often than not from now on and although it will be hard, I will do my best to finish every race physically possible.

I can’t really say I have some form coming after my poor effort on Saturday, but I definitely felt better. I have now purchased a 20 Euro Heart rate monitor from decathlon to help me train a little more specifically, not quite the fancy all singing all dancing polar I sold before I came over, or the Powertap I left at home, but it works...just about.

Next week two Criteriums in Germany, but not like your wimpy hour Criteriums in Britain, these are full on meaty 90km Criteriums.

But until then,

再见

PS. If you enjoy reading about my exploits here are a few links to other riders who have written similar articles that I know about (be it at a slightly higher level). If you know any more please comment and i'll them here:

Kieran Page:
http://www.kieranpage.com/news.html
Andy Tennant:
http://www.andytennant.co.uk/
The dave rayner fund blog:
http://www.daveraynerfund.blogspot.com/
Braveheart funded rider diaries:
http://www.braveheartcyclingfund.com/Diaries.asp

Finally.

Well after last week’s slight ray of hope, the foul weather had returned to us again. Unfortunately, not quite bad enough for the races to be cancelled but wet enough for your kit to wish that they had been. Luckily my spirits were slightly higher than they had been for the weekend as I knew I was doing two first category races, rather than the seemingly unfinishable elites. After last week’s pretty poor performance I decided an easy week was on the cards. I’d tried training, but that hadn’t worked, so I concluded that my legs maybe weren’t enjoying the constant punishing I was giving them on a day to day basis. I also spent much of the week considering how to save some beer that my parents had brought over. It had come in a large bladder with a tap at the bottom, but after a couple of days it had begun to expand and on the morning of the third day it had sprung a leak. So after working out how to relieve the pressure I set about finding new containment devices so it could be happily consumed at a later date. I found them in the form of used water bottles that you buy from the supermarket, oh joy. Now we just have to drink it all, hurray!

Also during the week, after a quick chat with the buildings proprietor, we unexpectedly received some new mattresses. Although the old ones weren’t too bad, they were a little lumpy and if you found yourself in certain position, the springs made things a little uncomfortable. On taking the old ones out I was happy to found out that mine had obviously been the scene of several bed wetting occurrences (the yellow stains are a total give away). Also, on the Friday, the teams’ new helmets arrived, Casco Ares’. These are pretty nice helmets that I’d never even heard of before and at 150 Euros a pop (RRP), not cheap either. I always thought a team looked a lot smarter when they have the same helmets even if you can’t tell who the hell anyone is. So even if none of us finish the race, at least we’ll look smart when we pack. In other news, touching my toes is now somewhat of a formality, although I’m struggling to pull off Bruce Lee. I don’t think my slim 6’4” figure allows for anything but the bare minimum of upper body muscle.

Race time came round again and I was feeling pretty fresh after my week of relative R’n’R so I thought I would definitely finish, at least...maybe. The first race of the weekend was an hour and a half drive away, a drive which felt pretty quick in comparison to the three and a half to four hour drives we had been putting in the past few weeks. It was raining when we got there and still raining when we arrived at the start line, after soaking ourselves more than anything in the warm up. The field was about 80-90 in size, although I did see the number 107 at one point, but this is a fact I have learnt to put out of my head before a race as I have found that there is no point worrying about how many riders there are. Better to concentrate on how you’re going to make them all suffer. As we were waved away everyone went to clip into their pedals, the unfortunate chap next to me either didn’t find his or found it too fast and slipped onto the tarmac after approximately zero metres. After a quick chuckle to myself, it was soon down to business as I quickly moved up the field to try and cover the early attacks. After a few of these moves, we came to a relatively fast downhill section with a couple of turns, turns that you wouldn’t bat an eyelid to in normal conditions but in the heavy rain one had been turned into an ice rink. A fact quickly learned by the 2 riders who were about 50 metres ahead as we came to the first one. Being about 6^th in the bunch at the time I had a great view of them skidding across the road on their asses into the gutter. Luckily this gave the bunch a much needed prior warning and we duly took the corner at about 2 miles per hour (about 3.2kph) otherwise it might have been 50 riders on the floor rather than 2. For the next four laps at least one person would crash on this corner and on the fourth lap I would nearly be one of them.

A small break started to form ahead of the bunch on the 2^nd lap and coming into the finish for the third time I managed to pull away with about fifteen others just behind the break. We didn’t work particularly well as everyone wanted to save themselves so that when they got close enough they could jump across to the break ahead and leave the rest of the suckers behind. Because of this I waited until the person I thought was possibly the strongest jumped, and when our group started to split on a fast cross-wind (have I not mentioned the wind yet?) section, he did and I followed. He went full gas right in the gutter so no one could get any shelter, a good idea that I thought about way too much at the time. I managed to hold his wheel though and we got across the split, unfortunately everyone else had done the same thing and we were just back together again. At this point we hit one of the two draggy climbs and the rider I had followed realised we were all still reeling from his move and went again. This time he pulled about 8 riders away and unfortunately I wasn’t one of them. This group immediately began to work as they saw they had the gap and my group was again left dallying about, everyone once more waiting to try and jump across at the opportune moment. This moment never came and the next few laps were spent occasionally getting some speed up and then slowing and then attacking and then slowing. On the fourth lap we came to the slippery corner and just before it the rider directly in front of me turned round to see what was going on. In doing so he put pressure on his tyre where there was dangerously little friction, his bike came from underneath him and he was suddenly sliding down the road. “Great!” I thought “there’s no way out of this one” and I almost closed my eyes for the inevitable crash. It’s a good job I didn’t as what happened next is a miracle that can only have been performed by the cycling gods themselves. As he hit the deck his bike went to the right and he slid to the left and amazingly became detached from the pedals, this left me with a 5 centimetre gap which I took in a kind of trance. The rest is not exactly history, but that would be an appropriate thing to say. I decided it was a sign and stayed upright for the rest of the race.

With about 5 laps to go and the front group well up the road I managed to jump away with 5 others who were all had teammates behind and so we forged ahead with no challenge. We worked well and at this point the team car came up behind us. “Finally” I thought, the team car was following me rather than driving past. We came within a minute of a small dropped group ahead but didn’t quite catch them. From the 6 I sprinted in an unfortunate 3^rd, this put me in a respectable but not great 20^th overall. At the end after the weather had dried up, it dried all the mud on me with it so my legs, face, kit and bike were in a particular state.

The next morning I had all my kit washed, cleaned my bike and got some good recovery. The race wasn’t far away so I rode there and by sheer fluke it was raining so after 3 minutes my bike was as dirty as it had been. The race started and I moved myself up as quickly as possible as I had been told the wind would sort it out pretty early on (Wind? Bien sur, toujours). On the second lap I saw one of the favourites make a move, but as I was in no place to reply I shouted to the peloton to get a move on. They responded, the hammer went down and after about a minute and a half there were gaps, the main one being a couple of places in front of me. I found myself on the front like an idiot and so dropped back in the hope I could jump across. This hope was pretty unfounded as when I did jump everyone came with me and I made little impression. All I did was put myself in the red for the hardest bit of the course. It was here that it continued to be hard and I began to go backwards, all the time knowing that the selection was being made and I was nowhere near it. I found myself in a group that was quickly losing ground and the one minute to the head of the race might as well have been an hour, it was about this time that it started hailing. My group continuously attacked each other (it got rather annoying and painful, but mostly painful) until about 4 laps to go when we started to catch a small group ahead. It was then that a strange phenomenon that only happens in small groups in cycling occurred, we slowed down. Why do you slow down when you are about to catch the group in front?!? Thankfully with about 5km to go on the last lap we did catch them and I sprinted in 5^th in our group but I’m not sure where overall. It could have been 30^th at best but 45^th at worst, I’m sure I’ll find out, it was our club that was running it after all.

So there it is, I finally finished a race, two races even! And although they didn’t go quite as spiffingly as they could, I have my first top 20, be it 20^th. I also seem to be learning the hard way that racing over here is about using your efforts wisely and at the right time. In England you can get with it now and again, but here, if you mess up once it’s race over.

Next week 2 more Elite Nationals, so it’ll be interesting to see how each of them goes, hopefully well.

But until then,

vaarwel

From the front, the side, anywhere but behind.

It seems that in Alsace, or any other part of France we have raced in so far, that you are always riding into a wind. Whether it be a gusty headwind or relentless cross-wind, there’s always one there nagging away at your energy supply making you work that bit harder than you actually want to. It’s this wind that seems to have been the deciding factor in most of my races (and results) so far, and last weekend was no different. The weather started off pretty bad again early on in the week after we had raced in the snow on Monday, so we took Tuesday off as all our kit and shoes were still wet. We got 2 rides of three hours or more in on Wednesday and Thursday, only occasionally getting rained on, while doing some more high quality efforts (getting my heart rate to at least 100 bpm). Then on Friday, to our amazement, the sun came out and everything got a little warmer and slightly more pleasant. It managed to stay like this through Friday also (while still being windy), but the forecast was for rain in Dijon the next day so we imagined it would be back to the old grind.

On the Saturday evening my parents arrived for a three day stay over their Easter holiday, so I was happy to see them (and even happier to see all the food they had brought, Baked Beans anyone?). But as they arrived late on Saturday and we had an early start and a long drive to the race on Sunday, they decided to give watching me a miss. It turned out to be a good decision. I can now touch my toes after each stretching bout so I’m pretty pleased about that, although ask me to do it any other time and I’ll struggle to touch my knees. I’ve also been reading a book by William Fotheringham called ‘Roule Britannia’, it details the history of British riders in the Tour de France and how they came to get there. What was very interesting was finding out about all the other brits that have raced for the clubs I am now racing against back in the day. I never knew Malcolm Elliot rode for UV Aube, as did Vin Denson and Alan Ramsbottom, I like my history.

With the weather looking up, but the forecast looking down, Sunday arrived and it was time for Troyes-Dijon. A 168km amateur classic featuring open roads with rolling to steep hills towards the end. The drive to our starting point was long once again, three and a half hours of passing the time by looking at how many more kilometres it was to the next junction on the sat nav. Did I mention our pasta in Tupperware? Lovely stuff. When we arrived the weather was looking pretty good, so I was quite relaxed getting ready and warming the legs up, trying to put out of my mind that I now had 168km to ride if I wanted to finish my first race in 3 weeks. At the start fictive I managed to get myself in a prime position and amazingly kept it until the real start. We had been told that after 7-10 km of headwind, the road turned and it would come across us... for the rest of the race.... superb. Because of this I held a good position for the first 20km, probably the best I’ve held it out of any of the races so far. I even had a chance effort off the front, trying to bridge across to a break that had formed an echelon up the road. Unfortunately once I had made it across to them, so had everybody else. At about 35-40km the hammer started to go down. We had come into an open and slightly meandering stretch of road where SCO Dijon, the team with the two main favourites, had obviously been instructed to split it up. The wind forced everyone into the left hand gutter with only one echelon at the front which to me seemed ridiculous. I began to suffer as did my position and I slowly slipped back to mid peloton. A crash that I had to swerve to avoid interrupted the rhythm and I was already dangerously near the red. Riders were blowing up all over the place (proverbially of course (although I’d love to see it literally)) and on a particularly hard stretch of road, I followed.

My legs just didn’t have the power to follow in the strong continuous side wind and I had to slip back into a chasing group. Some might say that this is a sign that you aren’t very good, and those people would be right. But I know I have been able to stay with similar paces before in races even if these are particularly hard, so whether it is just my form or I have been doing too much training or not the right sort, I don’t know. After a while our chase group managed to latch onto to the back of the peloton and a choice few stayed there as the riders at the front once again went full gas. At this point I had already slipped off once and after the chase my legs were in no apparent mood to get any stronger, so again I was in the chase group. The name chase would stick for the rest of the race as the front group pulled away with most of my team mates in. A bunch of about 30 of us got together and started riding along at a pace we all seemed to feel more comfortable with and occasionally some of us would work and we’d get a bit faster, although it never lasted long. Some might call it the grupetto or laughing group...I prefer chase group. Then we hit the first climb of the race, a short steep one but nothing spectacular. Luckily my chain came off halfway up as I moved into the little ring, so I reversed to the back of the group while frantically spinning trying to get the chain to latch onto the big ring. Once I had managed this I managed to get to the top at the back of the group and we hit a plateau... and the wind hit us. An outrageous wind that stopped everyone in their tracks and made small gaps seem like minutes. Here our bunch split a little and I was nicely placed to feel the effects. Thankfully it came back together going down the other side and I moved right to the front promising myself not to go to the back again.

It was about this time that we caught a few riders from in front, including Tom. He had been caught up a little in the earlier crash and had chased hard to get back on, just about finding his way into a small group between us and the leaders. After expending enough energy in the chase, the wind that followed the first hill was enough to break the elastic and he rode the rest of the race with me. After that it settled down and we rode steadily to the finishing circuit which was horribly hilly and windy (quelle surprise). We were meant to complete 1 and ¾ laps of this 25km loop before carrying on to the finish, but we turned left the first time round to make sure we didn’t finish in the dark, much to the surprise of the gendarmes and marshals. Here we rode into Dijon having done 140km of the course, promptly to find that the car with all our bags in was still following the race. Probably a just punishment for my poor showing.

Needless to say, I was pretty unhappy, I wanted to finish this race pretty desperately and the 40 minutes after the race were spent moping in my sorrows. But after a while I perked up in the realisation that things can only get better...well, they can’t get much worse. I spent the next two days with my family visiting Strasbourg and the German city of Baden-Baden, both very nice places and well worth a visit. We also had a nice meal at a nearby restaurant that we thought we might go back to when one of us got out first race win... I’ll miss that restaurant.

Next weekend I have two races with one being very local, as neither are elite nationals, I am hoping to get my first finish for a few weeks if not a little more (but best start small eh?). If I don’t finish I may take up golf or some similar well paid past time.

Until the next adventure

αντίο

PS. Sorry for the lack of good photos/videos this week, I either wasn't in the mood or didn't have a camera.