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