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 20th 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 15th. 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, 2nd had 19 and 3rd had 13 and after that everyone had 5 points. One of our guys unknowingly finished 6th 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
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