Back in Blighty

I’m writing this to you from the sunny West Midlands back in Blighty. After four and a half months of living and racing in France I’ve returned for a break... well I say break, I’ve come back to race the National Road Race Championships which is 204km with a field of many pro’s. To me, 204km seems a little excessive for a field made up of many Espoirs; 160km would suffice even for the seniors. I’m trying to imagine getting to 100 miles and, depending on how fast I’m going, still have at least another hour to go. Oh well, at least there’s a race to do. Back in France leading up to coming back me and Tom were trying to ration the food so that we ate just enough to leave as little as possible before we came over. It involved much planning on the meal front especially meats which could go mouldy and potentially have fatal results. Luckily, using our combined wits (mostly mine) we were able to pull it off, be it with rather a small breakfast on the day of leaving.

Even though we were planning to leave, we still had a race to do on the Saturday. It was a semi-local crit and we were finally sending a strong squad to a smaller race for the first time in a while. There were six of us from the team and we were by far and away the strongest outfit there so I was looking forward to ruling the race. The course was a little under a kilometre and we were going to be doing an hour and fourty five minutes worth of racing with 10 laps after that, a bit of a merry-go-round only with panting lycra clad men rather than lavishly painted plastic horses. The start was fast and I was at the back as my own team put in the effort to initiate the initial moves. After a few laps I managed to move up though and start to think about getting involved. At about this point a spoke popped in my front wheel and I was at the start getting a roué avant. The laps were so short I had to take two laps out, well I think I had to, if I didn’t then I took two anyway. Anyway I got back into the race without much fuss and moved my way back up to the front. By this time we had a guy up the road on his own and the rest of us were sitting on any attacks that went. We did this for many a lap until the time eventually started to come down, at this point we got the word we were to attack to try and get across. After a particularly hard few laps followed by a prime lap I put in an effort and quickly got a gap which I held for a few laps off the front. Unfortunately the circuit was particularly bumpy and I struggled to get any kind of rhythm going and so after my few laps of freedom I was reeled in. The team put some counter attacks in and eventually there were six away with three of us, domination...or it should have been. Being back in the bunch the three of us shut down the race jumping anything that moved and eventually just about everyone gave up and we came into the bunch sprint finishing in about 8^th position and about 14^th overall. I rolled round on my recovery lap and got to the finish to see the DS having a go at one of the riders, it wasn’t good news. Apparently the break had split in two with only one of our guys up front, the resident none sprinter Mathieu. He had duly finished 2^nd in a race that we should have owned easily, but sometimes that’s how it goes, it was a frosty drive back anyway.

The next day we weren’t expecting to race but at 8.30 we got the call that we had a race to do. There were a few problems with this, firstly the race the day before had been a nocturne which had finished at 10 in the evening and we eventually got back at 1 in the morning, also it was the day before we were leaving to go back and certain things needed packing, also due to our rationing of food we didn’t have much food for breakfast and getting ready. So, after a short discussion, we decided it wouldn’t be practical to race. At this point in the week the weather had reached its highest temperature so far, with Strasbourg getting to 34 degrees. Consequently we didn’t wear much during the day and I took three showers in the space of twelve hours. With the excitement of going home, and early start and the excessive heat we both struggled to get to sleep that night. I just lay on my bed sweating, occasionally getting up to watch the lightening from the passing storm. With about 20 minutes worth of dozing we got up at 3.30 to begin our journey home. The drive and flight went swimmingly except for the plane being hijacked by terrorists and taking a detour to Moscow. Once we got back to England I said goodbye to Tom who I would be seeing in a week’s time and began my train journey home. This involved 2 changes and with a big bike box and large suitcase, I was lucky it wasn’t busy; also I had a painful arm by the end of it. But after a few hundred miles and a large bout of tiredness I returned home to be greeted by a large meal made by my gran, yummy.

Next weekend the Champs, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it, for now I’ll just enjoy being able to completely understand the conversation and the tele.

Until the next time,

Laters.

Cathederals anyone?

Not much happened in the week last week as we took it easy leading up to another stage race the Tour d’Eure et Loir. But I thought I’d let you know about a game me and Tom play when we go shopping. When we get to the checkout we each have to guess an exact price for the shopping without adding up or anything, closest wins. It’s pretty tense for a few moments as the till lady scans through the last items and we wait nervously for the final total. Sometimes we’re miles out but other times pretty close. I’ve been the closest so far guessing just two cents from the actual price, what an achievement. Anyway, next time there’s two of you doing the shopping why not give it a try. If you’re on your own I wouldn’t as you will just luck weird, anyway on with talking about cycling.

Our journey begins on the noon of the Thursday, as eight of us gathered (six riders, one Director Sportif and one Mechanic) to begin our journey to the department of L’Eure et Loir. Here we were to partake in a three day stage race taking in all the best bits of the department in our Federal Espoirs only race. The journey was long (6 hours) and treacherous (I was awoken by a speed bump) but finally we made it to our loggings for the weekend. After a quick ride around and a hearty meal of pasta with an indistinguishable meat (it tasted something like chicken) we settled ourselves down to look forward to the next day’s upcoming stage. The time soon came for the mornings debrief, but this morning I was determined that my briefs were staying on (If you haven’t seen Garth Marenghis Dark Place, I recommend you do, hilarious). We were told the course was flat with a few little bumps but nothing major to worry about, make sure we were in every move etc etc, the usual spiel. The race was a pretty big occasion and started in what looked like the very nice city of Chartres. I didn’t get to see much of it though and we were soon lining up at the start and rolling out for the neutralised section. The date was Friday 13^th and I got my small dose of bad luck at about now. I was casually taking a sip from my bottle while the people in front suddenly slowed, I didn’t have time to put my bottle away and use my more powerful front brake so I just had to ride into the back of them. How I didn’t come off is a small miracle but I smacked my spokes into the back of some guys’ bike and slightly buckled the wheel.

The stage was 158km as well as the 9km of neutralised and fast. In fact we did about 46km in the first hour and I didn’t even notice it. I moved up to the front when it started to line out and got in the first break of the day. Unfortunately the roads where too fast for it to stay away and after about 10km we were reeled in. I moved up again after some sitting in and the roads started to go up sharply, then down, then up again. It certainly wasn’t flat. Coming into possibly the hardest hill I followed an attack by the favourite, Fabien Taillefer and he wasn’t messing about. We quickly caught a small group that was up the road but it had hurt...then we hit the hill. The pace exploded and I quickly regretted chasing the move, so much so that I decided to go to the back and watch the break of the day ride away...Oh well. Luckily we had two riders in it so we had a nice easy ride to the finish. End of stage one, eat, sleep, recover.

The second day started early as it was to contain two stages, a 90km road stage with a 16.7km time trial. This time the road stage was flat...pan flat. So flat in fact that everyone decided that they would be able to get away and ride everyone off their wheel. Because of this we didn’t go 10 seconds without an attack being made and that is no exaggeration. In fact, I think there was a small let up in pace for 20 seconds and then everyone looked at each other and started attacking again. I followed a few moves but never made one of my own, nothing was sticking, and so bunch sprint it was. This was the first time I was involved in a mass bunch sprint for the win and boy was it hairy. I decided to try and place myself up there and see what I could do but I was pretty hopeless. I always watched the races on Tele where Fassa Bortolo (now Milram) would get on the front and line it out and wondered why riders didn’t move up, surely they were strong enough...but now I know why. CC Nogent put their “train” on the front and trying to move up suddenly became very hard. Moving out into the headwind at 50kmph hurt the legs somewhat so I did it as sparingly as possibly, alas it wasn’t to be. I gave up with 500 metres to go with enough time to watch the winner give his victory salute from 40^th place; Tom managed a great 11^th with his bunch sprinting skills.

Then came the time trial, something I had been looking forward to. The team had leant me a TT bike (I say TT, it was a 10 year old road frame with TT bars) and a disk wheel to use and I was hoping to put in a good effort. What happened though wasn’t how I had foreseen it; in fact the only way to show what happened best is by using a time line:

(My start time: 16:40)
14:10: arrived at the start, pinned on numbers, relaxed.
15:35: changed into kit and went to ride my bike to test everything was in order, which it was.
15:45: relaxed for a little longer.
15:55: put my skinsuit and other additional extras I use for time trialling
16:00: waited for my turn on the turbo to warm up.
16:10: got on the turbo to warm up
16:30: got off the turbo for the mechanic to put the wheel in. (this is when things started to go wrong)
16:31: mechanic notices that my cable outer at the rear derailleur is slightly frayed and declares that it won’t work (even though I’ve just been using it for 20 minutes)
16:32: mechanic starts to panic but finds a new cable outer.
16:34: mechanic proceeds to take the cable out of the outer and tries to replace it only to find the end of the cable is frayed and he cannot thread the cable.
16:36: mechanic goes to find a new cable but then realises it will take too long to change it.
16:37: mechanic takes the disk wheel out of the TT bike and hastily puts it into my road bike...Great.
16:37.30: I leave to get to the start.
16:38.45: I arrive at the start ramp much to the distress of all the officials who shout at me to get ready immediately.
16:39.00: I get on the ramp just as my minute man is leaving.
16:40.00: c’est partie

But this wasn’t it, oh no, as soon as I went down the ramp the following car started using it’s horn to try and encourage me. Usually I wouldn’t mind such capers, but unfortunately I was already so wound up after my bike fiasco I just couldn’t take it. I started to shout as loud as I could even though I knew they couldn’t hear me, I looked around a couple of times to try and make them stop. In the end I turned right around flicked them the V’s and this shut them up, finally. Then my back wheel started to make a screeching noise, like it was rubbing against the frame. I looked down trying to find the route of the problem and even took the quick release off my brake to see if that helped. It got louder and louder and I was certain the tubular was about to explode. It didn’t and I soldiered on, but by this time the damage was done, I couldn’t even remember how slow I’d gone I was too busy concentrating on other things apart from riding. It was only when we received the results when I found this out, I was disappointed to say the least, but by the next morning I was over it. I’m not one to dwell.

The last stage was 153km with 7km of neutralised and once again fast. I sat in for the first 100km until it started to go up and down where I moved towards the front. Bizarrely we were stopped by a train at one point and I was surprised by how many people needed to stop to relieve themselves including me. Coming into the first of a series of sharp hills I followed a hard move by Fabien Taillefer and Pierre Luc-Perichon (If you don’t know these names now, give it a couple of years and I’m sure you will) and when I say hard I mean hard. Only 15 riders were able to follow him including all the favourites and me and Tom. I put in one of those efforts you only make once in a race to stay with them and at one point I was sure I was losing some vision. Fortunately I stayed with them, unfortunately, because it was all the favourites no one wanted to ride... I simply couldn’t... and we were caught after about 15km of being away. We rode to the finish 1 minute 40 behind the break; Taillefer lost the overall possibly due to the stopping by the train as the break weren’t halted.

There we have it, another stage race finish. I was bitterly disappointed by my time trial, it wrecked my race, but happy I was able to go with it when it really got tough on the last stage. Next week, two smaller races and then I am flying back to Blighty to prepare for the National Chumps... I mean Champs.

Until next time,

Do zobaczenia

Champions de Alsace, mais pas moi.

After last Sunday’s disappointment of a race I decided I needed something to look forward to. So I went down the local music shop and purchased a nice blue acoustic guitar for the meagre sum of 119€. So for the past week I’ve happily been strumming away using my limited talent on the instrument, playing for pleasure rather than to actually sound good... I was better on the clarinet (grade 5 thank you very much). Tom is trying to learn as well, so far I’ve taught him the opening 4 chords to Oasis’ Wonderwall and he’s worked out the first few (and most important) notes to Layla by Eric Clapton. But let’s bear in mind the people playing the actual songs have been playing for a long long time. Tom on the other hand has been playing for just under a week, so you can imagine the difference in playing ability, never mind, (a lot of) practise makes perfect. The week was once again sunny and we got a couple of good long rides in, one being with half the team on the Wednesday. On this ride we went up a nice big hill about half way through and the resident climber in the team, Mathieu, decided to stretch his legs. Now usually I am quite sceptical about people who label themselves as climbers, I mean, in England the races are never hilly enough to make a difference and it’s always the strong riders that ride away at the finish. These are the same riders that win the time trials and more often than not, the sprints, basically, better riders. Mathieu on the other hand, is a climber. You measure how much form you have by how much he drops you on a climb; if you can hold him for 25 metres you are going very well. On this particular hill I was going quite well as I held his wheel for the first 200 metres.... then he got out of the saddle (and started breathing). I pretty much went 100% just to see him ride away from me when it got steep, luckily it flattened out a little and I big ringed it back up to him (after he’d eased off). He’s a very strong rider and should have easily won a race this year by now, but bad tactics and his unwillingness to sprint have meant otherwise.

The weekend consisted of two races for us, one being a nocturne crit on the Friday evening and the other a race in Germany because all the French regional championships were taking place in which foreigners are not allowed to compete, darn. The Friday night crit turned out to be a “Criterium Nationale”, in other words an Elite National level criterium and the riders there were pretty crème de la crème. They included Steve (a proper French name) Chainel, local pro for Auber 93 and recent winner of the Circuit de Lorraine, Mathieu Simon, UV Aube legend and Gwenal Rouzet, winner of several of my races. I had my work cut out to say the least. The weather wasn’t particularly favourable with constant drizzle and cool air being in the heart of the Vosges Mountains and the race ended up being shortened due to the deteriorating conditions. Anyway, enough of the build up, We got under way nice and fast as you would imagine and it took me a while to move up to the front as I started right at the back. Once this was achieved I wasn’t sure where to go; I followed a few moves and even made one when I thought it was hard but nothing too serious, when would the race deciding move be made?

I found out soon enough although I struggle to remember now. Somehow Steve Chainel and another UV Aube strong guy had slipped off the front, who let that happen? Fools! What I do remember is it being particularly hard just before this point as you don’t usually let the pro in the race slip away without a reason and because of this my legs hurt as I watched them riding away. But I couldn’t just watch them, hell no, I wasn’t going to sit there watching the race winning move ride away so I attacked coming into a corner. When I looked round I had a gap, Ha! Now I’m the one riding away, suckers! In my excitement though my legs began to hurt, I had closed the gap a little, but it was 2 versus 1 and I wasn’t winning. When I reached the slight incline in the circuit through the finish the bunch put in a quick acceleration to counter my move and I was swinging. The next couple of laps were very painful, I don’t like to remember them but they involved much lactic acid, sprinting out of corners and gritting of teeth. I was close to going out the back, but thankfully didn’t, instead I recovered and waited for the next move. A few attacks went and were chased down, then Tom made a strong one that stretched the field but everyone jumped on so he couldn’t get a gap. It was then I saw my opportunity, I went full gas down the right hand side of the road and kept the effort going for another 200 metres before I looked round to see Simon and another guy on my wheel with a gap to the peloton. We quickly got our act together and began to work at a pretty steady pace, there were primes every ten laps for each group but for the first one I wasn’t sure what was going on and for the second I didn’t know when to open up the sprint so lost out on both. But we kept working, although behind they were working as well and coming into the final few laps I was starting to worry that we’d be caught. In fact afterwards I found out the group behind were only 10 seconds down at one point but thankfully we nailed it to the finish where Simon just edged me in the sprint.

Afterwards I found out Toms group had also had primes both of which he had won, my group of three had the same amount of primes on the line. This meant Tom ended up winning 100€ and I thought I had won nothing despite being ahead all race. Luckily the primes were for the first three so, to my surprise, I won 40€ although it was still a bit of a slap in the face but I was happy with how the race went. (I finished 5^th by the way got sidetracked thinking about those primes)

Sunday was our race in Germany and the conditions couldn’t have been any more different. The sun was shining and the roads were too hot to stand on while we were getting changed. My high school German was faultless signing on, asking where the toilet was and buying a couple of cokes, I surprised even myself. The set-up was superb, they had a food and drinks tent with a crack team of workers cooking steak and chips amongst several other things for the hungry spectators. Just next to this tent were several benches for enjoying said refreshments, all of this overlooking the main climb of the race to watch the riders suffer. The roads were completely closed to all cars, which although isn’t uncommon in France, is still something to be admired. Unfortunately the same couldn’t be said about the race, it was awful. It was completely negative, a bit like a 3^rd and 4^th cat race in England (I have nothing against 3^rd and 4^th cats everyone has to start (and finish) somewhere), with any attacks being quickly jumped on and then everyone sitting up. I got so fed up that I missed it when a move was actually allowed to get away, although I spent most of the race thinking it would come back like it usually does in a 3^rd and 4^th cat race. Unfortunately all the riders were a little stronger than this and the break stayed away. I even missed the second move that tried to get across to them, it was horrendous. The group I ended up in was coming in for 20^th, but it felt like we were sprinting it out for 50^th the way the guys were racing. I ended up 23^rd and highly disappointed with how the race had gone. The rider who ended up winning was a pro for Wiesenhof last year, if only I’d known, I would have followed him. Sometimes though, that’s how it goes, now I must recover regroup and get ready for next weekend. Thankfully we drove back nice and quick to watch our team mates finish first and second in the Alsace champs, the first win for the team and a great win at that. Hopefully now the floodgates will open and the wins will begin to pour in.

The upcoming weekend should be exciting with another Elite Nationale stage race, but this time only for Espoirs. The Tour d’Eure et Loire is run off over 3 days and 4 stages including a time trial, It should be nice to see how I can do in the big races when I actually have some legs to get round...or not. Who knows? I’m hoping it goes well, aren’t we all.

Until next time,

Hejdå

Good legs, nowhere to go.

The temperature finally hit the big 30 (that’s degrees, not Fahrenheit or Kelvin) and in most ways it was much appreciated. It’s nice to ride around in the sun, very enjoyable indeed, much better than riding around in the snow. The problem is living in such temperatures. As we are situated in a roof space apartment, the sun shines in all day heating the place up like an oven with me and Tom being a couple of turkeys in for a roast, all be it skinny ones with not much meat (well I know I’m built like a train but Toms more like a stick). This means we spend most of time our walking around wearing as little clothing as possible and breaking a sweat under the lightest of exercise, quite an image I know but don’t get too overwhelmed. It also makes sleeping rather difficult, sheets definitely aren’t necessary, a fan would be more appropriate. You wake up at some ungodly hour with your pillow and sheets soaked, peel yourself off, roll over and try to get to sleep again. This is one of the few downsides to the weather being good and if it stays like this, I’m willing to put up with it. In other news my resting heart rate finally dropped below 40 to 38 for the first time ever, be it after much deep breathing and only for a couple of seconds. But it was the first time I’ve ever seen my heart rate in the thirties so I considered it quite an achievement.

The legs felt great riding this week and I was really looking forward to the racing knowing I had something there. Some form usually comes after about 3 weeks of a stage race for me and it had been 3 weeks since the Essor Breton. The first was a local crit of about 80km run off as a points race, the second a short rolling road race at 120km. Me and Tom were determined to do well in at least one of these races as we both felt ok and so coming into the weekend we were both “mega psyched”. On the Saturday the crit was just under and hours ride away and because of this, we decided to ride there... On the way we passed a temperature gauge that told us it was 30 degrees, 20 minutes later we passed another that told us it was 22 degrees. The temperature had dropped 8 degrees and it was getting windier, in the distance we could see a dirty great cloud that was obviously spilling out rain in the direction we were going. I started to see flashes of lightening in the distance and it began to get darker. Perfect. It hadn’t started raining when we arrived; it only started doing that 10 minutes before the depart and boy did it rain...and thunder....and lightening, not necessarily in that order. They delayed the start by 10 minutes and the rain started to relent, my shiny white socks were still ruined after 7 seconds of riding though.

We started fast; Tom decided to attack from the gun and stayed away for a few laps. I countered a few times when it came back together but not much happened. The race had sprints every 10 laps with points for the first 4, Tom managed to get up there for the first one so I decided rather than riding around finishing nowhere in the sprints I’d help Tom try and win it. This involved chasing down many an attack and making it tough coming into the sprint so no one tried to get away. Luckily I had the legs to do this and Tom managed to get up there in most of the sprints. Unfortunately there was a particularly strong German that insisted on ruining it for us. The rain eased off and the race dried out making the course nice and fast, but with three quarters of the race down I was starting to get tired from all this chasing and working. Tom managed to get up there in the final sprint and ended up second overall which was a relatively satisfying result for all involved, although we all wanted the win.

Sunday was my target though, I had great legs on the Saturday and was hoping I could carry it through and pull off my own good result, I knew it was possible. I wrote down the GPM points on my hand and remembered where they all were in relation to the finish as it was an “en ligne” race rather than laps. I studied the start sheet meticulously, scouring the past weeks results and comparing names, noting anyone I thought might be dangerous. I tried to prepare myself as well as possible to give myself every chance. Once the race had started I could feel my legs from the day before, but this was to be expected. They were still good legs and coming into the first and hardest climb of the day I was well positioned at the front of the bunch with a small break just up the road. I followed a hard attack, but not all out, I could see this hill was going to go on for at least another kilometre so I saved a little. It helped as I caught a few people who had killed themselves to go with the move, a few of the better climbers were riding away though and going over the top I was towards the back of the front group. A few people sprinted past me over the top and I wanted to follow, but that was a damn hard hill I had just come up and I didn’t want to sprint just yet. If only I had, a small group formed just ahead (and I mean literally 50 metres) after the climb and that was it, race over.

Obviously I didn’t know this at the time as for a long long while it looked like it might come back, as is the way in bike racing. But also as is the way in bike racing, it stayed away, much to my annoyance and disappointment. At first I made many attempts to try and get across sometimes with others, sometimes on my own, but was continuously chased by teams with riders in the break. After a while I decided it was pretty fruitless and sat in which is about when the Kazakh “Olympic (junior) academy” started chasing as they had failed to put a rider in the front group. Unfortunately they weren’t particularly strong and although they held the gap at just under a minute they couldn’t pull it back and eventually many of them blew. My group split up a little towards the end as the last third of the race was spent trying to form a group that might jump across in the closing stage. Unfortunately this was everyone’s idea and every time I went people were determined to follow. After a while a small group formed ahead of us and we were getting towards the end of the race, although I had no idea how close we were. Then suddenly we turned right and there was a 300metres to go sign. Were the hell did that come from? Not even a 1km to go flamme rouge, let alone a 10km to go sign. Our group carried out its hasty sprint for the minor placings, but at this point I wasn’t particularly fussed where I finished, I ended up 29^th. Tom had managed to get in the break and finished a good 5^th.

I felt pretty annoyed with myself after the finish, but probably because I expected a lot out of the race and didn’t get it. It’s even more frustrating knowing you could have done better than having done your best and still been used to wipe the floor. Oh well, I’ll know better than to expect a result next time and take the race as it comes.

Until the next time,

Näkemiin