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