Well after a long while of being away I have finally returned for an update. Firstly I hope you all had a nice Christmas and New Year and are now preparing for the sunny weather (when and indeed if, it comes). The purpose of this update is to let you all know the developments of the past few months or so. Firstly I have found a new team in Brittany, namely COC Fougeres. A relatively small DN2 set up based in the very East of Brittany, north east of Rennes. Despite the size of the club they have quite a hefty calendar planned which isn’t hard in Brittany due to the sheer number of races available.
After many e-mails with the contact in the team over there we finally agreed to go and visit for a weekend. I should tell you who “we” is really, there will be 3 and a half British riders riding for the team, me, Matt Jones (formerly Pearl Izumi) and Nathan Edmundson (formerly Glendene CC). The half will be Rob Orr who hasn’t got the finances available for a whole season but would like to come over for the occasional weekend to race and will do so under the Fougeres colours. Right, back to our visit. Only me and Matt could make it out of the 4 of us so we set off on our intrepid journey crossing the channel from Portsmouth to St Malo, an 8 hour journey...joy. Luckily on the way there we reserved a cabin and so got a good night’s sleep, but before this we needed to eat.
As we ascended the decks, we came to what we thought must be the one with the restaurants on and to our delight, found the queue to one of them right where we had come out. All we wanted was maybe a fish and chips from the ‘serve yourself’ or whatever seemed reasonable. So we stood in the queue anticipating our meal with hunger until the restaurant opened. As we got to the doors we saw a waiter dressed very smartly leading people in, “this seems a bit posh for fish and chips I thought”...by then it was too late. Me and Matt (still laden with our rucksacks and bags) were led to linen covered table where lots of knives, forks and glasses were nicely laid out; it was here that we got to see the menu. £19.50 for the meal, and that was the cheap one! There was no turning back, we didn’t want to look like cheap skates, not now we had marched in here and been seen by other people so we endured. Luckily the £19.50 included a starter buffet, cheese buffet and dessert buffet where you could take as much as you pleased. After the starters we were given our main course, or at least that’s what we thought it was. It looked like some sort of experiment that involved lamb, a strange yellow liquid and lots of art deco porcelain, needless to say, we felt out of our depth. But despite its appearance it was thoroughly enjoyable and me a Matt proceeded to spend the next one and a half hours making the most out of the dessert buffet and getting our monies worth. It was at this point we realised that the Ferry was yet to move...
After reaching St Malo, eating breakfast in the nearest Carrefour (we weren’t risking it with ferry prices again) and driving the relatively straight forward route to Fougeres, we found where the team was meeting and were greeted by them returning from their morning activities. Everyone shook hands spoke a bit and then went for some food, after this we suited and booted up for a short ride. The ride was very easy and more like a stroll than a training ride, yet all the French guys afterwards complained of sore legs, ‘ strange’ I thought ‘that was easy’. In the evening we had a nice meal with the friends and family of the team and then went bowling were I managed to remember how rubbish I am at it.
It was only on the 2nd day I would begin to realise why the French guys had been in so much pain. We had been forewarned to bring some clothes for PPG (general physical preparation), namely some running shorts and jogging trousers, but I had hoped that PPG wouldn’t actually involve any running. Unfortunately, I was wrong...very wrong in fact. We ran, or did something as close to cyclists can do to running, to the velodrome on the outskirts of town, about 3km. We then had to run round the velodrome a few times then up and down some steps as fast as we could lots of times, then back to the velodrome. My god I was in pain and still we hadn’t finished. We had to do some timed obstacle kind of things that were more dangerous than anything. We ran up and down the steep bank of the velodrome, picking up a very very heavy bag, running to a cone and back before finally dropping the bag. We then played football, then football with a rugby ball and finally rugby and then had to run back. Torture.
On the ride in the afternoon my legs were happy to be doing the thing they enjoyed most, going round in circles. But protested profusely after what I had done to them in the morning. Now I understood why the French guys had been in pain the day before, as they had done a similar effort in the forests. It was painful but at the same time it was supposed to be a bit of fun, so everyone could have something in common, that they didn’t like running, which I appreciated. Afterwards we ate with the Managers of the team and spoke about the coming season and then slept for the journey home. The journey was pretty uneventful, as there’s only so much you can do on a ship for 8 hours, but this time we found the cheap restaurant and had a particularly satisfying fish and chips.
All in all I felt it was a successful trip, everyone was friendly, the kit wasn’t hideously ugly and most surprisingly my French seems to have improved since I came back. I had been meeting a French person once a week to keep it up, but we never went into much depth so I was surprised to find I understood most of what was being said and even more surprised to find myself sending answers back. I suppose it’s because I’m being relied on now, rather than having to rely on someone else. Matt learned just how much he has to learn, but I’m sure he’ll pick it up, hopefully quicker than I did. Hopefully by the time we go back they will have some accommodation sorted and we’ll be picking up results in no time. My legs took 5 days to recover for the beating they took and, oh yes Fougeres itself isn’t a bad place, in fact what we saw or it was very nice indeed.
Last but not least, as I won’t be funded next year again, to raise some capital I am organising a reliability ride in conjunction with one of my local pubs the Red Lion Inn. It will be a nice scenic and mainly flat but challenging 60 mile route around Staffordshire and Shropshire.
Entry will cost £5 and for that you will get a pint of beer or a bacon Sandwich, happy days.
For more information see the poster for the event here:
http://www.layer8problem.com/rrp/poster.pdf
http://www.layer8problem.com/rrp/poster.doc
Hope you can make it and watch out for the full recommencement of the Blog when the racing season starts, But until then,
Goodbye
