Not a bad start

It’s been a pretty good start, both living wise and cycling wise, more about the cycling wise later but now to tell you about our accommodation. They say it’s always about location, location, location, well this year we have THE location, for what we need anyway. About 60 metres away from 4 whole cafes, 2 mini supermarkets, 200 metres from the clubs meeting point for rides and races and plenty of other stuff we haven’t even found yet. So we’re already doing better than last year, where we were situated 3km from the local supermarket and about 5km from anything else. The accommodation itself is pretty cool, the kitchen was a bit sparse at first but slowly we’ve bought little bits and have been given others. The washing machine arrived today, along with our swanky new microwave. This adds to our fridge/freezer, gas cooker, mini-oven and sink, we’re practically rolling in commodities. The rooms are quite nice too, the apartment has only recently been finished and we are the first people living in it so everything smells like new house...well... that was until we melted the plastic handle on one of our cheap pots and so filled the place with toxic fumes. The only real problem is that one of the rooms is not attached to the actual apartment, you have to go up the drive, up some stairs and into the room to get there, which will mean going to the toilet at night will be a small problem. On the upside, it’s got a double bed; it’s the only room with a nice view (or any view for that matter) and an electric operated blind... sweet.

Everyone from the team has been very caring for us as well, at the last team I’m not sure anyone actually knew they had English riders riding for them, but here everyone wants a piece of les Anglais. They’ve fitted us out with more cutlery than we could ever use, plenty of cups and glasses, loads of plates and nice range of pots and pans. Add to that the massive amounts of food our parents have brought over and you’ve got yourself a pretty decent set-up. Everyone I’ve seen has told me to call them if we need anything or want any help, but at the moment we seem to be doing alright! The owner of the apartments even gave us some eggs from his brothers’ farm and told us if we ever wanted any more he’d fill up the box for us!

Now time for some cycling, what we came here to do! I got a few rides in before the weekend, but nothing spectacular as my family were still over and I had trouble finding my way around looking at my map at every junction. Matt arrived on the Saturday morning and we got in a short ride in the morning where we were caught by another local club who were out training for the race the next day. We tagged on the back and they said we looked strong after they did a full on effort and we just rode onto the back of them...If only they knew about the cans of whoop-ass that were going to be opened all over them the following day.

Our first race would be the Prix d’ouverture, a very local 85km interclub race organised by our club. It was supposed to be more of a training race, but when we arrived everything was set-up on a fantastic scale. Barriers at the finish to hold back the crowd that was actually there, a massive podium (more on that later), and signs for the finish from 400metres to go as well as the obligatory closed roads. To try and emphasise the fact it was a training race, we did 2 laps neutralised before starting the actual distance. All they really did was make people more eager to start killing themselves...especially me. After the jostling for position in these first two laps the flag went down and we were off, off being the correct word. I was near the front and my team mate shouted me to follow his move, I duly did and we led into the first corner after about 800 metres of racing. It had been spitting rain all afternoon and the corners were getting slippy. This was found out by the 5 or so riders following us as we heard the crunching metal behind us. During the commotion another of our riders attacked to get across to us and there were 3 of us up the road with a gap. It was go time and the next 20 minutes were pretty painful. The wind was very strong which made it hard for only 3 riders doing short turns, but being from the same team there was no shirking and we held the small gap we had. In the end we started to pull away as the rest of the guys blocked anything that tried to get across to us. When we finally couldn’t see the bunch behind us I started to wonder what the hell was going on, how had 3 of us from the same team got away, it was the kind of thing you heard about but never actually happened to you. Well here it was, happening, to me. The lead cars pulled out to follow us and it was show time. We kept working, slowly pulling away then dropping back and then pulling away again as the bunch tried to react. With 4 laps to go we were told it was 42 seconds back to one person chasing and the bunch was nowhere. ‘On va gagner’ the more optimistic team mate said to me.

Then, with 3 laps to go, the gap started to come down, 32 seconds, 20 seconds...what was happening? This wasn’t in the script, the three of us had been out front since kilometre 0 and the legs were starting to fade, especially into the strong headwind round the back of the course. We put the pace up as much as we could, but the bunch was still coming back at us fast. We held it until just before the bell, when we were caught by the peloton that had now been diminished to about 15 riders. I was highly annoyed, all that work for nothing, or so I thought. The counter-attacks came instantly; I sat in following the wheels having lost my winning thoughts as soon as we were caught. The group split all over the place but never really with much conviction and came back together as easily as it had come apart. We then hit the windy section round the back and a few of our guys went up the road including Matt, I left it and covered everything else with one of the guys who had been in the break with me. My legs were hurting by now and cramp was setting in from somewhere, but I soldiered on and started to think about the sprint. I’d worked out we would be coming in for about 5^th place and thought this was definitely worth a pop, so with 200 metres to go I jumped on the right to try and get a few lengths on everyone. It worked...for about 100 metres, then everyone started to come back on me. 1 put a length and a half into me and then other just made it round which put me in 7^th.

There was better news though. Matt had attacked round the back part of the course and managed to stay away until the finish, winning his first race in France. The team had also taken 2^nd and 3^rd in an impressive display, even if it was only an opening season race. I had to go on the podium as translator, even though I hadn’t actually won anything but enjoyed it all the same. It’s all good for the moral anyway, even in the knowledge that next week will be much harder...and longer...and hillier. I should be ready for it, hopefully anyway, maybe this time I’ll win, who knows, although I don’t mind being podium translator, so as long as matt doesn’t learn French I’m ok.

Until next time,

A plus.