Back in the gutter.

So far I’m still being reduced to either sitting in the dark outside closed cafes to which I have the password for their wifi connection or going round to one of the officials of the clubs houses in order to post these instalments. We are in the process of deciding whether or not to get an internet connection installed in the apartment, but I fear that by the time we decide to get it done, it will be time to go home. In the mean time we have been having some cracking games of rummy to pass the time and regularly play into the night over a warm drink...we are having such fun. We have also learnt over the past couple of weeks that French radio stations tend to play the same songs many many times over the period of a day and that Skyrock FM are particularly partial to a large amount of Akon (R’n’B artist extraordinaire), much to my distress, but Matt’s apparent joy.

If you are going to live in France and in particular, rent an apartment where the owner lives next door, try to make sure he is a friendly baker. By some amount of good fortune we have managed to do just this and so far it’s paying off quite nicely. After last week’s free cake, this week he popped in while we were cleaning the bikes and gave us a choice of several fantastic looking treats. I chose last, but apparently chose most wisely, as the toffee cream filling in my massive profiterole was much envied by the others who decided on much more average cakes.

Our cooking adventures have continued, even with some occasional repeat performances. Our latest dishes include amongst others, chocolate orange rice pudding (this has to be tasted to be believed), Lasagne (a speciality of mine...) and creamy sweet chilli pasta. We have also mixed French and English traditional foods, adding to the famous Bretonne savoury Galette...wait for it...cheese and baked beans. The outcome was incredible to say the least; I can see it being used several times over the coming months.

After a good week of training, the weekend crept up again and we were preparing for the biggest classic in Britanny, the Manche-Atlantique. 160km from one side of Britanny to the other, 2 pro teams and every other big team in the region, happy days. The order of the day was cross winds and plenty of them which meant we would be riding in the gutter for large periods of the race. It had been a while since I last experienced this, the last good memory of it being at a similar point last year when I struggled to hold wheels whenever the pace was lifted. I’ve blacked out most of the times since then as they became all too frequent. But now things are different, or at least I like to think they are.

The race started very strangely. It was all a bit...well...a bit easy really. This wasn’t anything to do with me feeling massively superior to anyone, just the fact that we were rolling along nice and steadily and even with the wind it was easy to sit in. It even slowed down to a jog at times, making it very sketchy in the 200 rider bunch. But soon the pace heated up, quite a bit, I’m not entirely sure why as I either wasn’t near enough the front to see or was trying too hard to take any notice (or see). But I imagine there were attacks going, or a team driving it at the front, something like that at least. I was holding the wheels, but others weren’t quite as fortunate and the constant high speed coupled with having to steer your bike away from the constantly nearing gutting started to get to some of the riders in front of me. This meant putting in massive amounts of effort to come round them, destroying yourself to get across the smallest of gaps. Just when you make it onto the wheel in front you think “well, they’ll ease up now surely”, then the person in front of you looses the wheel and so begins the painful cycle that is riding in the gutter.

There is only one way to avoid this. Its name is the echelon. Getting in it can save you a whole lot of trouble, unfortunately only the front 15 riders of a 200 rider bunch have the sense to get in one when the going gets tough and as a result 90% of the field spend their time in the gutter. I wasn’t in the front 15 for quite a lot of this time, but worked hard to hold on. It got very very hard for about 15 minutes and split up massively, but then everyone sat up and had a good chat and some food. Then they went really really hard again for another 15 minutes, then they sat up again and had another chat and some food. It was like interval training, but in a race. I had managed to hang on to the main bunch during the first two efforts, but just before the last one I wasn’t well placed and some bad luck and a crash put me much further back than where I should have been. The next split was decisive and I wasn’t in the right place. I moved up as quickly as possible but saw the horrible sight of the front of the front of the bunch riding away from my group. I got in our echelon as soon as I could and started to help work to pull it back. We held them for a while and kept them in sight but at the same time weren’t making any inroads on their gap.

After just about giving back hope, we moved onto the finishing circuit and the bunch slowed up massively before the first ascent of the finishing circuit hill. We latched onto the back but by now I was in a bit of state. The hill was pretty impressive, about 1.5km long, lined by masses of spectators. The same hill Valverde sprinted to victory on during last year’s Tour de France, only we didn’t go up it once, we went up it 7 times. I could tell I was in trouble on the lower bits and knew I was in trouble as we got to the top, the gaps were opening up in front of me and unlike in the cross winds I could no longer close them. My legs were dead. I chased for a lap with a small group but once we got to the hill again it was obvious it was all over. We road round just to finish in the end, it wasn’t much fun as it started to rain, but I wanted the miles in my legs. It’s a shame my legs didn’t want the miles in them.

Oh well, it shows how a small mistake can make a big difference to how your race goes. Not that I would have won anyway....or would I?...No. Next week a similar level race on the Saturday and a smaller one on the Sunday, I hope to win at least both of them.

Until next time,

In a bizzle