Monsieur Top 20

Another week, another blog, so much to tell you about, so little time, so near, yet so far, when in Rome...I only posted my last blog a few days ago and yet lot’s of action has taken place. The first thing to tell you about is how me, Matt and Nathan all took part in the French National Sport...Striking. It was a nice sunny afternoon and we had the door open contemplating what to have for tea, when, all of sudden we were interrupted by some disturbing noises. So because we’re brave and inquisitive, we wanted to find out what was making them, was it a street party? Was it a large gathering of people talking at each other through megaphones? Was it an auction in the middle of the road? No, it was none of these, it was a strike, like I said earlier. We stood there watching from the side of the road wondering what it was all about, no one seemed particularly angry, in fact it was pretty docile. We decided to take up a more comfortable viewing point on a bench as there wasn’t much going on, but soon there was some movement and the long bunch of people started walking past us. We watched, commenting on the differences in commitment, some look embarrassed to be there, whereas others made as much noise as they could. Once they had all walked past we decided to follow them, only to find they were going so slowly, we were soon amongst them. Obviously more observation was necessary, so we stealthily moved into the bunch unnoticed. From here we could really see the action, people chatted happily, I’m not sure about what, possibly the weather or maybe what they were having for dinner. But they definitely weren’t talking about the protest they were taking part in. Fortunately for us they took us down an interesting street we hadn’t been down yet, it was actually quite liberating to walk down the middle of what is usually a busy road, no wonder there are so many of these things over here. After a short walk we stopped outside some official looking building and instantly everyone began to disperse, no demands to be met, no hostages taken, all a bit disappointing really. So we headed home for tea, having had our bit of excitement for the day.

We decided the next step after cooking was to grow our own food, unfortunately the closest thing we have to a patch of soil to grow things in around our apartment is the dirt we’ve washed off our bikes. This put quite a dent in our aspirations of self-sufficiency, so we had to tone down our hopes and instead opted to grow our own herbs to use for cooking. But for this we still needed some soil and we weren’t about to pay for some stuff that covers a third of the Earth. So instead we commenced Operation Dig and Run. Fougeres isn’t a 4 star Ville Fleuri for nothing and the soil the plants grow in is top quality stuff. We filled up enough Tupperware pots to accommodate the amount of seeds Matts mum had kindly sent us and scarpered, they won’t miss the soil and besides, we need it more than them.

Several Recipes have now been written and hopefully will be put up with this blog, I suggest you try all of them...at once. You’ll definitely not regret it. I’ll keep adding them as we keep cooking and you can enjoy the same delights as us this summer! This week also saw the recommencement of my other pastime, painting. Last year I forgot to take my paintings over and canvasses might have been a problem to transport on a plane anyway. But this year, with my parents driving me over, I fitted a few in along with my paints with the intention or literally creating a work of art. And now I have. The composition includes one of the more imposing turrets of the castle standing over one of the more modern buildings during twilight. The sky is quite dramatic and overall I’m pleased, hopefully I can upload a picture of it but I guarantee nothing.

Now to the small matter of racing, and race we did. This time it was a pretty short 110km effort with 135 other guys. It involved 50km of riding round the country side with 13 laps of a particularly horrible finishing circuit that resembled a crit more than anything. All started off ok, I was nicely placed, followed a few moves, nothing to shake a stick at mind. Then suddenly there was a move I wasn’t in, I assumed we had guys in it so looked for counters of which there were few. This move started to ride off so I was a little worried but then a team mate came up and told me we had two guys in it, thank goodness. A few minutes later I saw one of the teammates who was supposed to be in the break...hmmmm...Then another minute or so after that I saw the other guy was supposed to be ahead. The same guy who had told me we had guys in the break then rode up to me and told me we had no one in the break. Darn.

Working was now the order of the day, but not before we tried to launch a few moves to get a group going across to the leaders. After this failed we tried to get in some sort of order at the front doing some through and off, unfortunately we weren’t all of similar strength and soon there were only 3 or so of us doing the pulling. Not ideal when there are 15 guys up the road all doing a bit of work. Luckily another team had missed out on the action and helped out so we kept the break at about a minute. While this was happening we moved onto the finishing circuit, I hadn’t really moved from the front since we started working and after 3 laps of the circuit I was in something of a state. I dropped back and began to realise just how bad I was feeling. I kept moving further backwards until I could see the cars behind, this wasn’t a good day. I tried to move up now and again, but my legs really didn’t want to do it. Meanwhile I could hear through the speakers that the break was being pulled back to around 25 seconds, but I was too far back to see them and my eye’s weren’t in a seeing mood anyway, in fact, most of body didn’t want to do what I was telling it to.

Getting towards the end I started to see some of our guys moving backwards after doing their work, I wish I could have been up there with them, but I really had very little there. With 3 to go one of our strongest guys who was also on a bad day but was working anyway told me to do try and do whatever I could to help Matt (forgot to mention we were doing all this work to give Matt a shot at winning). This was all the inspiration I needed and so I shot to the front hoping I’d get some kind of second wind. I didn’t stop moving up and hit the front on probably the hardest bit of the circuit, going all out in an attempt to split up for a counter attack to go clear. It didn’t work the first time so I dropped back for about 30 seconds and went again this time using up my afterburners to make it hard. This time it split, not much, but enough. Matt put in a strong counter, 3 others went with him and that was it, my job done. Or so I thought.

I stayed near the front, deciding I’d seen enough of the back for one day and followed a few little digs, but it was pretty much altogether coming into the dead left hander before the uphill sprint to the finish. I was about 5^th wheel and opened up the demon sprint for the finish coming in 3^rd, apparently 19^th overall. A far too good result for the way I felt, which is always a bonus. Next week I plan on feeling much better and winning by several minutes

Also, well done to Mark Cavendish who won Milan- San Remo for what should hopefully be the first of many times, that is until I start to do it.

Until next time,

Stay sweet.