bar code what?

So I started to check out Scotty G's (sounds like a rap singer.. "Scotty G") website on bar code entries and stuff... good lord. Only in France can you get a car that runs on red wine, well only in the US can you get bar-code registration. What is wrong with those ameircan's? Why do they have to keep coming up with nice easy ways of doing thing that increase efficiency? What's wrong with the good old French system on mailling in some scrap of paper that the organiser may or may not get in time...? Pfff.... actually in France the team enters you, but you know what I mean.

I'm going to have to sit down and read that interview properly some time. But first... Pizza and movie night!

And PS: a big thought goes out to G who's mom has just moved to New Mexican and she's feeling a little down.

shit intervals and red wine fuel

Pheww... had my doctor's appointment, finally! So now that my back has been seen to I feel like I've been beaten up. I'm scared to move in case it pops back out again. Oh well. So I have another appointment Friday anyway.

So I went out for a spin to see how I felt, did some hill intervals. I thought I was feeling OK until I hit the intervals... then I found out I was riding like shit today. JP was feeling pretty good, so that didn't help. :-)

Anyway, tonight is a Pizza and movie night at Jay's (Jean Yves, for those of you who know the film buff no introduction is needed; for those of you who have been over, well.. Jay is a film buff.) :-)

Here's something some of you might like, especially the Americans. One of my teammates apparently drive a total piece of shite Volkswagen Polo... that runs off... get this... RED WINE!!!!!! I haven't seen this thing yet, but I gotta check that out! It's Mathieu Lamonte's (the Credit Agricole dude), so... I'll even try and get some pics. Apparently if you sit behind it it actually smells like red wine.. great.. only in France!

Tomorrow I finally get my back checked out. I can't wait.. I'll finally be able to ride fully again. Fewww... great time, some back cracking action.

Montastruc (Monte se Truc)

Grand Prix de Montastruc. A pretty big early season race near Toulouse. A fairly warm day graced the race as a good field prepared for the 2006 edition of the race. Race distance: 140k or something, fairly standard.

Click on pics for a larger view.





Russian Pro Team Omnibike get ready



French Pro Team Jean Floc'h showed up with a dimished team, but managed a good showing


JP learns the importance of good positioning the hard way.




Navigators Pro Russian Oleg Grishkine graced the race with a far from impressive performance.


But it beats going round in circles at some US NRC Crit!

But who knows, maybe he got off the plane last night... or maybe there could be a spot for Darren over there sooner than we think.

Here Oleg wears the Russian National jersey.

John Parks and ex Credit Agricole rider Mathieu Lamote suffered the pace today.

While Julien Shick does a good race but sadly finishes in the field as he is caught

Swedish Aubervillier Pro John Nilson chases to get back on. This is the same team good old Patty Jonker raced for. Not sure Pat would recognize it... doubt he cares either... doesn't care about much does old Pat.. except sleeping "eyy".



CACastelssarasin Bouygues lead the chase group

Pro team Aubervillier (once known as Big Mat) lead the chase

CACastelssarasin cover the crash

AG2R Pro Stephane Pouilles rode a great race but was caught on the line and lost his 4th spot. Stephane joined AG2R at the end of last year, and will be splitting his time between the AG2R Develpment team (Albi Velo Sport) and the French National Team until August when he will join AG2R full time.

Stephane put in a great performance racing agresively and spending a lot of the day in the break, not bad for a sprinter!

At the end of the day the unbelievably strong Russian Omnibike team take the win with 19 year old ???? Kalashnikov. The team was all over the race today (as per usual). They covered every move, every group on the road, and got multiple riders in every break. Here the distroyed the main break to form a 3 man group in the final 10k of the race. With 2 Russians in the leading 3 man group they took the win "easily". The team has adepth, with youth such as today's winer ? Kolashnikov (what a name), Olympian Ivan Terrenin and many others who's names all sound pretty much the same. You can check their not so interesting website out on www.omnibike.ru Good luck.

More pictures might follow if I can be arsed to put them up. It gets a bit boring posting so many pics. :-)

Montastruc Training

Great. So my back is messed up again. I don't know what I did to it, but I'm totally blocked. It's so painful I wasn't able to sleep last night. Arghh... I hate this shit. I got an appointment with the doctor, but it's on Monday.

So yesterday (Thursda) I didn't have class, so JP and I went and joined some of the rest of the team to pre ride sunday's Grand Prix George Pinel course over in Montastruc. 7 of us hit the road with a follow car once again. It was rather cloudy, but it didn't rain on us. The course is mainly flat, and you ride along hill ridges for HOURS... it's a really hard Belgian style race. Lots of wind, open corners, narrow roads etc etc. There's only a couple hills, but they'll 1) be really hard as the race will hammer up them, 2) will be hard because of the change in rythem from 60k an hour on the flat to hitting a hill, and 3) the wind will play into it too. After a rather boring big loop you end up back in the start town for some small finishing loops that include a friggin WALL!!! This thing is steep and nasty.

The Montastruc wall.

Come sunday the wall will be covered in spectators 3 rows deep.

So... until monday I think I'll end up spending the days on my back with pain killers... great.

Today JP and I will probably nip into town and take care of some stuff. JP need to return something to a store in Albi; he's also got damaged threads on this crank arm, so we'll have to go to some bike shops and see if anyone has some kind of cheap crankset.

Anyway... I'm going back to South Park.

oh yeah.. how about that tour of cali.. huh.. heh.. great stuff. That's gonna be a great race. I hope cycling.tv gets coverage of it soon...

Nice... great.. yep.. uh huh

So JP got back last night. Turns out he actually had a couple pretty good races. Yesterday's stage 2 was cut short due to bad weather having brought down a tree or something... the race was even on national news because of the bad conditions. HE go in a couple a breaks etc.
Marion (our DS) sent me an e-mail and she seemed pretty happy with John, so, all is good.
There's plenty to tell, but JP will put up a post today probably on his own diary with more details.

Right now it is time for morning coffee and shit shooting....

... then some work and school.

Thursday some of the team are going to check out the Montastruc course. I won't be racing that event but I might joing them on recon as I think I'm free of classes that day. Should be sweet!

Rainshine

Today Alphonce called at some unearthly time in the morning to tell me he and Andouard (the custom frame manufacturer) were going on a ride and they'd come by and pic me up. By the time I had realized that annoying ringing was the phone, it was too late. So I got up in a daze, called him back and found out I had to eat and get my ass in gear pretty quickly to be ready in time.

So 5 of us rolled out for an EARLY ride. After about 20 mins it started raining on us big time. We were totally soacked. To make things worse I felt like crap on the bike. I could hardly pedal. After about 1 hour I loosen up and started to feel pretty good. I left the group in Albi and headed hom alone pushing pretty hard to get in a good workout. Not only was I now feeling pretty good, but the heavens seemed to copy me.. it turned from miserable rain to blinding sunshine. In fact the whole day has been that way. Rain, sun, rain ,sun, rain.

Hopefully JP didn't get any rain on the races down in the Basque country today. He just called to say they were on their way home. He should be back around 10 or 11pm.

I asked how the races had gone, he said "not too bad, erm.. interesting.. I mean, whatever, I'll tell you about it when I get back...". So there you have it. About as vague as it can be.

I'm tired.. hungry too. Ugh, tomorrow is school again. Pfff.... hey, at least the weather is slowly getting better these day. Woohoo, won't be long before we'll be riding in the sunshine and getting skin cancer. Sweet.

There's a big party/night out/ thing on thursday for all the English majors... I don't know if I'll go. PRobably not, it'll mean getting home later, not being able to drink cos I'll be driving.. ugh. It would be cool to let everything go for once though. I know if I go I'll get plastered, spend the night god knows where, then regret it because I can't ride as well the next day. Riding is much more fun than drinking.. yeah, I'll go riding, screw the night out!

Steph', training for his operation


As for me.. I felt pretty dead for some reason today. Shame because it was a nice day out there. Stephane came over and we went out for a little spin. That suited us fine, I was tired and needed some recovery, and Steph' is getting operated on in a few days for a Hernia, so he wanted to take it easy.

Maybe my doctor's visit and "spinal trauma" yesterday combined with the riding tired me out...

Apart from that I ate shit loads of chocolate today.. hmmm.. .nice!






Sim takes one of his cutomary frequent pee stops.

News from racin' JP

I just spoke to JP. Today was his first BIG race with the Pros. He said things couldn't have gone worse. At the drop of the flag, there was a crash, he was cought behind it and spent the whole race playing catch up. The race ended with 5 finishing loops in town, he did 1 loop and dropped out. There are 200 riders on the start line of these races, and once you get dropped it is VERY hard to get back on. Even though the race caravan is VERY long in these races, with not only all the team cars, but sponsor cars, press cars, commisairs, VIPs etc etc, which all make it easier to get back on, it is still very hard. Trust me, I know, I was dropped quite a few times in those races a couple years ago, and bouncing through the caravan and getting back on is VERY hard. Even when you de get back on you have usually felt SO much energy on the road that you are pretty much doomed anyway.

They have luckily changed the format a bit from when I did those races, so now you can still race Sunday if you don't finish Saturday. That means that John can still race tomorrow's 2 stage. They were off to get some food, before a good nights sleep in preparation for day 2 of the Essor Basque tourture fest 2006! :-)

Pro teams present

My day ended with a trip to the Osteopath Doctor... this guy used to work with the National rowing team. He's strange, he always seems really grumpy, but he does a great job. He messed around the my back and pelvis, hopefully that will take care of my knee. I'll make sure I keep stretching it.

I just got of the phone to JP. They are still in the car (it is 8pm) driving from the Mediterranean to the Basque country. He seems OK, maybe a little apprehensive about these races. Just finishing these races is no mean feat. There will be 3 full blown UCI Pro teams: the French Jean Floc'h team, the Russian Dynamo team (With Olypian Ivan Terrenin and some guys who's name I can't remember who won Gold on the track in Athens) and the Belgian Flanders Team. Also there will be a who's who of top level amateur teams. The amateur teams are equivalent to US Divition 3 Pro teams... only with a bigger budget and usually better riders. You can check it out at http://www.essorbasque.com/ and you can find results on http://www.velomania.net/

There are usually also some Spanish team there, like Serbitzu and Euskadi, but it doesn't look like they will be there this time. In the past FDJ, AG2R and RAGT have also done it, but they must all be somewhere else... Tour of Portugal on Tour du Haut Var I guess.

Ok, I gotta go eat and stretch..
later y'all.

The Fench Jean Floc'h Team

Belgians Flanders

Russian team Omnibike Moscow

Miles apart.

As I've been sitting in Class all week, John Parks and the rest of the team have been pilling on the miles. The team did 160k on Monday including a Time Trial race in Spain... they did 170k on Tuesday, a 90k road race in Spain followed by 70k ride home to the hotel on Wednesday... I sat on my ass all 3 days! John seems to be getting on fine. I've spoken to him a few times, and also have been constant contact with Marion our Directeur Sportif. She's worried he will end up feeling left out because he doesn't speak the language... but I think JP knew that coming in. Other than that she says he's getting on fine. Some of the younger guys are getting tired, but it sounds like JP is still going strong. This weekend will be his first BIG race. And when I say big it is BIG.. there are some Pro teams there etc. So we'll see how that goes.

YEsterday rainned all day here, so I did intervals indoors. Today I met my buddy Alphonce for a ride. Alphonce (AB) is looking pretty good. He's seriouse about getting selected for the National MTB championships. One of the first selection races was this past weekend. AB won the race. It was his first victory at that level, and he isn't even on top form yet. Hopefully he'll get selected for Nationals, and he might even pull off a good ride there. Rumour has it that he will even get a brand new fully custom, hand built bike in time for Nationals.. SWEET!
Quite a few of you who've come over here know AB; he's a really cool guy and I would love to see him pull something special off!


The long road to fitness.



So I met AB for a ride, we got in 3 hours. At first I didn't feel great, but after a while I felt pretty solid. We did a loop with a bunch of short steep hills... I then left him in Albi and headed home via the hills of Carlus... these are a series of 4 hills that are at 9%. As soon as I got home I jumped on my TT bike and went out for a Time Trial test/interval. I did pretty well considering I already had 3 hours of riding under my belt. I averaged 288Watts.. I wanted to average 300Watts, but that's Ok. So I got in about 4 hours today.. not a bad day.

The Time Trial controle pannel: I like to get as much info durring myTT tests.


It was pretty windy out there today. I have noticed over the past couple years that I am unable to put out much wattage in a head wind. IF there is no wind or a tail wind I can put out big wattage, but not as a head wind. I've tried changing position, cadence etc.. but it chances nothing. Hmmm...

Tomorrow should be a long one.. but they are calling for rain, so we'll see.

I'm gonna go call JP and have a chat to him about tomorrow's race. These races really are big and pretty scary. They are like the biggest Pro races in the US. So I'll chat to him about a few things and see how he's feeling about tomorrow.

France is still a country of tradition: Sheepdogs are still common in these parts.

Life goes on.

Some days are like that.. there's something about life that just gets you down. Anyway, I had classes this morning, then came home and headed out for the usual ride. My knee was hurting a bit today. I got in a nice little 80k (50miles) under blue skies and sunshine. The first day in I don't know long that I was able to go out without having a wear a big winter hat.
It was good to get out, get some air, and try to change my thoughts a little. I felt like I was being followed all day, like I was in someone's shadow... I don't know, I can't explain it.

I called JP this evening to see how he's getting on. The team rode over to the Time Trial today, did the time trial, then rode home. Apparently it was a little longer than they had planned. John says they rode about 170k today.

The TT went OK, nothing special... the ride was good and he says he's settling in and getting on with people. It sounded like he was feeling a little better about everything, was finding his feet and getting to know the team, so that's good. Tomorrow they will be doing another fairly long ride, then race on Wednesday... I'll be sitting in school getting no faster at all!

Recovery... + JP head south.

After 2 pretty hard days of riding, today was a nice little recovery day. So JP and I spent the morning drinking coffee and watching TV. After that we went out for a nice little spin down by the Tarn river and around the lake at Ambialet, where John tried to improve his bike handling skills at a BMX park.





He still needs improvement!!!!






The good thing about recovery days is that you get to come home and sit on your butt with a big plate of steeming hot food. We threw together some rice and Omlets and headed back to the TV for some more relaxing. It's a hard life...

John packed his stuff up and we headed into Gaillac for a while to take care of a few tings, then met up with Christophe Cousinie who picked JP up to drive him down to the Border town of Amelie les Bains where the team training camp is. Again I'm not going because of school... Arghhhh!

As John drove off to spend 3 hours sitting in a car with someone he wasn't going to be able to say one word do seeing as he speaks no french, and Christophe (Couscous) speaks no english, I think John was actually pretty nervous. He's got a pretty heavy week ahead of him. Not only will he meet his teammates and have to try and fight the language barrier, but he will also be piling on the miles in the Pyrenees on the training camp, as well as doing his first races for his new team. Monday he races in Spain, Wednesday he races in Spain again, then he might race in the Basque country next weekend, not sure yet, they'll see how he does in Spain and go from there.

JP heads off to Spain with teammate Couscous.

ERhmmm.. riding.

Over the weekend JP and I have been hitting the roads. Nothing unusual about that for JP who's been piling on the miles all winter, but it's done me the world of good. Friday we headed out for 3 hours of hard riding, a lot of hills and some wind over towards the Cordes and Penne valley area. Then in the evening we had a totally wild night out!!! Oh yeah, we went out for a night on the town... we went out to BINGO!!!! hmmmm... it was good for John as it helped him learn his numbers, so now when the team yell over the radio some race numbers to follow, or KM markers John will know what's going on. We got it so totally late from our night in the city, in twas like midnight.. straight up.. for real.. midnight. Good lord we are SO wild down here in southern France. And that's not the best, the totaly hip and happening thing is that we STILL went out training the next day! Are we wild or what?!!!

So today (Saturday) we got up, had coffee, you know.. the tough life. Then we rode into Albi and joined a group ride. We got in a little over 3 hours, cam home, then went straight out for another easy spin, like 45 mins or so. I took my TT bike.

You heard of Dirt Crits? Know about CycloCross?

well check out the new rage in France: CycloDirt TT!

All in all a good day, some 4 + hours of training.

Tomorrow John goes down to the team training camp in the Pyrenees. He'll race a TT in Spain monday, a road race in Spain Wednesday, then team training... then I will most likely do some BIG races the next weekend in the Basque country before coming back, either here or to the team house.

As for me, well I'll pack my big butt on a seat in class and do that thing... hmm.. :-(
If all goes well John has the opotunity to get selected by the team for the Tour of Majorca, a tour on one of the sunny spanish islands.. major cool race!!!! I'm SO jealouse!!!

The eagle has landed...

John Parks arrived a couple days ago. I've spent the last few days in class.
Today we went to Albi and got a bunch of stuff done. We had to get some medical tests done for John's license, get a few things taken care of. It took the whole day.

In the evening just before sun down we got out for a little spin, that was kind of good.

Sitting bike, but chairs mainly.

A week of mainly sitting on my ass listening to some dude drone on about something dreadfully dull, interrupted only by the odd class of something fun and actually interesting. As per everything in my life, it appears that even university is a world of extremes, either extremely dull, or extremely interesting. We only got one result back so far from that interminable spell of exams a little while ago, and it wasn’t good. It wasn’t disastrous, and it is in a subject that really isn’t my strong point… I think my French spelling let me down some, anyway…

So Thursday I got out on the bike finally to do some Simeon Green style training… if you don’t know what that is, it is a form of training dubbed “catch up training”. I always feel like I am behind everyone else who races, and I feel that every time I go out, it isn’t just to train, but to try and catch up. That’s a little unfair to myself and I think I need to get that thought out of my head. I’m generally doing a lot less riding than in the past, but I’m doing longer rides for this time of year and in the winter weather. Actually my asthma has improved over the past couple months, so I’m able to train better. I hope it lasts. So I got the new road bike out for only it’s second ride. In 4 degree weather I headed over to the beautiful town of Cordes that all of you who have been over know well (that’s the town with the cobbled climb). From there I rode on over Vaour


In the Aveyron valley, and headed back via the hills. A great ride with a fair bit of climbing, some great views enhanced by the snow still sitting by the site of the road on the more shaded sections.

After 3.5 hours I got home, took the TT bike out for a very short spin to check my position that I have been playing with (not happy, not more alterations) and then hit the weight bench. I somehow managed to smack my knee on the stem of the bike during a little sprint today, it hurt a bit… and then while lifting weights my knee made a rather scary noise a bit like material ripping. My legs really hurt on Friday. France's very own Stonehenge on the road to Vaour

Friday I did a little easy ride, spent some time working on my TT bike position, making sure everything was UCI legal etc.





Measuring up: fitting the bike into the UCI limits












Then I did some school work and finished off with a nice little trip to the movies.
Today (Saturday) I feel pretty rough. My back has been playing up again and my knee still hurts a bit. I’ll be heading out in the cold and wet weather for a 4 hour ride with a group in Albi today. I’ll start and see how my various body parts feel and take it from there.