So.. here's a race report I rote for good old Scotty's RacingUnion website (www.racingunion.com)... including Scotty's little editor's note that made me laugh pretty hard.. point is.. he's right, that's what it is, but it hadn't occured to me that people might not know it. :-)
race report from the Classique Nord Charente The day before Paris Roubaix, is a "mini Paris Roubaix" in north western France.
Thursday 7th April, I get an e-mail from my DS who has just returned from the tour of Majorca saying that I am racing both Saturday and Sunday. But Saturday is not just any race.
Friday 8th, I load up my car and drive up to Castelsarrasin to the team house where I sill spend the weekend. John is at the house (of course, he lives there) and so is another team mate who is from central France in Poitier and had to spend most of the week down south for some tests being run in Toulouse. A number of other people are also at the house this weekend as Saturday morning will be an early start. We are supposed to have a team meeting Friday evening to discuss our racing schedule for the rest of the season... but in typical French style, the meeting is first put off for about an hour, and eventually put off all together. Fearing that the team meal that night might be a big plate of simple pasta with no sauce etc, John and I sneaked out to get some food, and I also needed a new cassette and some brake pads. So we hit the bike shop which was miraculously still open. I got what I needed and we headed towards the shops. Realizing that if we got some food, everyone would eat it thinking it was team food, we decided against getting actual food and sneaked into the local McDonalds for some rather inappropriate fare. Making ourselves feel better about our sinful act by recounting the story of Chris Horner's fight to get a burger and fries during last years Tour de France, we munched our food quickly and headed back to the house. The guys were waiting for us to go and eat... so we all piled into the team cars and went out to a cafeteria for dinner, paid for by the team. So John and I got in 2 meals that evening. Americans. puh. (** - see editor's note below)
Saturday, the big day. The team loaded the vehicles and got everything ready for the long drive up to northern France for the Classic Nord Atlantique. 2 cars and a mini-bus, 3 drivers and more wheels than you can shake a stick at accompanied the 11 rider team for this mini Paris Roubaix. After about 2 hours of driving, we stopped for lunch. John and I looked at each other and people started to pull out Tupperware full of food, we had prepared nothing. A moment of panic went through us until we found out that 4 or 5 of the other guys also had nothing. So the team paid for our cafeteria lunch. The choice was limited, and we needed some kind of carbs. So I went for fries and sausage, far from ideal. Back into the vehicles we piled for more driving. Eventually we get there. The team helpers get all the bikes out, get everything sorted, fill the water bottles, get our race numbers etc etc. I had put on my new chain, so I got changed and went off to shake the legs out after that long drive. 5 meters out of the parking area and of course the chain is slipping all over the old cassette. So I go hunting in the back of the van, all we have in 9 speed is a cosmic carbon with a TT cassette, so I put the cassette on my wheel and off we go to race 130km of dirt on a 11-19 cassette that isn't shifting very well anyway.
The race gets underway with a 10km neutral start, after about 20km is the first dirt section. There are 15 in total, each one named and with a big sign at the entrance with the name and distance up for all to see. The first hour of racing was at 44km average, and there was no hiding in the field, it was strung out all the way. I really didn't feel well at first, and not long into the race, that greasy sausage and fries started to come up. I threw up 3 times and got dropped twice. I sat in the cars for a while and waited until Marion pulled up in our team car. For some reason I was really thirsty and had gotten through a whole water bottle in only 30k. She told me that there was a little group of riders behind me with Thibault Marc (one of our guys) in there, so I could wait for them... she was a little surprised when I asked her for a water bottle this early into the race. In fact you are not allowed to be fed within the first 50km of the race, but I'm guessing no one saw because we didn't get a fine. Then I worked my way through the caravan and got back into the race. Sadly a little later the food came up again to say hello, and I was off the back, this time with Couscous (Christophe Cousinie, one of the area heroes who is on our team this year), he's not in great form at the moment as he was sick over the winter. I sat in and let the other guys who were with us do a little work, but seeing it wasn't doing much I took control of things. I worked my way through the caravan and got back into the race once again. I think Couscous followed me but the other guys dropped. About half way into the race, a break had got away early and we didn't have anyone in it. As we headed up a little hill John attacked at the perfect moment, it strung us all out and I wanted to kill him because here came the food again. Sadly for John it came to nothing. So we put 3 guys on the front to try and close the gap to the group off the front, the 3 were Beaudet, Parks and Trouche, then we had 3 other guys sitting in the field. As we hit another dirt section everyone flatted, there were guys all over the place. Seemed like all but 2 or 3 of us from our team flatted. A few meters later John got a flat too. This race was absolute carnage back in the team cars. Cars were stopping all over the place, they were running out of wheels, there was dust everywhere.
Seeing as we no longer had our 3 guys up front I got myself up to the front and tried to control the attacks. But by the 2nd section of dirt near the front I started to drop back as people let gaps open. Frankly from this point on I don't know what happened. There were cars all over the place, riders in ones and twos, guys crashing in the middle of the "road", motorbikes going through farmers' fields. I do remember being amazed at the amount of spectators out watching the dirt sections. We would come crashing over the dirt, through a field out in the middle of nowhere, and there were all these people just standing in the middle of a field in the north of France cheering a bike race. Well the rest of the race is a blur of dust and confusion. All I know is that less than half of the field finished. Only 2 of us from our team finished. I was quite happy to be one of them even if that northern style of riding with lots of accelerations isn't what I'm best at. I actually didn't flat. Although a lot of it is luck, I think that my years of mountain biking really helped me to choose the right gear and adopt a pedal style that minimized the risk of flatting. I was quite amazed actually because before the race I pulled out a big chunk of glass that left a big deep hole in my rear tire.
I'm pretty bummed for John who flatted, and then (maybe stupidly) waited for a team mate who also got a flat. John was riding a very smart race. Now he wouldn't have been able to do anything about the group that was off the front and stayed off the front, but I feel pretty sure John was on a good day and could have got himself a top 20 finish... which in that race would have been more than respectable.
I may not have got any flats, but I did crack my rim. I'm pretty annoyed as I now don't have a rear wheel. That was my race wheel, and I only have a really heavy and crappy shimano rear wheel now. Sucks. I also tore my saddle. After the race, it was back in the cars for the long drive home. We got in at 11pm, and it was off to do it all over again early the next morning for 150km of racing with a slightly different team consisting of 5 riders who had done the Classic Nord Charente. John and myself were there, but that's a different story. Another slightly modified team race on Monday as well. I wasn't part of it, John was the only one to do all 3 days. He didn't have to, but he chose to go monday anyway, and was totally toasted.
Classic Nord Charente (Paris Roubaix) in a few words and numbers:
130km
15 dirt sections1
st hour at 44kph
41kph average for the whole race.
website: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.baudouin/velo.htm
France 3 coverage: http://www.racingunion.org/ct.ashx?id=bad5a8f3-2b8b-492b-91d2-5496b08759eb&url=http%3a%2f%2fjt.france3.fr%2fand click on 19/20 Poitou-Charentes and then click on Dimanche 09 avril.around 7minutes in Results: 1- LEBRUN Charles Henri (CC Marmande) 2- Limoges V. (Blois CAC 41) 3- Mainguenaud (Deux-Sèvres C) 22- Pozza S. (CC Castelsarrasin) 36- Siméon G. (CC Castelsarrasin)
(** editor's note - - - there is no real literal translation for what sim is giving you here: "Americans. puh." the french have a stunning array of dismissive gestures and phrases. the gestures tend to be small. you are generally not deemed worthy of any sort of vocalization or arm waving unless you run over their citroen with tractor or you're caught stealing their heating oil or groceries. as a result, the most common thing you're likely to encounter is this "puh". it's very amusing as i knew immediately what sim was talking about. to make this work, you puff out your cheeks ever so slightly, form your lips like you're going to say the letter "p" or the beginning of the word "pug" and then push the air out your lips. the rest of your face is motionless. to add emphasis, you can supplement this with an almost indiscernable shrug or a barely detectable flick of your hand. try to look off slightly from the object of your disgust. these small gestures speak volumes. oh yah, and i'll try to get some pictures up fairly soon from the race.)
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