The last few days have been quite busy. I spent a couple days replacing my computer hard drives and reformatting computers. Computer things always take longer than you would think, and so I was up until about 2am for a couple nights running. Then just as I was doing that we lost internet here for a day or 2, which was a pain because I thought I had done something wrong with the computers and kept trying to fix it. It took me a little while to find out it was our ISP that had the problem, not me.
I have been taking it rather easy in terms of riding recently. Making sure I am fully recovered from a good batch of racing. That said you can't sit on your ass all day long. On Saturday we had a "dress rehearsal" of the Tour de France Albi Time Trial. A couple of us motorpaced over to Albi where the day really got going. Obviously I know the course and have already ridden it a few times in my life. But never have I ridden it in it's Tour de France format, and never in full flight on a TT bike. The course is hard. It was a really hot day, which it often is in Albi, so it could be like that come the day.
I have been taking it rather easy in terms of riding recently. Making sure I am fully recovered from a good batch of racing. That said you can't sit on your ass all day long. On Saturday we had a "dress rehearsal" of the Tour de France Albi Time Trial. A couple of us motorpaced over to Albi where the day really got going. Obviously I know the course and have already ridden it a few times in my life. But never have I ridden it in it's Tour de France format, and never in full flight on a TT bike. The course is hard. It was a really hot day, which it often is in Albi, so it could be like that come the day.
The 1st third of the course is a steady uphill drag which will sap your energy.
Steady uphill out of Albi
The 2nd third of the course is where things get interesting. You shoot down a fairly good descent, where there are a couple of corners the riders will really need to keep an eye on.
The long descent takes you into the town of Ambialet. As you exit Ambialet you ride the only 3km of flat of this 54km TT before shooting left and hitting a hard tree shaded climb.
The climb is fairly steep. In full TT flight the riders will be riding up it at about 30kph and it will only take about 6 mins, but it's a hard climb.
From the top of the climb it is all downhill on a wide open road. Not a descent but downhill. Here the riders will need to use some BIG gear and the speeds will be really fast and they head back into Albi for the stage finish. It ain't gonna be easy. VERY hard TT... this is one to watch on TV for sure!!!
That was a hard day, and just to make it a little bit harder I rode home, giving me over 4 hours of riding on the Time Trial bike. I was pretty tired that evening I will tell you.
So National Champs was yesterday. As some of you may know I was automatically selected for Nationals thanks to my regional championship win. But I didn't go for various reasons. And as most of you also probably know I am not a big fan of Christophe Morron's, so I wasn't overly happy to see him take the French National Champs. But whether I like him or not, he's had a very impressive month and is obviously in great form. Lets see what he can do at the Tour this year. He might be good for an solid overall performance. He won't win because in the past couple of years he's lost a lot of him TTing ability.... but he might dynamite that race somewhat.... great, so we'll have to listen to more of his terribly repetitive interviews. :-(
Until next time.... be well!
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