to the hills.....!

Time Flies!!! I’ve been back home a little over a week already! Nuts.

Well, you know it’s summer when:

- You sneeze every minute from hay-fever,
- The narrow French roads are melting and your tires make a sticky whirring noise as you ride through the wet tar.
- The Boucles du Tarn is tomorrow
- Tomatoes are starting to grow in my garden
- I actually find sweat dripping down my face on a recovery ride
- You start having to think about the Tour de France
- You eat more veg than anything else
- You can’t find your leg and arm warmers
- You’re happy!

Tomorros is the 150km Boucles du Tarn. Probably my favourit race of all time. Big names like Vinokourov, VandeVelde, Bocharov, Jalabert, etc etc have won this race in the past. I’ve always wanted to do well at this race but have either not been in shape due to whatever reason, or have had to miss the race. The only time I was fit for it was last year, when we had a guy in the break, which blocked the rest of us a bit, and finished 17th (team mate finished 9th) and the rest of the team where behind us. Top 20 it that race is pretty darn good, and I was pretty flippin’ happy with that.
Tomorrow however we have more riders that spots in the team cars, so a couple of us will have to ride 30k back to our own cars/the hotel. I’m pretty sure I’ll be one of those riders. :-)

Then Sunday morning I’m leaving at 5am for the 5 hour drive to Barcelona to work with Thompson Bike tours at TransPyrenees! We’ll be doing some big rides through my beloved Pyrenees. Days of 150 and 160k, (I think the shortest day 97km) some days with 3 or 4 major climbs. I can’t wait!!!

Back home... and racin'

The flight back home to France via Germany was pretty painless for once. Although I’ll miss a lot of people, and although it is sad the “adventure” has come to a close, it’s nice to be back home. Nice to be able to drive down a narrow road at 80 mph. Nice to not have a slow person in a big powerfull Chevy stop on the side of the road because you are driving on the same stretch of extremely wide road. Nice to find all my beloved cheeses again, Nice to find my collection of wheels and endless bike crap… best of all, nice to get back to racing!

I Left the US Tuesday evening, (Where Greg announced over airtraffic controle to everyone that he was wishing me good luck for my upcoming races) arrived back in the south of France on a wonderfully warm and sunny Wednesday. Then raced the Team Time Trial Championships Thursday.
I left for the race Thursday on my own as the event wasn’t too far from my house and I was meeting the team there. I got off late… then realized I had forgotten my cycling shoes… so turned back around to get them.
Then as I got off the motorway I got all disorientated and took a wrong turn, effectively going back the way I had just come. Anyway, I eventually got there nice and late… but as it turned out our start time wasn’t for a couple hours anyway.

The race was fun. We had a really good group of 4 (3 had to finish) and we rode better than we have ever ridden before. Technically for a TTT we couldn’t have done much better…Ironically however, we didn’t do as well as in the past or as expected. Although we rode better and although our time was better than the previous 2 years, we only finished 4th. A pretty crappy place to finish. I’d almost rather be 6th and clearly out of it. The last 2 years we finished 3rd and 2nd… and this year, no medal. :-(

Oh well.
Next will be the Boucles du Tarn, then off to ride from one end of the Pyrenees to the other with Thomson bike Tours for 8days, then it’ll be time for the International Tour of the Pryenees.. Hmm… I might need to get in some climbing before then, The flatlands of the US won’t be helping me much up the Aspin and company.

Thanks to everyone everywhere. The Shep for putting us up in AUS, to Greg for the hospitality in the US, to Todd for the hospitality and the use of a car! The Rick for “everything” to Tim for all the obvious stuff, to Lisa for keeping me somewhat sane, to Jim for the beers… to Chris Hayes for giving me endless SHIT, to JP for making the racing fun and to Haymarket and NCVC for having me guest ride with them.

Now, it’s 5am, I’m awake for some reason (Jetlag I’m guessing) and it’s time for a coffee watching the sun come up over the hills behind my house.

Rain and wine.

My previous post “tour of Ephrata Summer is here” was a little overstated to say the least… it has done NOTHING but rain the whole time since then! I’ve pretty much been off the bike… watching the rain a falling. Not much to say or report on that. Only about 2 weeks now before I’m back home in Europe… I have Team Time Trial champs in 2 weeks and I’m not even really riding at the moment. But as they say, “c’est la vie”.

In the meantime I’ve been having lots of coffees and going wine tasting. So you really can’t complain about that!!!!

Actually finished a CRIT!

As I‘ve said before, I hate crits with a vengeance! I haven’t finished a crit for about 3 years. Crits in Europe are not “real” bike races and are more of a summer time “show”. They are certainly never included in a stage race. So it was with much trepidation than I entered the second day of the Tour of Ephrata. The morning Team Time Trial I was actually quite looking forward to. We VERY nearly missed our start with NCVC. A few of us went to take a pee and next thing you know they are counting down our start time. We literally only JUST made it. The first section of the TTT was flat, then it turned uphill. The first section went not too badly for us at NCVC. It’s always extremely hard to do a TTT when you don’t know each other too well or how everyone rides. But we did a pretty good job for the first half of the course. Then once the road went uphill it was a little harder to judge everyone’s state of freshness. Especially after a pretty hard race the day before. But we did the best we could considering we don’t ride together regularly, and at the end of the day it was a fun event. The afternoon event wasn’t looking so good… a 4 corner extremely short course Crit… and with US riders who spend 80% of their time riding these kinds of events.

I must say I am actually very proud to say I actually managed not only to hang on, but also to stick it out through the intense boredom of going round in endless circles and seeing the same scenery over and over again… I actually finished a Crit.

They say a picture tells a thousand words. And there is no doubt that this picture a friend of mine send me the other day certainly expresses the pain I was going though in that crit better than any words can. Now that would be a pretty cool pic if I were to tell you I had attacked and was off the front solo going for the win… but truth be told, I was dangling at the back all day suffering like a dog… (see pic).

Thanks again to the NCVC guys for a great weekend of racing!