Left off the Team's Time Trial squad :-(

Well, it would appear I have been left off the Team's TT selection. Pretty much allways an automatic pic, and having been one of the first guys they checked availability with a couple weeks ago, I felt sure I'd be head's down on the TT bike this week. I even rode the bloody TT bike up some Pyrenean climbs as part of my preparation. But low and behold I guess they must have picked some guys who were going good in the past few weeks. Although I got a 3rd place the other day I must say I'm probably something of an unsure quantity having not raced much in the past month as I've been working quite a lot guiding trips. Darn work. :-) Oh well, c'est la vie, it's their team, still I'm a little dissapointed though.

Pyrenees training week and recent race

A WEEK IN THE PYRENEES TRAINING:
It's summer and bloody hot here. I've only raced once in the past month, (due to work with the Tour de France) but have been doing a lot of climbing and long steady efforts. So now it's time to hit a few intervals and start preparing for some TTs.

So I'm off to the somewhat cooler hights of the Pyrenees for a week of camping, walking and short explosive intervals. I'll be riding the TT bike a fair bit as well... hmmm, TT bikes in the mountains are something of a paradox.

AUGUST 15th RACE:

On the 15th I raced the Grand Prix CastelsomethingOrOther. It was one of the hottest days of the year with temps up in the 40s!!! (That's about 9000inches, half a bucket and 12 pints Farenheit for you imperial measurement users). I could tell I was lacking short sharp efforts but managed to form the main 4 man break with one other guy on the first climb of the day. A little later 5 other guys bridged the gap up to us and I had 2 teammates with me at this stage. After the second climb of the day things started splitting up and a group of 4 went up the road with my 2 teammates in it. so I sat back with 3 other guys and did nothing. After a while the other guys wanted to wait for another group of 3 or 4 who were not too far behind us. I wasn't so kean on that but with 2 guys up the road I wasn't really going to do much.

The next 30 or so km wwe chased and chased the 4 man lead group, and with 20-25k to go they were in our sights. As we apraoched the last climb of the day which pretty much took us to the finish line, one of my teammates from the lead group had popped and we caught him. With about 3k to go, I attacked up the final climb and caught one other guy from the lead break. At the end of the day my teammate up front finished 2nd, and I was 3rd. Not too bad for a first race back after about a month and half away from racing.

Lock-Jaw

No, not the new lockjaw glasses fromo Oakley, this is way less cool. A few years ago I had a problem with my jaw clicking and cracking and slipping out of place. There was a time when I could barely open my mouth to eat. That problem has been a thing of the past for the past8 or 9 years, with the odd clicking coming and going but nothing serious. At least that was the case until 4 days ago, when I awoke in the middle of the night with strong jaw pain and difficulty swallowing. It has been getting gradually worse of the past few days, and I can now barely open my mouth more than 1cm and am on liquid diet. I still awake in the middle of the night, and this thing is actually surprisingly painful. Great. Just when I wanted to sit back for a few days and stuff myself with good cheese and endless coffees, I left trying to sip food through a straw.

I need to annoy someone and get them to punch my in the face, and hopefully put the bloody thing back into place or something…

Oh well, c’est la vie. Time for coffee!

Getting high in the mountains

Another great day here in the paradise in the clouds. Today we headed out for a slightly shorter ride of 90k with the Col d’Izoard.

The Izoard is a great climb. You start off riding between sheer cliffs along a mountain river, then turn sharp left and climb for what seems like hours at around 9 and 11% to the top. The upper slopes of the Izoard are a desolate scenery of raw rocks and pain. The views are stunning! The roads are small and impressive, the whole thing is yet another epic part of cycling history.

Once again there is little to say, it’s the kind of place and climb that leaves you speechless!

This great road twists and winds intself around the Alpine mountains of the 30km climb of the Col d'Izoard.

In the words of the Fast-Show, The Izoard. NICE!

There’s only one day left in the Alps now for us. Tomorrow we are riding the Col du Lautaret and Alpe-d’Huez before riding into Grenoble which will be the end of our ride and the end of our time in the Alps. 140k for the last day, and then it’s back home in time to race on the 15^th.

Life’s pretty darn good. J

Training in the Alps

Ahh the joys of the Alps. Nice long climbs, lots of altitude and some good hard training

I'm currently sitting at over 1000m in altitude (that's 50 004356 feet for you Imperial people) half way through 10 days on solid rides.

The Col de la Madeleine was a nice 24km climb up to 2000m. A nice long slog of a climb... stunning scenery.... what can you say... you just HAVE TO BE HERE!

The road up to the Col du Galibier is scary to say the least... but this climb is a true classic! A beast of a climb, and huge part of cycling history!

The bad weather, and this case the mist, can come in really really quickly atop the Galibier... This is a mountain to be respected, you must always be ready for anything, you have to climb it with a spare wardrobe of warm clothes just in case!

Climbing has always been one of my fav ways of training. You HAVE to go hard just to go up these climbs, so in many ways you cancel out the phycological effort of training, you can't back down, can't really take it easy, it's training time from bottom to top. And to boot, the views are breathtaking!

The Funny Farm (he he, ho ho, ha ha)

Sitting here in the sun of Southern France downing 2 big plates of pasta before heading out to hit the sun-beaten melting roads for 5 hours listening to Audio books on my i-pod (well, mp3 player) so as not to get too bored, I was fishing through my computer when I came across with rather worrying photo of Greggy Greg Sonnenberg and I. The photo was takien a few months ago when I was in the US at the start of the season. With a photo like that I wish I could say we had been snorting lines for a few hours or had been eating mushroom for a week, but sadly I can't... that is us in our natural state... well... after a good 3 hours of non-stop esspresos, we were pretty wired! I'm not even sure if we rode that day. I think we got all jittery on the coffee, got dressed, rode to the end of the road where I got a flat, at wich time we turned around, came home and hit the coffee machine pretty hard...Ahhh good time!