Hunting on the roads

I have a new pastime. It’s hunting season over here in France. And the other day while I was riding along past some flat and open fields, I saw 3 hunting dogs cross the road in front of me and head into a field. I couldn’t see the hunters anywhere. For some reason I find hunters amusing. The way they dress up in full camo, only to throw a fluorescent vest or hat on over the top just makes me giggle. Why dress up and play solider like a little boy when you are only going to throw on a fluorescent vest over the top afterwards. Just dress normally and get on with it! So as I rode past the dogs I decided to whistle at them. At first I merely got their attention and they all stopped and looked at me for a while. On my second whistle they seemed to look at each other and started to follow me. I led them out of the field and down the road a little. I find the idea quite appealing that I was leading the dogs away from the hunt, probably while 3 or 4 hunters were hiding in a bush in full army camo with big guns trying to kill one tiny little rabbit. So this has become my new thing… during hunting season I’ll whistle to the hunting dogs as I ride past and steer them off the kill. 1) I find it amusing, and 2) I think it makes things a little more fair! One dog against one rabbit is fairish, 1 hunter (even with a gun) against one rabbit is hmm.. fairish, but 4 dogs and 3 guys with guns against 1 little rabbit… time to man up chaps! It’s a bit too much like being in a solo break with 5km to go and having 5 full teams of 9 guys chasing you down. It’s just not fair… so by whistling to and distracting the dogs, I’m hoping the universe might repay me and somehow distract the 184 guys chasing me next time I’m in a solo move in a bike race…

"Yeah, good luck with that!" I hear you cry. :-)

It's no fun being the hunted!

But being the hunter is sometimes just too easy!

Sicard World Champ Geniez 11th

Wow… that’s pretty impressive. Romain Sicard, previously of GSC Blagnac has just walked away with a Rainbow jersey on his back. After winning the Tour de l’Avenir, he’s looking pretty set for a solid career. Actually, he already has a solid career really. I think the last best place at Worlds from a local guy was Stephane Poulhies with a 4^th I think… and of course before him there was probably our best local rider Laurent Jalabert. Well done to Romain! Well done also to local boy Alex Geniez. Mathieu Geniez was a teammate of mine until a couple year's ago. We tried to get Alex to come on board but sadly we didn't get him. Despite a very solid year at AVC Aix Haribo (the Cofidis feeder team) including victory at the Grand Prix Pierre Pinel Montastruc this year, Alex is surprisingly not (yet) witha Pro Tour team for 2010.

Jalabert incidentally is the National Selector. This is his first World Champs as DS of the French National Team. As a rider the guy was a legend and a very fine tactician... as a commentator he's a very fair commentator and gives value to all riders no matter what their "level". He's also a nice and level headed guy who can sometimes be found hiding behind a tree a local race trying to be Joe Anybody out to watch a bike race on a Sunday afternoon. He seems to be having a pretty successful first stint as National DS of what has been a fairly disappointing team in the recent past at this event.

Out for the week!

Well, that’s it.  I’m sick!  I’ve come into contact with a few people who’ve had Swine Flu (including a fair few team-mates) and I’m in a right state today…

So be it Swine flu or not, so as not to take the risk on contaminating anyone else, it looks like I will not be going to tomorrow’s TT and will instead be spending the best part of the week (hopefully not more) at home, in bed, watching DVDs and generally sneezing all over the place. L  And it’s TT season darn it, I love TTs.  Couldn’t I have got sick in August or July when they have all those shitty crits?!

CycloCross is official

Well it’s official. I’ll be racing Cross again this season. I have 2 TTs to go, then a road race 2 days before I jump the plane to the US, then my first CX race in 3 or more years. I think it will take a while to get into the swing of cross again, and I’m sure I’ll get my as kicked for a couple months, but hopefully it’ll be a fun way to spend the winter and give me a little extra focus during those cold northern hemisphere winters.

.

My first Cx race (for which I am already entered) will be a race in Virginia in a little town called Winchester. Then the following week (assuming I survive the first race without too much depression) I’m already entered for another CX race in Washington DC. There are races every weekend in the US after than, but we’ll see in a few weeks which once I do. Hopefully by about December I will have done enough races to get back into things and should hopefully be able to come into a bit of form. At least enough form to not be too embarrassing and have a little fun.

Back Pain and a Postmants TT bike

My back troubles of a few years ago seem to have returned to haunt me. I’ve been suffering from back pain for about a couple weeks now. I have an appointment with Osteopath on Tuesday, but in the mean time Its affecting my breathing and seems to be bringing back my Asthma condition that I seemed to have somewhat fought off by avoiding cold winters.

Seeing as my back is killing me I seem to have spent the last couple weeks constantly changing my TT position. I know that’s probably the worst thing you can do, but it was really too painful and uncomfortable, so I had to do something, at least to convince myself psychologically that I had made an “improvement” if nothing else. After a lot of messing around, I think I have finally found the solution. My TT bike looks more like a French Postman’s delivery bike with the bars jacked right up in the air. It feels fairly comfortable like that, but who know what it will actually yield on the day. Tomorrow is yet another TT and I guess we’ll find out how I go. Needless to say I’m not exactly over-confident. There’s a few other issue which I think may not have helped. I really can’t get myself fitted right to the Jamis. Aside from the fact that the wheelbase is slightly outside the UCI regulations (but no one has checked it at a race yet, fingers crossed that they don’t), I’m also starting to feel that Jamis designed this bike primeraly with Triathlon in mind. The bike really doesn’t handle well in tight corners or through towns, and it seems as if it’s been designed around people sitting very far forward (which seems to improve the handling somewhat). Most TTs start and finish in town and have tight and tricky sections, whereas Triathlons are generally longer and far less technical, reducing the importance of how the bike handles other than in a straight line. And in a straight line the Jamis is stable as heck! Either that or all TTs are flat and straight around Jamis HQ (which I assume in the US and probably in CA somewhere)… anyway.. there you go.

TT time tomorrow, so we’ll see.

As high as my TT bars are, at least they aren't as bad as this guy's with the Trek who clearly needs to be a different bike!

TT = Terrible Time

Time Trials… I’m not that good at them, but I love them (for some reason), and I can usually hold my own and occasionally pull through with a good results here and there. Today’s TT was graced with some of the worst weather the event has ever seen. This TT is run every year on the same course, and it’s usually pretty darn hot out there. Today was quite different. Torrential rain, standing water on the corners that was inches deep, horrible.

It all started off badly when my trainer I was warming up on got wet, and that somehow broke it. Not sure how but I ended up with zero resistance. Fine. So I went to see if any of the team trainers were free, but the awning under t team van was jam packed with guys warming up trying to keep out of the rain, and they were using all the trainers. So that left me in the pissing rain doing more cooling than warming.

I felt fairly good and smooth once I got going, and although the power and HR were right around where I’d expect, something isn’t quite right. The speed and time just wasn’t there are the end of the day. Now I’d like to put it down to the bad weather. I never perform well in the wet and/or cold, but I have feeling there’s something else going on. Admittedly I don’t like the fork angle on my TT bike and was therefore maybe a little too cautious going round the soaking wet corners, but still. Maybe my bars are too low, maybe I just plain suck. The course was very wet and dangerous throughout the 20km event, and gravel and swimming pools had gathered on the corners. Funnily enough though, my time was better this year than last, but I was lower down in the results. Last year I was 6^th, and this year I was 10^th. However I bettered my time by 1min 4 seconds. And if I had done today’s time last year, I would have been 3^rd last year. I don’t remember it being windy or anything last year, but I guess it must have been.

Julien Almansa did NOT catch me after all. However I DID catch my 2 minute man a little before the finish line. So no one won the competition to see how long it would take Almansa to catch me… though he did take time out of me as he finished 3^rd at the end of the day.

Well, there’s some homework to do before next weekend’s TT (though it’s a bit bloody late now. J ) Maybe I’ll start pulling a car behind me on a rope when I do my TT training from now on…

TT start times, catch me when you can competition

Yesterday’s TT preparation went very well indeed. I didn’t touch the bike and had my basement (where all my bikes and bike equipment is) flooded by a freak summer storm of rain and hail. After spending the day clearing away the remains left by the river that shot through my house for a few hours, I was pretty buggered, and frankly happy to still be around after realizing that I was wading through water that had live electricity sitting in it where all my computers were plugged in.

Anyway… the TT. Sunday’s TT (for which they are still calling for rain) start times were released yesterday. On the start list are a couple very good TT riders, including a guy who was signed my Festina years ago simply for his TTing… only he turned them down for some reason. The guy crawls out of the wood-work these days a few times a year, and kills some of the pros on TTs; he also does a few triathlons now, where he paddles around in the water, sets the bike record, then goes for a strole and finishes in the top 10 in the elite. My start time is near the end, 5^th or 6^th or something form the finish. A couple of good other guys I know will also be there, so it’ll be a pretty big battle. However, what I’m really interested is that fact that the guy leaving right behind me (2 mins behind me exactly) is a chap called Julien Almansa. This guy also crawls out at the end of every season to do all the TTs he can find, and once again show the Pros what a TT should really look like. Julien was a stagiaire on US Postal a few moons ago, and now concentrates on end of season TTs and spends his time racing CycloCross up and down France and Belgium. So how long will it be before he catches and passes me? It’s a 20k TT, rolling with a fair bit of wind, and some stupidly steep sections near the end.

Place your bets as to when Julien will catch me by sending in your answer on a 700c Carbon disk rear wheel, with Ti freehub body and 11-21 Shimano Dura Ace 10 speed cassette to:

Julien crush-fest 2009 time competition

321 GoSloth street

81654 Slowville

France

The French love to put steep hills in their TTs...

Phycocross? What should I do?

So that’s looking like it. 3 TTs taking me to the end of yet another fast gone by season. Though I must admit I am kicking around the idea of doing a CycloCross season over there in the good old US of A. That’ll depend on a few things… and when I say “do a CX season”, I of course mean show up and get my ass kicked. It’s been YEARS since I’ve done a CX season, and the US always had good fun courses if I remember right, so that could be kind of fun. And could be a way of keeping me on the bike through a winter away from the beaches and sunshine.

So what should I do? should I do a CX season once again? Send in your advice on a 56cm Ti frame with New Dura Ace to:

666 Lost Village Road,

81645 Wankersville,

France

(I've been listening to WAY too much "Car-Talk".)

Rain for TT?

This looks like Time Trial month over here in the Tarn. 3 time trials in the next 3 weeks, even my poor maths can work out that’s 1TT a week.

Anyway, it looks like they are calling for pretty bad thunderstorms for this Sunday’s Time Trial,the Pyrenees TT champs. TTs in the wet SUCK. And warming for them in the wet sucks even more. Hmmm…. Let’s hope the forcaste changes by Sunday!

Big What Watt?

A grimace, some pain, lots of sweat and a 2nd place on the day means watt?

Today's race: finished atop a 1220something meter high peak. The climb was 17.5 km, average wattage for the climb... a rather tasty 360+Watts, with a somewhat juicy 20min peak of a little over 380W. Ugh, no wonder I'm buggered and can't wait to get to bed!

Near the summit is a rather strange and somewhat Tintinesque Lunar scene of satelite dishes...

There’s a Tour of Rwanda?

I was riding around warming up for a race yesterday, when one of my team-mates comes along side me and tells about a few problems with regards to the Tour of Senegal. Although I am not part of the roster, the team is also doing Tour of Burkina Faso. Which is flat as a pan-cake and includes dirt roads. I was willing to do some dirt-roads at Tour of the Battenkill in the US in the spring, but that was one race and was in a country where you can get new inner-tubes easily. The problem with Tour of Senegal (at least one of the probs) is that there is only 1 day between Senegal and Burkina Faso… and seeing as Burkina Faso is organized by ASO (The Tour de France) it’s obviously more interesting to go to Burkina Faso. There are also a few other concerns about Senegal, such as organization, accommodation etc. Apparenlty NO French journalists will go to cover Senegal anymore… L

A few seconds after talking to my teammate, the team tells me they’ve entered me and are sending me to the Tour of Rwanda. I giggled for a bit, then finally realized they were serious. I didn’t know there was a Tour of Rwanda. Apparently it’s a good organization. Hard to believe. It’s a UCI 2.2 race, and they even plan a few stages that take you though areas where there are lots of monkeys and you race past elephants. They apparently do this on purpose to attract European riders and make the whole event that little bit more interesting. As scared shitless as I was of simply hearing “Tour of Rwanda” it was starting to sound interesting. Fine, whatever. When it comes to racing I’m pretty much up for anything (well, so long as it isn’t a boring crit of course) and this was starting to sound quite… dare I say it, exotic. Ahahh… problem however. The Tour of Rwanda is in November… 9 days of racing in mid November in fact. Problem there is that I am supposed to be in the US by then. So my doing this Tour isn’t looking likely. They’ve asked me to check into it and try and see if I could get a flight from the US directly to Rwanda… etc etc and do all I can to get my skinny white ass over there…

Oh and BTW: Rwanda is HILLLLLYYYYYY!!!!! (Yeah baby!)

Rain in Spain falls mainly on Univest

Quick question: When did it NOT rain at Univest?

I had an incident at Univest a few years ago that took 2 or 3 years to rectify, that was due a crash in hurricane weather... but it doesn't seem to have been much better since. Every year seems to be very wet and misserable up there in PA. It's not that far north, what's with the Belgiam Classic Weather? Do they bring it in just for the race to give it that true miserable Belgian feel?

American Traffic in Missouri

I just saw a bit on cyclingnews about riders being hindered by and hit by "official" cars durring the TT of the Tour of Missouri:

http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/traffic-havoc-impacts-overall-missouri-fight

Somehow, this makes me think "Typical, this WOULD happen in America". How come this sort of crap doesn't seem to happen in other countries? (Except maybe Australia where bike riders seem to get hit all the time by driver (and I use the term "drivers" loosly! But over there it's rarly in a race situation). Why is it that the US manages to put on great events, get great teams over there for races, American organisers pay so much more attention to organizational detail than the European.. the Americans actually give you much better info on the race, the course, how to get there, they bring in portable toilets etc... and then sadly some incident inveriably happens where you think some part of the organization has no idea about the sport. Such as putting cones in the middle of the road, or having a center line rule, or having some motorbike stop in a croner (twice). It's a real shame! Personally, I put it down to an obsetion with too many so called "rules", and not enough everyday people with knowledge (not that you can do anything about that, cycling just isn't a historic and well known sport over there).

Hopefully the amount and the qualityh of events over there will keep increasing as it has been... but in the words of Monica Galler "Think people, think!"

I’m a light-weight!

The UCI Tour of Senegal is fast approaching. It’s come as something of a blessing as I really needed something in this end of season to keep me (or even GET me) focused. I need something to aim for, I can’t just ride and ride for no reason, and the smaller the races are, the less I seem to be able to get motivated for them. That said I’m pretty worried. It’s a pretty big Pro race (all be it with some National teams) and my racing this season has been patchy. Some solid or dare I say promising “results” but nothing concrete and nothing really to write home about. A few top 10s and a good showing at the Tour of the Pyrenees, but I never really felt like I got going and was on top of things. And then of course the season has been a patchwork of races and work trips, leading to the inevitable inconsistency that seems to represent me so well.

Still there are few things that are givens, that never change in cycling. 1 is that I obviously need to be as fit as poss for Africa. And a few year of riding a bike have taught me that what I should NOT do is get over-excited and do too much training and end up getting to Africa buggered. The bulk of the training by this stage of the season has been done, and it’s too late to cram. So just solid riding, some short intervals to deal with accelerations and to aid the body to getting used to recovery and maybe a few longer rides to keep the endurance up, but that’s about it… and of course, as everyone knows, I’m a slacker anyway, so I couldn’t be bothered to do too much. J

By this stage of the season, the bulk of you training should have been done earlier in the year.

Another given in cycling is weight… or more to the point the lack there of. I seem to have been carrying a few extra kilos this year. Usually my racing weight is around 69kgs, and this year I seem to have been mostly around 70. Well, I’m taking care of that. And I’m now down to 68.6kgs, so there you go… And that’s still eating endless cheese (I am French), a few beers and wine and a fair bit of chocolate. I guess the key is stay away from the “American foods”, Processed this and that, added crap and endless fast food and McDonalds, not to mention the sickening habit of frying things in butter…. Ugh. Well, I think it’s time for aperitif, so salty bickies and beer it is.. … Hmmm….

Beer makes you skinny!

White Tour de L'Avenir

I was wondering, why isn't there a white jersey in the Tour de L'Avenir?

:-)

Winter plans

Well, finally some sort of news and plans for the winter. Very VERY sadly it doesn't look like I'll be heading over to the sun and beauty and peacefulness of Australia this year. I'm very VERY sad to say that for financial reasons I will most likely not be heading to the southern hemisphere this winter. That's pretty sad, and it's going to be very VERY interesting to see how I cope with a winter again. Winter is my most hated time of the year, I'm a sun kind of person. Oh well, we'll see! I'm pretty sure though that I'll start off next racing season well out of shape with about 400 freezing cold kilometer in my legs as opposed to the 5000+k this year.

Winter in Virgina USA, a far cry from Australia but still pretty darn cool... well... COLD actually!

However, every cloud has a silver lining... The plan for this off-season is that I'll be heading stateside, the blue ridge mountains of Virginia for the winter for 3 months. I'm pretty excited as, although it won't be sunny Aus, it'll be something new and different.

Speaking of new and different... I will be heading to Africa again to end the season, for 10days of racing. I'll return to France on the 19th of Oct and head over to the US around the 21st. Hey, maybe I'll be there in time for the Great Pumpkin ride.

That's about it... if I fall into a load of money I'll head over to Australia for a couple months in Jan and Feb, but that's all in the future.

In the more immediate future, I have 2 Time trials coming up that I'm actually quite looking forward to. One Elite road race and one hill climb, then its Africa. So not a bad end of season schedule all in all. Next season will probably start more "typically" with the usual early season races here in Europe, but hopefully with something fun and different thrown in the mix at some point during the season. I've never raced in Asia, so that would be pretty friggin' cool...

Time Trials are an end of season tradition

Now... all I need is to find a car for my time in the US... maybe I'll come across one abandoned in a ditch and all will be fine. :-)

UCI Africa Tour need money, kidney for sale!

I've just had a call up from the Team to go do the 10day UCI 2.2 Tour of Senegal in early October. Needless to say I'm keen. Only problem is this: Although the organisers are obviously paying for everything, the only thing they aren't taking care of is flights. Now the Team is taking care of travel to and from airports, hotels etc etc, but we'll have to pay for our own flights. This is a bit of an issue, as I'm not exactly loaded with cash to say the least. Though on the other hand it is a real bike race and yet another chance to go somewhere new and ride a bike... which is why I love cycling in the first place. I have to be quick though, I don't have much time to make a descition, and there are only 2 spots left. Though I would usually argue that you don't pay to race, this seems a little different. I guess because it's a proper race and somewhere interesting. What to do. Maybe I can sell a kidney on e-bay.

Anyone want a kidney??? It's going cheap, one one previous owner, very low mileage, good condition...

Not left off TT team

Well, in a twist, it turns out I wasn't left off the Teams TT team, but the team didn't send anyone and didn't go to the TT. Which is odd because I was pretty sure the Team HAD to go, I thought it was an obligation, part of their Team Registration criteria at the start of the year.

So I guess that's good... but it's also really not good.

On a seperate note I did a crit the other day. A totally flat very boring 3.something km loop. Not my cup of tea, but there's a few riders who give a lot to me in the hilly stage races, so the least I can do is show up and do a little "counter-racing" for them in exchange.

On an even more seperate note, there is no way of getting chocolatines in the village at the moment as the local shop is closed for summer holidays until tomorrow. Needless to say I'm in real need of some Chocos with my coffee to start off the morning... I think I'll have to jump in the car and go hunting (how American) for a load chocolatines for Breakfast.... yep, that's it, off I go.