this ride blew me away!

We’ve had a load of nice warm and sunny days recently, in the 20+ degrees (that 1 589 876F for your imperialists, actually it’s 70+), so I’ve been enjoying some time on the bike… I seem to be over whatever I had the last couple weeks and am healthy again, so that’s nice.

We raced Sunday, though Adrian got knocked in the final sprint for 2^nd place by Bbox’s Arnault Labbe, Adrien had a broken collar bone and is out for a while. They crashed in the final 1km, so Adrien still got his mountains jersey. I rode around in general anonymity once again. Killed myself getting Adrian back up to the front group when the peloton split into lots of little groups in the first 3^rd or so of the race, but that’s about all there is to say about that day on the bike.

Yesterday (Monday) I headed out for a recovery ride. Suddenly looked up to find a Helicopter hovering right infront of me above the road, low enough to make my hair blow! It hovered around, circled me numerous times. I was getting scared for a while, then remembered I wasn’t in the US and figured it was probably just some half drunk from lunchtime-Wine Frenchman looking for a place to have a coffee or a few Pastis! So I ignore him (as much as I could). He came back about 30mins later and did figure of 8s over me. So…. Maybe he found somewhere for some Pastis and had a few too many!

Today was fun. I headed out for a few intervals on the TT bike, got about 10mins up the road and it suddenly pissed down with rain. I thought I’d tough it out, like a true hardman-Belgian wannaby; cobbles-for-teeth northern cyclist… until I got blown off the road and into the ditch by the horrific wind… quick U turn and I was sitting on the trainer indoors, in the dry and warm in no time!!! Forget hardman Belgians, I’m French, skinny(ish) and about as close to a Belgian Hardman as an overcooked limp noodle in a 3 day old bucket of tepid water!

Late in posting and Late in fitness

OK... we're back. It's been a while. Life has been a little hectic recently.

Getting back home to France on Jan 10th was nice. Nice because the airport on out stop-over in Germany was under snow, and even home (south of France) was all-white when we landed. We weren't sure if anyone was going to be able to pick us up. The weather since has been touch and go. A few nice and warm days allowing some good training, chopped up by very cold and snowy days that have you stuck indoors loosing the tiny little bit of fitness you thought you'd got.

The good thing about being home was a few training camps. It was good to catch up with everyone, and interesting to see what everyone had been doing over the winter. Evidently I wasn't the only one to have travelled. Though I think I was the only one to be stupid enough to travel somewhere that wasn't warm. On our first training camp, everyone seemed to be pretty much getting off the plane: from Australia, north Africa, Portugal and the US for me.

The season has kicked off somewhat gingerly for me. I always like to do my first 4 or 5 races of the season just sitting in, with no aim at all, just to get in some race miles. The first race went as can be expected, the second went similarly too, but I was a little disappointed. That being said, it's been pretty cold here, and I think I caught something during the first race, because I was sick all week and was not in great shape for the second race. I'm therefore having a weekend off when I should have been doing the Trophee des Bastides in Dordogne I think. I'll rest up, hopefully get better and be able to get in a few rides before my next race. Things are going to be a very slow start this year. My total lack of riding over the winter in the US has set me back a bit, and I've done very little in the way of actual training over the past few weeks obviously... there's still time as I once again want to be fit in May and June, but there's a lot of work ahead of us sadly. I'm currently where I was in the first week of January last year. C'est la vie I guess.