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!