Sim Jetlag

Tour du Faso

2010-10-30T15:28:00.001+02:00

October 2010, which according to UCI rules is part of the 2011 season and all UCI points amassed will be counted in 2011.

The Tour du Faso is an interesting race. Taking place over 10 days in the central African country of Burkina Faso, things didn't start great for the team. Some issues with flights had us spending an unexpected night in Paris without any luggage. We then flew out to Burkina Faso via Niger (a banned country for French people at the time due to kidnappings), getting to Ouagadougou (the capital of Burkina Faso) just minutes before team presentation. We all got our bikes upon arrival, but some were missing luggage, which was not recovered until about 4 stages into the race.

We got there, put on some kit and went straight to Team Presentation, not even having time to lather up with any anti-mosquito spray to fight off the malaria mozzies...

Stage 1 started at 6am with a long bus trip to the start. With our legs still shot from the flight, we headed off on stage 1, where Guiguig finished 2nd just behind Dutch National Champ Peter Van Agtmaal. A good start to the Tour.

Stage 2 had us all devoted to Zibi going for the sprint.

We sat on the front for 40km controlling the field and breakaway until the order came to ramp it up. Dorian and I were the first to pop having done 80% of the work on the from for the past few hours... as we rolled in slowly and alone for the final 15 or 20k, the rest of the boys took over at the front and brought back the break just in time for Zibi (already wearing the Pink Points jersey) to win the stage. Another Great day!

Racing in Africa, I love it! There's something and special about it!

Stage 3 started a little less well for me. I passed out at Breakfast and was helped back to my room where I spent some solid time on the toilet as well as throwing up. Having not been able to eat anything, and feeling beyond rough I had to sit in a bus for over an hour to the stage start. This was one of the longest stages of the race at 160 something K. The team warned the Doctor that I wasn't well and told him to keep an eye on me. I held on for a while, yoyoing off the back of teh race seemingly constantly until I finally popped with 60k to go. I rode alone through the Sahel desert for 40k. It was 47 degrees in the shade (which is interesting because there is no shade out there) and I was alone... no water, no one around and sick. My only company where a few military guards with AK47s dotted along the course as protection following some Al Qaida threats on the race. My body started to shut down, and i eventually came across a French ride on the ride of the road, totally fried. We sat on the side of the road waiting for the ambulance. That was the end of our Tour. Julien finished 2nd on the stage and was looking pretty good for the GC.

A somewhat unclassy live TV interview, totally fried I tell the TV I've diarrhea... that's class...

I couldn't eat or drink a think for over 24hrs... by which time I was put on a plane home. Burkina Faso is an interesting and risky race. From day 1 guys were just falling down at the hotel and being taken to hospital and shipped home. You get sick very easilly over there, and just a bit sick... really REALLY sick.

The team went on to win the GC with Julien and everyone rode unbelievably. I was very very sad not to be there. Guigui finished 4th on GC and Zibi brought home the sprinter's jersey!

Thursday's Team TT champs

2010-05-14T07:39:00.003+02:00

For some reason I feel like this picture sums up our Team Time Trial pretty well.

We were 1 rider short, it was pissing with rain, and the course was skkkketchyyyy to say the least.

Fitness catch-up

2010-04-28T11:20:00.005+02:00

Getting there.

So, after a great week of training camp in Spain, where I finally got in some miles, I’m back home and seem to be getting somewhat near to something vaguely resembling fitness!

Spain was just great. A great resort with lots of great food. Fantastic views, and nothing to do all day but ride, eat, sleep and drink beer.

I really really needed this trip to spain. After day 3 I felt myeslef finally push through that barriers, and from then on I just seemed to feel better and better.

Race gone wrong.
On the way home from Spain we stopped off just over the border into France and did a little 1 day stage race.
I thought the morning TT had gone well (despite showing up to the start ramp with 30second to go, with my oversocks and other crap in my hands; I shuved my oversock and shit into my skinsuit, did it up and was gone for a few minutes of pain) but it didn’t got as well as I had thought. I was 28th in the morning TT, and wanted to be top 20 at least.

The afternoon road race was a bit of a shitter! It was actually a circuit race, or 20k loops. There was a massive hill after 7k of downhill. The field split on the first climb, and I was struggled but made it into the first half. That was positive but I had had to work pretty hard to make it into a group I would normally have walked into. Over the course of the next 20 or so km, I kept getting dropped up every climb, sitting in the team cars for ages and jumping back into the field. Until I finally bit the bullet, realized I was too whipped from training camp and was out and ready to go home after only 40k of racing! Oh well…

From the moment I got home however, I’ve been feeling stronger and stronger, finally getting in some solid training. Of course how this translates to racing is yet to be seem. I haven’t started including intervals into my training yet, and I’m about to enter my first big block of racing, which I’m a little nervous about.

In Prep for the main aims of my season at the end of May and early June, I’m going to be loading up the races. Hopefully this will get me into shape after the long and crappy US winter! My main worry is going to be 2 back to back 1 day stage races. That’s 4 races in 2 days! Not to mention the travel in between and the early starts and late finishes. For about 3 weeks I’m going to be hitting at least 3 races a week, sometimes more. It’s SOO gonna suck, but it should be fun, and I’ll either be ready for the real stage races in the Pyrenees, or I won’t.

this ride blew me away!

2010-03-30T21:11:00.001+02:00

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

2010-03-18T22:04:00.002+01:00

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.

the three stooges

2010-01-06T14:33:00.002+01:00

The snow and ice has been plaguing us with it's presence here in Virginia for quite some time now. Riding has become very difficult, with temperatures in the -10C and ice covering the roads. I have been pretty much off the bike since December and am not enjoying that fact.

With a slightly warmer day on the radar a little while ago, a few of us jumped at the opportunity to get in a few miles. Chris Gould, John Parks, John Neusbaum and myself met up in Warrenton at 11am for a couple hours of riding and chatting. It was cold as heck. All was going well until we came across a stretch of road with some snow in the middle. We rode on either side of the little stretch of snow, until Chris Gould who was first in line hit some black ice as we headed up a slight incline. His rear wheel went one way, he went the other and hit the floor. I was right behind him and found myself sliding across the ice in now time, eventually turning onto my feet and hands and eventually coming to a stop just in time to see John Parks on his back sliding towards me and only coming to a stop once he got tangled up with my bike on the side of the road. John had some road rash on his butt and forw-arm, Chris cut his chin pretty deep and cut his jersey upon his chest. I got nothing. I think I was wearing so many layers (2 jerseys, 2 thick thermal jackets etc) that I was more like a michelin man bouncy-ball when I hit the ground. No one was seriously hurt, least of all John Neusbaum who didn't even see fit to hit the ground with us and join in the fun. The rest of the ride was fine, though we kept getting nervous every time we saw a shaded dark patch on the road. The crash scene was quite comedic. The three of us crashing looked like cards going down one after the other. The Three Stooges indeed!

Moral of the story is: don't ride in cold countries. I'm going to start a petition to ban cold weather. There are so many other rules and regulations in the US that I figure no one would even notice this one... and if anyone opposes my idea, I'll just sue them. :-)

I'll be back in France on Monday, where the temperatures are a little better.... but it is raining. :-(

Stay safe people, and stay out of the cold!

Darrel Parks' great CX photos

2009-12-23T17:18:00.001+01:00

Pezcyclingnews photographer-extraordinaire Darrel Parks has some very nice photos of the Capitol Cup cyclocross race on Dec 6th... Check'em out. Cold, mud and snow were the words of the day!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darrellparks/4180201758/sizes/o/in/photostream/

Snow sidetracks

2009-12-20T23:44:00.001+01:00

So much for getting away to another country to get in loads of training miles.... hmmmm

After a rather longer period of inactivity than usual, I finally decided to get back on the bike and start training for the 2010 season. So on Monday I headed out for 3 hours up the mountains. Not exactly "easing" into it but I was keen, and also well aware that I don't have much longer to ride in these Appalachian mountains before heading home in early Jan. The ride up the first part of the mountain was good, however once I got near 1000m, I was surrounded by snow and even had to get off and walk across some very deep and big sections of ice. The descent back down the valley was rather cold. Needless to say I had the sniffles and sneezes a couple days later. But frankly none of that mattered... snow was on the horizon.

So, we've been stuck in the house for that last few days, with over 50cm of snow. It's been pretty cool (in all meanings of the word). Today we finally got out there and tried to get the car out of the snow. That took a few hours and felt like some serious cross-training. It was actually really good fun, and needless to say, after much shoveling and skidding with the car, the inevitable "play in the snow" ensued. Face plants, attempted slides down the hill on a trash bag... the slides didn't go too well, the snow was too deep and I ended up just getting stuck, totally covered with my face under the snow.

Fun, nothing like being a kid in the snow. And needless to say, the peacefulness is bliss out here in the hoods on Page Country!

15 hundreths of a second of fame on Pezcyclingnews

2009-12-08T23:02:00.002+01:00

I made the pictures section of PEZ today. Thanks to Darrel Parks, Pez Photographer who was at Chip's Capitol Cross race and evidently sent a picture to PEZ of me in the lovely mismatched Castel' kit with PEz leg-warmers. I like this pic as it shows the essence of Cyclocross, running through the mud with a bike on your shoulder, and it also shows Lake Fairfax in the background and reminds me of the fun CX racing days of the late 1990s when I raced at the same venue... and of course the snow on the ground is truly epic. :-) Click the lick below to see the full-sized pic.

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/cgi/gallerypicget.asp?pic=http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/photos/races10/cross10/cap-sim.jpg

Battenkill Part 2 out now and SnowCross!

2009-12-08T21:35:00.001+01:00

Here's the latest and the greatest hot off the press from the guys at Pezcyclingnews.com. Part 2 of my Battenkill article is out now.

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7777&status=True&catname=Latest

Oddly enough, this was published on Dec 6th, my Birthday. Even odder still, I did a cyclocross race on Dec 6th and wouldn't you know that Pez Photographer Darrel Parks was there to snap some shots of me riding around in the mud and snow. So it was a Pez Cyclingnews day all around!

The cross race was really good fun. Thick snow and the worst mud I have seen in a very VERY long time graced us with their presence. The race turned out to be really good fun, a fantastic course and a solid hour of pain I was very happy to give myself as a birthday present.

Looks out for an article on Pez about the Capitol Cross race in Reston, put on by my old buddy Chip Sovek and Potomac Velo Club, coming soon! (Once I write it anyway... and then get is to the editor... and they publish it; so don't hold your breath.)

When things go wrong

2009-11-28T14:02:00.008+01:00

I’m very careful, I always pin my number on upside down if I get number 13, I always say cheers before I drink, I always touch-wood after I say something that might “jinks” me, I look out for black cats crossing the road ahead of me, and yet, for the last few days, everything has been going strangely “wrong”.

After a great Thanksgiving lunch at Greg’s, with lots of great turkey and other traditional foods, Gaga and I jumped in the car and headed back down to Luray. As we got to about 5k from the house, the car started smoking and suddenly lost all power. We pulled off the road and smoke got thicker. We quickly got all our stuff out of the car and stepped back waiting for it to burst into flames. It never did thank god, and luckily there was someone nearby who offered to give us a lift home. The next day, with some helpful advice from some friend I rode my bike down to the car and actually got it started. It looks like it has a broken hose and that is all. Though for the moment it’s leaking coolant and getting through fluids like an overweight New-Yorker in Central Africa with no AC.

As if that wasn’t enough.
Having filled the car with coolant we went to Walmart to get some essential foods yesterday evening. As we were making our way gingerly home, polluting the wide Virginia roads with leaking coolant, I suddenly see flashing blue lights in the mirror. I pull over to let the guy past, put he pulls in behind me. Fair enough. Some cop doing some sort of routine check. I show him my driver’s license, and tell him I’m from overseas, and also show him my old VA driver’s license. He chooses to take the VA one. Fine, then asks for the Registration. I ask him what that might look like, we finally fine it and he says my tags are expired. I figured the car was frankly too old to still have a price tag, so “tag” must mean something else. He goes back to his car, and leave Gaga and I talking calmly talking about some of the food we had just bought, while gently leaking coolant all over the road. He eventually comes back with a fine and court date and fine for me. Still rather unsure of what he was actually talking about, and still leaking coolant, we carried on on our merry way back to the house for beer and dinner.

These things come in 3s?
That’s all very well. The hose can be fixed as soon as the garages reopen after the weekend and fine can be “pre-paid” (whatever that means) and I’ll be back home in France before you can even say Luray Police Department, but superstition says these things come in 3s… So… what next? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see what the joys of international travel have in store for us next…

Battenkill Pro on Pez

2009-11-19T00:21:00.003+01:00

Why what's this? Some idiot has written some load of gobbledygook and Pezcyclingnews.com has published it. :-)

Here's an article which came out today on the Battenkill pro race from April up in New York state which I did whist in the USA at the start of the season.

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7699&status=True&catname=Latest

Part 2 should be out soon.

Urban Cross, USA CX race of fun

2009-11-16T10:41:00.010+01:00

At some unearthly time in the morning, Gaelle, Chris Gould and myself piled into the car and left a very VERY misty Page country behind us as we headed to a rather misty Charlottesville for a cyclocross race called “Urban Cross”. It wasn’t actually “urban” but the park was in a town for once rather than out in the middle of nowhere as is often the case over here, so I guess that's why they called it "Urban Cross". We arrived early enough to watch Levi from the Warrenton Cycling Center do his first ever cross race, which was really cool, and I think he enjoyed it. Following Levi's race was Chris’ race. There are basically 2 ways of approaching cyclo-cross. 1) you can go all out and concentrate on the discipline, start some CX specific training in July and make CX the main aim of your year, or 2) you can take it all as a bit of fun, show up out of shape after your off season, have a blast and take it as a way of keeping active during the cold winter months. Chris and I are evidently in the latter of the 2 categories. Chris went out there, had some fun and had a pretty hard “workout” as he puts it, and that was his aim for the day. He did however find the course a little too technical for his liking...

The Course:
The organizers had actually made very good use of the space they had. Unlike last weeks "Taxidermy Cross", this course resembled more of a typical “cross” course. There were lots of corners on this “loop-di-loop” course, 3 to 4 run-ups/stairs and 1 set of barriers. The ground was sticky from the past 4 or so days of non-stop rain we’ve had, and the numerous off-camber sections and descents were treacherous to day the least. After Chris’ race we went to grab a little something to eat before my race at a more reasonable 2:30 in the afternoon. Whist scoffing a sandwitch I was watching the other category races on the day attack the course, and I can’t say I was overly looking forward to racing myself. The course looked really hard. I haven’t raced or even ridden off road for years and I don’t have the technical skills anymore for that kind of stuff. So with that in mind, as well as my month off the bike, I headed for the start line of the last race of the day, the Elite race, or A race or 1,2,3 race or whatever it is.

Turns out it was a lot of fun. After a while I kind of got into the course and had a blast. The run-ups really started to take it out of me after a while, but the constant corners and trying to get something of a “flow” on the course (and failing miserably may I add) was just really good fun. Once again I was reminded of why I wanted to do some CX racing in the US again. It really is just a lot more fun.

The whole day turned out to be a great day. The sun came out and it was actually warm for my race. I got to catch up with an old MTBing buddy from the good old days (8 or so years ago) who I hadn’t seen since I left the US back in the very early 2000s.

Mike Hosang did his race, then turned around and got on the mic for the first part of my race giving me a much appreciated “SHREWWWWS” as I past him at the end of my 1st or 2nd lap. Ahhh, the good old days. Thanks Mike, all those MTBing memories just came flooding back! The USA Cycling officials just seemed to get on with their job and weren’t “officious” as many of them seem to be for some reason. Maybe they too were feeding off the good vibes of the day’s event. Everyone out there seemed to be wearing big smiles and enjoying the day. A van was selling doughnuts and coffee all day, the sun was out, the racing was exciting, the course challenging… what more could you ask for from a cross race??? Well, except for maybe a few hundred Flems with stupid hats and bells lining the course… hmm, kind of like this guy?

The race itself saw Jared Nieters ride off to a more than commanding win over the rest of the field. Jared sadly did his “robot” once again as he crossed the line (even though I told him not to as I saw him on one of the switchbacks on the course), but aside from that minor marring of the race (sorry Jared) he was extremely impressive, and undisputably deserved to win! I rode around for a bit and finished in total anonymity as seems to be my place in cross at the moment with an 11th place on the day.

All in all, a TanFastic day.

Puzzlin' Cross Scenes

2009-11-16T10:02:00.001+01:00

Some things I’ve seen at cross races. Some people… I don’t know.. sometimes you see stuff that just makes you frown and wonder…

Soooo… What’s with the socks? Are those compression socks… really? In a 30 or 40 min CX race? Hmmm…. I do like the look though. Gulp. Not that I can really talk with my ulgy miss-matched kit, but I don't really have a choice about that...
This is a cracker… looks like some kind of new integrated bib-seat. I like it! Might make getting on and off the bike a little hard though… so, I guess this chap just really wanted to spend the whole day in his cycling shorts… even when in normal clothes. Nice.

And then of course there’s this guy…. (Currently atop the gamjams.net website banner)

He has been popping up here and there at Cross races this year. Somebody once made a comment about him smiling.. or maybe it was about his lack of smile… well, I quite simply couldn’t resist the opportunity to post a photo of Greg in his get-up once again, just to give old Gregburt a hard time for the sake of giving him a hard time… if I keep this up he might not let me stay with him anymore and will kick me out of the house…. That’s ok, I’ll fill him with Espressos’

and bribe him with.. oh I don’t know, say THIS pic (again!) (from pezcyclingnews.com)

Sorry Greg… it’s stronger than me, I just can’t help being a jackass! And I am up at 3am for god knows what reason, I'll blame it on that!

Taxidermy Cross, Fetucini cross, Tacchino cross

2009-11-10T15:06:00.000+01:00

A Sunday in November, and it’s actually fairly warm. In the 20s, sunny, blue skies, just a perfect day for Taxidermy cross, or was it Fettucini cross… no it was Taccini cross. The race was put on by a local, self named Italian-wanabee club called Squadra Coppi, but they are American, not Italian, hence the quasi Italian name to Sunday cool cross race. The drive up to the race had me driving on the beltway around Washington DC, it had been a few years since I’s driven on the Beltway, and it was actually quite exciting. The endless lanes of slow traffic and people hogging all lanes, was just like being in a movie. The true America, just like you see it on all those TV shows and movies about the FBI in DC.

The race course itself was a little flat. A raw power course, perfect for American crit riders. There was only 1 dismount which was a set of barriers, no run-up, and only one vague semblance of a hill which was easily rideable. Still the course was fun, the organizers had done the best with they could with the venue and there was quite a lot of twists and turns. For some reason, even on what could/should have been a dull venue, the course was once again good fun. The American’s just seem to be able to do really fun courses. There were some nice sections though the woods which reminded me of the good old MTBing days, when I had some of the best times of my life racing MTBs in the US.

The start was a little hectic with the guy in front of me struggling to get his foot in the pedal. I tried to pass him on the outside (the only place possible) and I think I scared the crap out of a photographer who ejected himself from the side of the course and threw himself into the grass. Sorry about that mate.

Frankly that was about the end of it. The start was just too fast for me, I can’t do fast starts and having been off the bike for a while the lack of fitness really showed. I ended up settling into place on the course, one guy passed me, I passed 3 or 4 later on in the race and that was about it. Joe Dombrowski won the race (as a Espoir rider!) commandingly. Levi from the Warrenton bike shop also came out to cheer me on. I think he got a bit bored after a couple laps of seeing me so far down the field.

Well, my cross season/plans are obviously out the window. The hope of carrying any end of season fitness from the road over to CX, though a good idea at the time, is clearly not working out. The fitness window has gone and I’m about as far from the sharp end of the race as is physically possible. I don’t think I have time to get any CX type fitness back before the end of the CX season over here, and although there are still a couple CX race in France in early 2010 when I get home, I don’t think it’s worth putting in the effort for just a couple races. So the plan for now is to simply keep getting my ass kicked and having fun in CX and start looking ahead onve again to the 2010 season.

I’m hoping the warm weather here will last as long as poss’. It’s was really nice out there on Sunday and this area is beautiful in the sunshine. And of course I hate the cold with a vengeance and can’t stand winter! Wednesday is Veteran’s day here in the US (well, c’est le 11 novembre en France aussi) and so we are running a ride out of Warrenton for some of the Whole Wheel Velo guys. So I’ll finally get to catch up with Scotty G once again. That should be a fun ride, be nice to see old friend and meet new people, (just so long as they ride steady and don’t attack each other all the time). Apart from that I’m also going Gaga hunting at the airport today, and have a morning “coffee ride” planned with Greg and Levi. Easy ride, followed by endless coffees…. Hmmmm, sounds a bit Australian, I love it!

Back2Ridin'

2009-11-09T15:06:00.007+01:00

I’ve been getting back on the bike some. I’ve had a couple rides up the hill behind the house up to the top of the Appalchian mountains, with some stunning views and fantastically pleasant rides.

Over the past week I’ve had a bucket load of fun going back and forth between Warrenton and Luray riding in both areas and just slowly and pleasantly getting back into it!

So this past week, I've ridden with:

Levi in Warrenton,

Chris Gould up Skyline drive!
and John Parks in Luray...

Life is starting to take back some semblence of normality, ride, eat, sleep, drink coffee... And it isn't TOOOOO awefully cold here yet in the US of A.

Well, tomorrow is another cyclocross race, lets see if I can get past the first 100m this time. :-)

The wonders of travel

2009-11-09T15:06:00.006+01:00

The wonders of travel, you get to see some pretty strange stuff. Half the time I don't actually have my camera with me, so a lot of the crazy stuff I see get forgotten, some of it in immortalized on my crappy phone camera however...

Well, at least this guy admits he's a redneck!

Love is a warm soft what?... Australia once again!

Get some nuts indeed!

Seen in Australia on Feb 14th. Enough said!

It really doesn't take much to amuse me!

Dim Sim?

2009-11-09T15:06:00.005+01:00

A statement... an under-statement? Hmmm..... I could take this personally...

CX photos and some time back on the bike

2009-11-01T16:16:00.004+01:00

I found a few photos from my cyclocross race the other day, which are pretty cool. Again, it was really great to get back out ther eon a CX bike and have some fun.

Apart form that I have actually slowly been getting back on the bike this week. With a little less caughing, I've started to feel better. I had a good time riding down the valley and up Rt211 (that's a road number) to Skyline Drive. Skyline Drive is a tourist road that follows the top of the Blue Ridge Mtn on the East coast of the US. Obviously seeing as in follows the top of the hills, it's something of a climb to get up there. Though these hills are not very high in altitude, that's actually not a bad thing for some winter SE rides. It shouldn't get TOO cold up there in winter, and the climb isn't real hard or long, which is perfect for not overdoing it in the off-season. I really enjoyed that ride (even though I felt pretty crappy by the time I got home), and there are some great views from up there.

Rt 211 is actually a 4 lane highway, so I had been a little worried about the traffic out there, but it was actually fine. With speed limits being so low here, even on a big road like that it never felt like you were really on a big road, and with that little extra space for hesitant US driver to pass, it was almost more enjoyable than riding on a small country road. Ironic.

Hopefully, I'll get out more and more and discover more of the local area. I can't wait!

DCCX 100 meter special

2009-10-25T14:28:00.003+01:00

My second Sunday in the USA, my second CycloCross race! This was right in Washington DC, and although I’ve been sick, I once again had entered this event weeks ago, and wasn’t too keen on loosing that huge US entry fee, so I went to the race and figured I'd caugh around the course once more and have fun taking in the cool US CX scene.

It was a sunny yet chilly afternoon in DC, I was feeling a little better than I had done during the week, and I was looking forward to a nice day of fun.

The start line was amusing, as guys yelled and fussed and complained about where they were starting and about the officials calling them to the start (or not calling them to the start) when they thought they should be. I wondered if this was the world champs or something. The guy standing next to me, Ryan Dewalt (sp?), seemed as perplexed as I did about the fuss, he seemed to roll his eyes, not care where he was starting, and then of course went off to win the event with a commanding lead. I liked that!Just before the start, a USA cycling person complained about how I had put my number on. I had actually put it on all sideways like they do over here, so I was pretty happy I’d remembered to put it on that way, But she wasn't happy with it for some reason. I guess she mustn’t have been to too many races, so she had her little winge (though I'm still not really sure what about) and life went on. It was all a pretty moot point for me anyway. As the gun went off, I started slowly but was relatively well places in the 1^st half of the pack, and just as we went onto the first bit of grass, about 100meters after the start, my front tire went flat and that was the end of the day.

Ryan Dewalt and Warrenton kid Joe Dombrowski rode away from everyone. Ryan won, dare I say “easily” and Joe showed off some of his Belgian experience to win the Espoir race and finish 2^nd overall. Interestingly enough, Joe got zero recognition for winning the Espoir category, and as I understand it having spoken to Joe about it after the race, the US (or maybe it is just this general area) doesn’t recognize the Espoirs.

It was a good day out. Now I just hope I can get semi-healthy even if the idea of getting fit is pretty much out of the picture at this stage of the year, get out there and do a few more CX races, have fun and make the most of being able to do a few US CX races on fun and cool courses unlike the boring once back home in France.

USA Sick and Cross

2009-10-25T14:09:00.002+01:00

I arrived here in the good old USofA, only to spend my first Sat in bed asleep for over 24 hours sick. Fever, tired, joint and muscle pain etc etc. On Sunday morning when I awoke I felt a tiny bit better. I had pre-entered a Cyclocross race down in Winchester, VA, as seeing as entry fees are so high over here, and seeing as I had paid for this one out of my own pocket, I was pretty keen not to throw that money down the drain. So I decided to at least go to the race and see how I felt once there before deciding whether or not I would actually take the start. Of course once there I did start. I planned to take it really easy, but once in the race, I ended up pushing much harder than I should have done. At the end of the day the race was really good fun. I enjoyed racing CX again, having not touched a CX bike for some 4 or 5 years, and having not ridden off road at all for maybe 3 or 4 years. The courses in the US are usually a lot more fun, and this was the case in Winchester at the “Apple Harvest Cross”. I ended-up doing ok and coming in 6^th place at the end of the day. In all fairness most of the better riders were up in New Jersey or somewhere for a UCI race I think, but still… it was good fun! After coughing my way around the CX course for an hour, I spend the rest of week trying to get my lungs back. Racing was actually not a good idea as I seem to have damaged my lungs somewhat.

And so it was another very uneventful week on the bike with another WHOPPING 40km week. I’ve done about 40k a week for the last month now due to sickness, and I’m really REALLY getting sick of it!

Fly away

2009-10-12T19:41:00.001+02:00

Fantastic. 3am start tomorrow, USA here I come!

Phyco-Cross

2009-10-10T19:05:00.003+02:00

I actually managed to pull off a 30 min ride today which I’m pretty happy with. 30 mins on the cyclocross bike on the trainer indoors. Not exactly great specific training but it’s better than lying in bed and throwing up all day.

But.. with my not racing tomorrow, that takes us right into winter. In an attempt to get myself motivated to race Cross again, I’ve come “aCross” a web-site with some cool cyclocross videos called crosstube.net. Lots of little cyclocross videos, mainly in Flamish which, with a minimum of linguistic skills you can usually figure out what they are saying.

One of the videos I like best is this little summary CX music video. Check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9WMOA7dbH0&feature=player_embedded#

Battling sickness

2009-10-10T10:23:00.004+02:00

Not feeling 100%, but fully aware that I only a few days before leaving the country to get in one last loop of my favorite ride of all time, I headed out on Wednesday afternoon for a 4.5 hour 140k loop that takes you around the walled cities of the area and over into the Saint Antonin Valley. I wasn’t feeling really up to it, but it was a sort of pilgrimage. I love that loop, and it’s the ride I miss whenever I got away anywhere. Knowing I wouldn't get to ride it for at least 3 months. It had to be done. I felt heavy the whole time but enjoyed my ride and got home feeling pretty drained and satisfied.

Right after my ride I had a quick shower and went off to have a vaccination. Quarter of an hour after getting my vaccination I awoke on the floor, unaware of where I was and very confused. I had evidently passed out. I do hate needles but this was a bit odd. At 3am in the morning I awake suddenly to the room spinning around me. 1.5 hours of throwing up later, I fell back asleep. I spent the next day in bed, throwing up on and off and unable to eat of hold anything down. A visit to the Doc’s later in the day revealed no head trauma, but also didn’t give a clear answer.

Thankfully the day after I was able to hold down a little food, but the horrible spinning room was still there, followed by nausea.

There’s a chance I might have thrown out a vertebrae during my unconscious tumble, and so I have an osteopath appointment on Monday afternoon. Until then however I’m unable to ride, and still get a little dizzy when standing or moving. And with that I only have a couple days before getting on the plane to the US. So I’m really hoping I’m at least stable by Tuesday’s very early flight out of Toulouse. Oh well, we’ll see. Needless to say my race on Sunday is off. Though hopefully I’ll be at least able to take the start of the Winchester CycloCross race on the 18^th.

What a giggle it all is. But hey, at least I can watch Paris Tours on Sunday!!! Every cloud has an ever-so-slightly less gray lining.

The tough life!

2009-10-08T20:16:00.000+02:00

Ahh yes…. Life is tough…

See the link below to see just how darn hard life can get sometimes. J

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7578&status=True&catname=Latest News

Contre la Montre; contre Performance

2009-10-04T20:03:00.001+02:00

Well that was interesting. Time Trial today. Last one of the season. I was hoping for a top 4 as I’ve finishe3d top 4 in the past in this Championship… well ok, I was secretly hoping for a medal, but seeing as I’ve been sick for almost 2 weeks and I logged a whopping 91km last week… I knew it wasn’t gonna happen! However the interesting thing is the Heartrate to Power result. Whereas my threshold HR is 175, (sometimes 170 by this stage of the season) but average wattage should have been between 340-360W (knowing that I did 380 something recently for a similar time, so if all the preparation had gone properly, one could have expected a little higher than 340-360), however, from the moment I started warming up, my HR seemed disproportionately high compared to my power.

24km slightly windy of course hilly TT, with an average HR of 185!!!!!!!!!!!!!! L My max is 188 and threshold 175 normally, and today my HR got up to 196. So… What the hell? Throughout the whole TT I struggled to keep my power over a mere 300W. I never felt even in my effort. I did catch my 2 minute man by the half way point, so that was good, and it turns out I was actually 7^th, so not too bad at all considering. However my final numbers are absolutely all over the place. 185 average HR for a rather week 323W. What’s going on? I’m assuming it has something to do with my having been sick. Oh well, I have a Doc appointment Tuesday, so I’ll talk to him about it.

Well, that was actually a fun race. I enjoyed it. It didn’t feel good but was fun for some reason anyway. However these past few weeks have shown me that I am gonna SSSSUUUUUUUUCK at CX in a couple weeks. Oh well, it’s all just for a bit of fun and keep me motivated in the cold winter months anyway.

I also found out today, thanks to a very kind e-mail from Mr Hayes, that Pez has used a rather embarrassing photo of Greg Sonnenburg and myself as part of their clothing advertising…. Oh dear oh dear oh dear!!!

http://pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=7567&status=True&catname=Latest News

Hunting on the roads

2009-09-27T13:23:00.003+02:00

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

2009-09-26T20:43:00.004+02:00

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!

2009-09-26T17:50:00.000+02:00

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

2009-09-26T15:18:00.001+02:00

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

2009-09-26T15:07:00.001+02:00

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

2009-09-20T19:46:00.001+02:00

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

2009-09-19T06:42:00.006+02:00

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?

2009-09-16T09:49:00.004+02:00

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?

2009-09-16T09:07:00.002+02:00

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?

2009-09-13T22:18:00.004+02:00

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?

2009-09-13T05:18:00.005+02:00

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

2009-09-12T10:03:00.004+02:00

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

2009-09-12T09:06:00.004+02:00

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!

2009-09-07T18:42:00.004+02:00

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

2009-09-06T12:09:00.002+02:00

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

:-)

Winter plans

2009-09-05T18:28:00.008+02:00

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!

2009-09-03T15:47:00.004+02:00

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

2009-09-01T09:22:00.004+02:00

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.

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

2009-08-29T13:36:00.004+02:00

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

2009-08-18T11:35:00.007+02:00

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

2009-08-14T10:15:00.000+02:00

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

2009-08-10T19:14:00.010+02:00

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

2009-08-10T19:14:00.006+02:00

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)

2009-08-02T13:34:00.003+02:00

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!

La fin du Tour

2009-07-31T10:39:00.009+02:00

Once again the Tour has come and gone. It’s amazing how long we all wait for this grandiose event that comes with much awaited anticipation and goes in the blink of an eye.

Despite what many say, I still think it was a great and very exciting Tour.

The last 15 days of the Tour where good for me. We had a great group on Bikestyletours and had a great trip. The riding was a little less solid than in years past and in cycling terms I feel somewhat unfit at the end of a somewhat soft month of July. But off the bike it was great fun, a good trip, a great group of people and thankfully nothing but good weather.

Alberto Contador showed he IS the rider to beat. He showed hit amazing talent in the mountains by beating everyone he needed to beat on the hills. He confirmed his superiority with a clear win in the final Time Trial and he showed his class and cool-headedness by coping fantastically well with in-house team issues and stress to win his 4^th grand Tour in a row. Congratulations to Contador.

Lance came back to the sport in the best way possible in my mind. I’m over the moon to see Lance on the podium. As much as I would have liked to see Lance win the Tour, I think it’s actually best that he’s 3^rd. If he had won everyone would have said the Tour was boring. That now that Lance is back you know in advance what’s going to happen. It would also have raised all sorts of questions if Lance had won the Tour after 3.5 years out of cycling and a fractured collar bone in April. By finishing 3^rd he’s shown he is back BIG TIME!

He’s shown you can come back after 4 years off, he’s shown he’s a fantastic athlete… and in “only” finishing 3^rd, he’s made people look a little closer at his style and racing intelligence to notice things that we may have overlooked had he won. Lance was always at the front, never missed a split in the field. At the end of the day Lance raced smart! You can’t take anything away from the way he raced, he only lost a few meters when he legs couldn’t follow. Lance IS human, he’s not a machine and I think many world-wide will appreciate his 3^rd place that much more. However, he’ll be back next year… so look out!

In the world of the “fat guys”; the sprinters. Mark Cav showed he is the fastest sprinter in the world without a doubt.

Hushovd showed he’s the most consistent and possibly the smartest and more gutsy sprinter in the Tour.

Hushovd went out and got the intermediate sprint and gathered points where he had to and when he had to… ie: in the mountains when Cav was out of the picture. Tyler Farrar showed he’s a top sprinter and will be a force to keep an eye on in the future.

On the Champs on the last stage the Garmin team did the Yank thing and pulled out the TT skin-suits for the big crit on the last day... hmmm... not sure what that was about. They must have run out of clean clothing by tthe last day in Paris...
Skin Suits on a road bike?

The Belgian Quick Step and Lotto teams showed…. Nothing. Allan Davis must be sitting at home FUMING at the way his team and more to the point Tom Boonen raced this years Tour while he was sent home from Monaco the day of the Tour Start to give his spot to the Belgian National Champ Boonen.

The French showed they have some good riders and can win on the world’s biggest stage when the racing is suited to them. And In Brice Feillu the French might have a Tour rider and/or climber in the years to come. The French haven’t had a stage racer or good climber to years.

And how can you forget the two-prongued Shleck duo... A very strong and scary pair... Give Andy a few years to work on the TTing (which he has allready vastly improved) and he surely will win the Tour.

And that’s about it.

For me I have another trip in the Alps in a few days. 10 days on the Classic climbs in the Alps. Life couldn’t be much better than this!

I hope everyone enjoyed the Tour, and is already looking forward to next year’s running of the world’s biggest and best bike race.

To the Tour again

2009-07-15T19:03:00.004+02:00

Well that’s it. My few days back home are over and it’s off to an early morning flight tomorrow to head back off to “la route du Tour”.

I’ve had a really nice few days at home. Wendy and Des from Australia have been over staying at my place and we’ve had a great time riding and drinking coffee. Though a crash on one of the local descents ending in the hospital with 2 broken ribs did put a damper on the week and gave us a pretty big fright. But we've still got in some good local rides and I've been able to show off this one-of-kind area I live in and come from. We've made the most of a bad situation and have had some good laughs on the way.

The cobbled climb of Cordes is 20% steep and over 23% in sections. This is a classic ride I take everyone up who comes to visit. It's a bitch, but a must do!

The past few days of the Tour have seen the usual “first week” sprint finishes. Nothing really to write home about and nothing of very much interest except for those taking part in the last few hundred meters. In the next few days we should be heading back towards some “real” racing again.

Until then, enjoy the Tour on TV, I’ll be on the side of the road soaking up the atmosphere, but most likely somewhat confused as to what is actually going on in the race. Mais pour le moment, vive le Tour et a tres bientot.

Tour de France, Week 1

2009-07-10T08:46:00.006+02:00

After a rather long and painful train trip to Nice, I was finally at the Tour with Bikestyletours once again. I was on a trip covering the first few days of the race. Monaco and the TT course was great. A really good start to the Tour with a great course.

Levi, doing what Levi does.

The trips was once again really good fun. Not quite as much riding and not quite as fast as I would have liked, but we were sun-drenched and in a great part of the world.

It's been a very hard week early in the this year's Tour, even Jens has been grimacing!

So far the race has been very exciting and interesting. It’s great to see some old-school style racing coming into play in the first week of the tour, with Bordures in the wind and some unexpected time gaps.

Lance Armstrong seems to be in pretty good shape and his meticulousness and ability to be in the right place at all times and waste as little energy as possible is really shining through. Astana came through with a stunning TTT and showed their preparation. Though I did think it was a bit of a shame Garmin didn’t win the TTT. I would have rather see them win, as I don’t honestly feel they have many other cards to play throughout the rest of the Tour, and they deserve success. Astana on the other hand have plenty (maybe even ALL) the cards play in the next 2 weeks.

Hinault and Armstrong after the TTT: Best mates 4 ever?

Today is the first day in the mountains. Today we should see how everyone is really going. Will be very interesting to see how Astana race once the group of the favorites is whittled down. Great stuff!!!

First Mountain day into Andorra: Alberto Contador eyes the hights of the Pyrenees.

For me it’s time for a couple days at home. A quick race and then I fly up to Paris for another Bikestyle trip covering the last couple weeks of the Tour to Paris… oh great, I’ll have to ride bloody Ventoux again. L Actually last week’s ride up Ventoux wasn’t too bad. I rode up with a client who was pretty keen and it took us 1 hour 29… but we have ridden up there with clients where it’s taken over 3 hours… A quick nip up the Ventoux to keep the legs spinning (at about 50rpm, hmmmm)

New Photos from TTT (from last month)

2009-06-18T13:24:00.010+02:00

These photos have just come in of the Team Time Trial Champs I did the day after getting back here from the US. (I know it's been like a month, but we are in France afterall, with the exception of racing we do everything at a different pace over here!)
Just thought I'd share them.

Disclaimer for all US people: One picture shows a rider not wearing a helmet, F'in' deal with it!

Castelsarrasin/Bouygues Telecom warming up for our TTT run

We worked well as a group

The course, being French, included the usual hills...

The Final lunge for the line after was painfull

G.S.Blagnac beat us

As did Madiran with the current ITT champ

Tour International Des Hautes Pyrenees.

2009-06-17T16:30:00.003+02:00

Not a bad race. I wasn’t sure how fit I was going into this. Having done a BIG week in the mountains as training a little under a week before this stage race, and having caught a bit of a cold during that big training period… also not sure if I had any real “punch” in the legs of just good endurance.

Training on the Specialized sporting the Cycling Center shorts in the Pyrenees. Over 900km of mountains in 1 week. Is that enough to get ready for the Tour International des Pyrenees?

Stage1: 98km

The stage started off fairly flat and it wasn’t long before I was thinking that maybe I would quit the sport. Cycling is a hard sport and I really wasn’t feeling too good. I wondered why I was bothering with all this and was feeling like I would last too long in this race. Then we started to hit some hills and I was seemingly able to hold my own. The finale saw us climb a pretty long climb about 20k from the finish. Come the top of that climb I was feeling a little better. There was a group off the front, but at the top of the hill I attacked the group and got some pretty good king of the mountain points. Then we had a good downhill followed by a steep 5km climb to the finish line. With a couple km to go we could actually see the breakaway a little ahead of us. So with 1k to go, I attacked and tried to catch the breakaway group on the line. I caught a couple of the guys, but there was a Spanish rider 2mins up the road already. So I finished 5^th and got a few more Mountain points.

Stage 2:

The Yellow Jersey group up the Aspin

Day 2 had us doing 165km. The first part of stage 2 was around the valleys, then we hit the Col d’Aspin where things got interesting. I found myself in the yellow jersey group up starting the Aspin with a few guys from the early breakaway up the road. The attacks came thick and fast. The yellow jersey group got wittled down to 4 or 5 of us. The attacks kept coming and I eventually had to let 3 guys ride away from me. I caught one of them pretty quickly, but 2 french guys and the Spanish yellow jersey stayed up away. By the top I had caught all but one or two of the early breakaway riders and crested the summit of the Col d’Aspin in 6^th place alone. I hit the descent pretty hard and had 25km of valley road before a 3km uphill finish. According to my director in the team car, I rode most of the valley road at 70kph, and after a long, hard and lonely chase, I caught a 3 man group ahead of me. The yellow jersey was further up t road. Come the finish I we sprinted it out and I got yet another 5^th place on the stage. Moving me up to 4^th overall on the General Classification, and 6^th in the Mountains Classification.

Stage 3 was 97km back out of the big mountains towards the foothills of the Pyrenees. We had done some calculations and found that even if I took all the remaining Mountain points I could not take the jersey. So I totally gave up on that idea and focused on keeping my place on GC.

The stage was pretty nervous. I hated it. Small roads, wet and damp roads, lots of ups and down but no “real” hills. We had a guy in the break all day until a short climb 5km from the finish. The guy in 5^th overall attacked the yellow jersey on this climb but it didn’t go anywhere, so I countered in the hope of getting a little time to consolidate my 4^th spot overall. Over the top we all looked at eachother too much and the the group came back together. We almost caught the remains of the early breakaway on the line. Sadly for us we didn’t quite catch them as our sprint took the field sprint for 5^th only a couple wheels lengths behind the breakaway group. I finished not too far behind him and kept my 4^th place overall.

So overall not a bad International Tour of the Pyrenees. 4^th place overall and… actually I’m not sure where I ended up in the mountains classification.

New Time Trial Bike

2009-06-10T12:38:00.008+02:00

Time trials. I’m not THAT good at them but I do like them. I have pulled off a few good TT results here and there. I might not be the fastest guy out there, but I can usually hold my own.

Wheels: ever important, at Castelsarrasin/Bouygues we have a wide choice of Mavic Cosmic Carbons, Hed 3s, team disc wheels (by Corima I think) and Spinergy front wheels, take your pic according to the conditions.

Although there is no TT in the tour of the Pyrenees, and not every stage race has a TT in it, training on the TT bike regularly I believe is a must if you want to perform somewhat reasonably.

So with that in mind, I recently got my grubby little hands on a nice new Jamis TT bike. Now apparently this bugger has the best wind tunnel test results without a rider. The Jamis also have a patented supers fast fork and hidden front break. The rest is pretty standard for TT bikes these days. Aero frame, internal cable routing, hidden breaks…

The Patented design hides the breaks out of the way of the wind... though frankly I think more training would make a bigger difference to my TT times, but whatever...

Break the wind... hmmm, maybe I should refrase that: "Slice through the wind."!

The Aero Vision brake levers are extemely thin, and hurt the hands a little bit. They actually use shifter cables rather than standard break cables for a more aero fit win the brake lever... again, I think more training would make a bigger difference, but whatever...

Internal cable routing... extremely aero, and more to the point, and extreme pain in the butt to work on, but it's all worth it for that 0.0001 time gain... or maybe I should train more... hmmm...

Tour of the High Pyrenees equipment check...

2009-06-09T16:18:00.002+02:00

With the International Tour of the High Pyrenees fast approaching, and with last weeks big mileage, I’ve been mainly recovering and checking over and getting my bike ready for one of the hilliest races of the season. As far as I know, the biggest climb on the Tour is the Aspin. The Aspin is a climb I know really well and is also a climb that is somewhat special to me. As a kid we used to go and camp during the summer holidays in a campsite at the base of the Aspin. I rode my first climb there and saw my first big pro race there as well.

The Aspin isn’t a particularly hard climb. We will be climbing it from the hardest side, and the last 3km are the hardest. But overall it is a pretty steady and regular climb. Just as I like them. The other riders will make the climb hard, not the climb itself. So with that in mind I am going to be sticking with standard crankset, and opting for a 12-25 casette. Hopefully that will be ok. It’s not uncommon to spend a few hours totally spun out in the valleys during some stages, so I’m hoping the 53x12 will be big enough. I stupidly forgot my 11 somewhere in the US. A 39x 25 should be ample to climb most of the climbs on the Tour, including the Aspin at race pace.

A 12-25 should do the trick in the mountains.

I’m a little nervous about the carbon wheels on the descents and in the chance of rain. I’ve had scary moments in the mountains in the rain with carbon wheels in the past. However if the weather holds up, the descent from the Aspin is relatively technical, but it isn’t very long, and if it really rains hard, we’ll be switching to standard Alu wheels.

Corima Carbon specific break pads should insure good breaking on the mountain descents.

The black and white front end is pretty standard.

I wonder who prived the seat? Not sure what brand this is....

This clever little thing will keep the race number out of the way.

Trans Pyrenees.

2009-06-09T08:36:00.006+02:00

So, the day after riding 185km in the Boucles du Tarn Elite race, I jumped in the car at 5am and drove down to a little town just south or Barcelona. From here started the Trans Pyrenees Challenge, and I was a guide with Thomson Bike Tours.

We spent a good part of the trip on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees.

The idea is to ride your bike from one end of the mountain range to the other in just 6 days. Personally I was pretty buggered and it took me a good 4 or 5 days to recover from Saturday’s race and start to get some feeling back in my legs. So the first few days were pretty hard for me. Of course ever single day included multiple climbs, and not just hills, real climbs!

So here’s the breakdown of my week:

Sat: 185k

Sun:50k

Mon: 152k

Tue: 140k

Wed: 160k

Thu: 128k

Friday: 106k (“Only”)

Sat: 140k

So that’s over 900km for one week. The list of climbs we did it not even worth including, if it’s in the Pyrenees, we did it! Over 21000 Cal!

But what a GREAT trip. Very good training, a great group of people, a perfect and smooth organization. Only downside was one day of rain on which I managed to catch a cold… :-)

We were up pretty high for most of the week.

to the hills.....!

2009-05-29T17:54:00.003+02:00

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'

2009-05-22T05:59:00.003+02:00

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.

2009-05-07T01:09:00.004+02:00

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!

2009-05-07T01:04:00.003+02:00

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!

Tour of Ephrata, Summer is here!!!!

2009-04-26T03:47:00.001+02:00

So here we are. Another weekend another race. We’re sitting in a hotel room up in the Armish area of PA. This time John Parks and I have prostituted ourselves out once more, this time donning the NCVC jersey for the weekend. The NCVC guys were in need of a couple riders to fill out their roster for the Tour of Ephrata. The guys were very nice to accept us and have us join them for the weekend. Here's a BIG THANK YOU to NCVC!

Today was the road race. A 130k race on flat and windy roads in a “Northern” style of racing. I felt really shit all day, (possibly due to the past few days of riding). The racing was really hard and I suffered like a dog. Not the greatest day in the world but there you go. It was good training if nothing else. The organizers did have the extremely dubious idea of putting cone in the center line in the middle of the road in sections. No surprises it caused a few crashes and incidents! There were a few stupid moments of crashes once again out there today. I still can’t quite figure that out. In 3 races here I’ve already seen more crashes than in 1 year in France. The course was pretty much an oversized crit, and as Roger Hammond said, US riders seem to have an uncontrollable desire to shoot up on the inside on corners, bunching everything up and scaring the crap out of me… but there you go.

It was a warm and sunny day, and we were racing through Amish country, with horse drawn carts and simpler living styles. I love that part of the racing. It’s so cool to be racing through areas that are that different. Overall a pretty good day. We polished the evening off with a cold beer in Ephrata PA, with the NCVC guys, which is the perfect end to a pretty good day! Life could be worse!

Next up is a Team Time Trial tomorrow morning with a steep uphill finish… that’ll be…. Fun? Should at least be a little bit of training for the Team Time Trial Champs the day after I get home in France on the 21st of May. Tomorrow afternoon is the final stage, a washing-machine, I mean Crit in the afternoon… UGH, I hate crits, I SUCK at them!

Finally some miles...

2009-04-26T03:31:00.000+02:00

I got 200k in on Sunday, so I figured I was on course for a good training week. I’ve been gradually doing less and less miles each week I’m here, and I’m not feeling really good about it. Monday and Tuesday it rained, so I didn’t do much but drink coffee. But then Wednesday I got in a nice 4.5 hours on the bike in the sun and in relative warmth. Thursday I got in 2 rides totaling 5 hours, this time it was pretty windy but at least it was dry… and Friday I got in another nice 2.5 hours. Looks like the warmer weather is finally heading this way…. Not sure what the future holds in terms of races yet though…

Tour of the Battenkill,

2009-04-26T03:27:00.002+02:00

Well, this was actually good fun. It’s nice to do a “real” race again where things are steady and controlled. The gravel sections really weren’t the descider of the race as I thought they would be. I actually did better than I thought I would. I didn’t think I’d finish this race, especially as that “northern classic” stuff isn’t my style of racing… and I hadn’t raced 200k since 2004 in Austria, and the last time I did a “long race” of 175k was at the Tour of Cameroon at the end of 2007 season. My training has also been steadily decreasing since I’ve got to the US. So needless to say, I was pretty happy to finish, even though it was, as Darren Lill said to me in a E-mail “albeit LAST”. I got popped with 40k to go and rode the last 30 odd K alone. That was pretty horrible. I felt like total shit then!

All in all it was a great weekend. I had really good fun, enjoyed the racing. I really want to thank all the guys who helped out up there, gave us feeds etc. Special Thanks to Terry who drove the team car in the caravan having never seen a caravan before, and he did a great job.

Tour of the Battenkill. Pro Invitational

2009-04-18T03:59:00.003+02:00

Early start today. We left at 8am… and got here (northern New York state) a little after 5pm. The drive was actually fine, it didn’t feel as long as it sounds, partly thanks to the really spacious and big US vehicles. A drive that long in the Castel Team bus or one of the cars would have felt a lot longer I’m sure.

We went straight to a “Press conference”, and then had a good old New York Pizza for dinner. That was pretty cool! Nicely American!

Apart from that not much to report. Sounds like it might rain for our race on Sunday. That will really suck for me!

In other news Tyler Hamilton has sadly taken a step down from the sport after an out of competition positive drug test for a agent contained in an anti-depression medication he took. It’s a real shame to see Tyler leave the sport that way. No matter what people say the guy is a true legend! Regardless, you can never take away what he has achieved in cycling! It’s also a real shame to know that the US national champion jersey will not be worn in the Pro Peloton this year (even if Tyler’s Team Rock Racing did put together a horrible “version” of the National Champ jersey which was sadly not easy enough to distinguish from the rest of the team jerseys.

Final Battenkill Preparation

2009-04-18T02:35:00.001+02:00

Well, it’s done nothing but rain over the day I had really wanted to get out there and ride myself into the ground, before having 3 nice easy days in the run up to what will be a hell of a race. So my final prep has involved a lot of coffee and chatting and relaxing with our hilarious host Greg. Not great for the race, but I’m not complaining, it’s been great! My idea of a perfect morning… get up, have coffee… then another… then another… then… another… and so on.

The race is shaping up to be a big’n. We are traveling up to New York state on Friday with the team. It’s a composite team and John Parks is also on it. So that’ll be cool. We’ve also got a guy from Rock Racing joining us apparently. The rest of the field for the race includes some “real” riders. Floyd Landis will be up there along with teammates Tim Johnson and Bobby Lea. I met Bobby a few years ago in Vegas, and I know his parents a little from Austria. Team Type 1 are sending some good riders. Team BMC will also be there hot off their participation in one of the world’s hardest and most historic races; Paris Roubiax. Also on the start list are some strong riders from the Bissel Pro team of New-Zealander and until last year Albi Velo Sport/AG2R rider Pete Latham. It’s gonna be… fun?!

Fawn-Grove Roubaix

2009-04-10T18:22:00.002+02:00

Second race of the season. This was a race up in PA (USA) with a lot of gravel roads. Now this isn’t usually my style of racing. As my “results” indicate I need some long hills usually, and the flat, windy “power” type races are really not for me. But this was going to be one of those “classic” races… and with it being held on the same day as the Tour of Flanders, I couldn’t resist it.

The Race:
Well, I ate Humble Pie for about 2.5 hours. The gravel sections were covered in pretty deep gravel, and there were even downhill corners covered in Gravel. It was pretty hard core! I got put in the hurt-box pretty much from the gun. The first section of gravel was after just about a km or 2… and I was already in trouble. John Parks was out there with me again and he was looking pretty good.

I got dropped from the main group early. John then got a flat and before I knew it he had already caught back up to me. We formed a small 5 or 6 man group and chased hard. John was pretty impressive and was obviously using his experience from all the races he did in northern France. He picked the right moments, and did most of the work to pull our little group back up to the front group after about 20k of racing.

John Parks was looking really good, but 3 flats and he was out...

We were back up at the front with a fighting chance. Then we hit the gravel again, and I was slowly but gradually gapped AGAIN. After a while I had to watch a group of 10 ride away from me. John got another flat from the front group but wasn’t able to get back up to us again this time sadly. It took him a while to get a new wheel… and that one ALSO went flat… so after 3 flats, he was pretty much forced to DNF. Shame as he was looking on for a really solid performance!

I settled into a rhythm and spent most of the rest of the race in a 3 man group. I really wasn’t feeling great at all this weekend, and add in the fact that the race was not suited to me and there wasn’t much I could do. But I have a fair bit of experience in small groups, so we rolled on. We kept the front group of 8 or 9 in our sights for a while, but as I felt I was the one doing 80% of the work in the group, it quickly became clear we weren’t going to get back on, and so I relaxed a bit and the 3 of us shared the work a little more equally.

Our Group of 3: with New York Pez reader Colin Prensky on the right.

In the end we caught a couple of tired guys from the front group, and as we approached the line we were racing for 6th place. There was a fair bit of money for this race, so every place counted. Somehow one of the guys in our group let on that he was a track rider… which was a big mistake. I felt I was stronger than they were, and I had been planning to wait for the finish and outsprint them (or at least try with my pathetic sprinting abilities)… but when I found out he was a track rider, I knew I had NO chance of outsprinting him. So I attacked with 1k to go and held them off to the line, taking a nice little 6th place. Not a bad result. I didn’t really feel satisfied at the end of the day as I had suffered more than I felt I should have. I didn’t feel like I deserved that 6th place as I didn’t really go out and get it, I felt like I sat back, let the race control me rather than me controlling the race.

That all being said, it was a very fun race. One of those races that is horrible to do, but is fun to have done! Good race, fun day, and one to be remembered!
Thanks to John Neusbaum for taking me up to the race in his massive truck which was very spacious and comfortable on such a long trip.

What next? Not sure. I’ve been feeling pretty flat on the bike for the past 2 weeks. I think that until now I’ve been riding on borrowed fitness from AUS, and now my lack of proper training (due to the cold and shitty weather) is starting to kick in. So a nice weekend of riding whilst watch Paris Roubaix on TV hopefully, and then next weekend is the big 200k dirt race up in New York state with Floyd Landis and Time Johnson among others. That should be fun.

First race of the Season: Jefferson Cup (USA)

2009-03-31T00:02:00.010+02:00

I usually quite enjoy the first few races of the season. I always sit in the back, get in some race miles and go in with no expectations. I expect to get dropped as my early season form isn't usually much to write home about. Last year was a little bit of a surprise and the first couple races of the year (in the snow in France) went relatively well with a top 20 and a 6th spot, but I expect nothing, and that can be nice at times. It's basically just training.

This year however I am kicking off the season with a spot of US racing. My first race was to be the Jefferson Cup, a litte local race in Vriginia that I had done a couple times as a Junior way back when I was a mountain biker. I had been told this was the Milan-San-Remo/the Grand Prix Montastruc of the Mid-Atlantic. The start list looked impressive with a few names I actually vaguely knew and a couple Pro teams. So I wasn't expecting anything on the day. Add the fact that the course was nothing but short sharp hills, and that it was pretty windy... and the race was looking decidedly "northern". That's the kind of race I suck at, power hills and wind and I just don't get along.

The race started off quite strangely. It was very stop-and-go, the rhythm was all over the place and for the first 30+km it never really got going. We seemed to be pootling along waiting for something to happen. After about 40 odd KM things started to liven up a little bit and, seeing as I wasn't feeling TOO bad I popped up to the front and had a look at what was going on. There were a few attacks off the front but none of them sincere. It was really frustrating to see people half-heartedly attacking and not going anywhere. We were in a perpetual state of "just about to attack" all the time, with nothing real ever coming out of it, and no one really believing in their actions. The opportunities were there for a group to form off the front, but no one committed. The racing was frankly soft. Everyone raced defensively and no one grabbed the bull by the horns and got on with it. There were some teams who had a bunch of riders in the field. And I believe that the Richmond Pro Cycling team actually have a couple guys who have spent some time in Belgium. Why either Richmond, Kelly or Harley Davidson cycling team didn't just get to the front, wind it up on a hill, put everyone in the gutter with the cross-winds, nail it over the top, line us all out, hit us right and left and split the entire field apart still baffles me. Some guys were using defensive "tactics" of having a guy on the front with one of their team-mates sitting about 5 or 6 guys back, then they'd let a gap open presumably to try and let the 6 or so guys get off the front... but that can only work if you've had the whole race in single file for a while and have started to hurt people. As it was there were 100 guys sitting easily behind them and any one of those 100 guys could close the gap easily. In the fast 40k or so, a few guys did seem to pick some good spots to attack and kept going at it, it got pretty hard a time and I started to suffer a little bit, but it still wasn't a long hard effort.

Taking a feed durring the 120k Jefferson Cup

What surprised me more however was the amount of wobbling going on in the field. For a race of that level there seemed to be a lot of "hubbards" out there. Guys were all over the road. We were braking going downhill, and braking going uphill. Guys didn't seem able to judge speed at all and would shoot up into spots in the field and SLAM on the brakes. At one moment, I was going round a corner, alone on the front, and some kid rode straight into me for no reason what so ever. The only reason imaginable is very poor bike handling skills. This all obviously led to the typical US racing mass crash with 5 or 6k to go. This was absolutely shocking! For no reason at all, people where all over the place and half the field went down. Crashes are a part of racing, but this was without rhyme or reason.

On the approach to the finish, I thought I might actually take part in the sprint. The headwind and slightly uphill finish I figured might actually be ok for someone with appalling sprinting skills like myself... but once again there were riders all over the road on the approach to the line, so I ambled across the line. That being said I was somehow in 14th place, which isn't bad at all.

Crossing the line in 14th spot

I caught up with a couple of Aussies on Team Type 1 after the race and they seemed a little baffled by it all as well, so it's not just me.

I've found it hard to come to any kind of conclusion after that race. I'm not sure where my fitness is. In an early season race like that one I should really have been struggling and I should have been dropped. I'm not too sure what to think of the style of racing and safety of the next few races I'll be doing over here. I guess we'll see. The positive side of all this is: and there are quite a few positive sides... I don't ONLY complain!

1) I guess my fitness isn't TOO shocking
2) I got some race miles into the legs
3) It was really really good to race with my old Teammate from France and good friend John Parks again. John pulled on the Casel/Bouygues kit as well and it was a bit like the good old days of racing together back in France.
4) I got to race along side Chris "I beat Tyler Hamilton in a stage race" Hayes again. I didn't see too much of Hayes on the day, which was a bit of a shame because the guy has more international racing experience and class in one back pocket of his racing jersey than the rest of us all put together.

John Parks and I joined forces once again, only this time on the other side of the Atlantic

Last, but not least, thank you to Warrenton Cycling Center for getting me a rideable bike after my Cannondale cracked when I got back from Australia. The bike is a very nice looking Specialized Tarmac. Thanks Tim/WCC!!!!

The Warrenton Cycling Center got me on this great new Specialized bike!!!

You can find race results for the Jerfferson Cup at Gam Jams ( www.gamjams.net )

One of the Favorites?!

2009-03-27T13:15:00.004+01:00

Sunday is my first race of the season. A local American race in the state of Virginia called the Jefferson Cup. I got an e-mail from a friend of mine telling me that some web-site (gamjams.com) which I didn't know, had me listed as one of the favorites for this Sunday's race.

I had to go and check this out, and sure enough, there is a poll where people can vote for the rider they thing will win the race; and I'm listed.

I wonder if anyone should tell them I crashed last Sunday, will be on a bike I've had for 2 days, and more to the point, I always just sit in the back of the pack and get in some race-miles for the first few races of the season?!

Check it out at http://www.gamjams.com/ Vote for me and I'll be the biggest disappointment in the history of the event. :-) So do NOT vote!!!

Anyway, that's enough of that, it's time to go for a nice 2 hour morning (erm, FREEZING morning) ride with a few buddies.

Photos of my new bike to come soon... (yawwwn!)

Great Rides, Cold Air and a tumble

2009-03-24T11:55:00.004+01:00

Though the weather has been miserably cold here since I arrived about 10 days ago. I have actually been keeping up my mileage. Although I have been doing the intensity I should have been doing. Partly due to my frame being broken and partly due to my Asthmatic lungs not coping with the cold too well. But things are still going to plan for a late May, early June fitness.

This weekend was a little bit warmer (of course that's all relative) and I got in a nice 145k on Saturday, and even better 130k on Sunday morning with some locals. We did a great loop out towards the hills. The skies were crisp and the views were great. We got in a couple of gravel roads, and I even managed a tumble on one of them tearing my brand new Pezcyclingnews shorts. But the ride was great. And although for some reason our little group in Warrenton often has difficulty sticking together as an organized group, this Sunday was just a dream ride. Proper Endurance pace, organized group, good company, and with the exception of a conversation on the new 3.0 software I understood NOTHING of, the conversation was good!

My new (and non-cracked) frame should be in Wednesday, so I can finally start riding with a little more confidence. And that'll give me 3 days to ride it before the first race of the season. The first race of the season for me this year is a little local race herein Virginia called the Jefferson Cup. I have ridden this in the past a few times. It's a circuit race of about 15-20k loops I think, for a total of about 120k. So it should be a perfect early season race to sit in the back of the field and just get accustomed to things. Though with the ludicrous cost of race entry fees over here... and the fact that you have to pay them yourself out of your own pocket, sitting in the back and getting back into the swing of things is quite a costly affair. And all that to do a race out in the middle of nowhere, with no caravan and on a circular course. Anyway, not to be negative, it'll be fun to race somewhere "different" I'm sure.

In the meantime: Here's a pic of Tim (the shop owner) Dingus and Tom boonen....

Tom is the one on the right in case you weren't sure. ;-) One of these guys won Paris-Roubaix. Can you guess which one? Think hard, you might be surprised...

Minus 6!

2009-03-21T12:54:00.003+01:00

I'm up early for a day of riding. I have just looked at the temperature, and it is -6 outside. -6 at the end of March. Apparently the sun is beating down on the balcony back home in France and the veg garden is going in.

I did however hear from United Airlines yesterday and apparently my cheque is in the mail. So I should get it today or Monday. Which means I might get a bike a day or 2 before my first race. There is light at the end of the very vold tunnel.

Southern Discomfort? Cold Discomfort.

2009-03-20T12:33:00.002+01:00

Southern Discomfort... Technically Virginia is in the "South" of the US... but the weather recently has been descidedly norther... Cold Discomfort!

The weather here in the US is getting ridiculous. It barely edges over 10 degrees if we are lucky on a good day. At home in France it is around the 20 degrees every day, and here the winter seems to hanging on for dear life. I still don't have any news from United Airline about my check for my broken bike, and I still don't have a bike I can ride that isn't about to fail on me any minute. This just means I'm doing relatively easy ride on the road bike... so much for all that good solid work from 3 months on the Sunshine Coast. I would get out and do a load of longer intervals on my Time Trial bike but the cold is affecting my lungs and I'm getting hints of Asthma again that I hadn't had for months. Oh well, I guess it's still almost 3 months before I want to be really fit. So no too much to worry about just yet.

Apart from that there's nothing to report. Not much happening really. Oh, there is one thing, which is quite something after spending my time sitting at the beach sipping coffee... I can NOT get a good coffee for some reason. All the coffees from Starbucks seem to be served in massive great big cups, so not only does the coffee not have any depth, it has no head, no flavor and it goes cold really quickly as it's spread thinly over a large area... Yanks, phuh. ;-)

On the plus side they do have shops full of really great things at dirt cheap prices. It makes me want to get all sorts of stuff. They have got that right over here no doubt!

Well, it's -2 outside and I have to go riding. :-(

From bad to worse.

2009-03-13T12:40:00.011+01:00

Well, my flight from LA to Washington DC was delayed, just to add insult to injury. But it all went ok. Once in DC we had trolley races at 3 in the morning to pass the time. That was actually kind of fun. It's rare to see an empty airport, and rarer that you can bom around on a trolley and not get yelled at.

Trolley Racing!!!

My Friend Greg actually turned up early, and so we had a coffee and eventually stole his car and start off on the 45min drive to Warrenton. By the time we got there there was just enough time for me to build my bike and head out on a 3.5 hour ride. I actually felt fairly good on the bike, which is quite a surprise seeing as I hadn't slept at all that night and had only slept 5 hours in the plane from Australia to LA (ie: 5 hours total in a 38 hour trip). Of course the rest of the day I was fighting like hell to stay awake so that I could get to bed a usual time for here and get over jetlag ASAP.

My first ride left from Greg's Stunning Log cabin

Breakfast lunch and dinner all wrapped in one Apple Fritter... the biggest fritter I have ever seen.

The first couple days here were fairly warm, and although I have been wrapped up warm on the rides, everyone else has been in shorts (idiots!). As I type this right now however, it is snowing outside. Needless to say I am once again reminded of how much I miss my training partners in Tahlia and Luke, and obviously the entire group from Mooloolaba... my mind can't even get around the whole concept of having a nice relaxing coffee in Mooloolaba overlooking the ocean and the beach after a very sweaty few hours on the bike anymore... the snow and iced that part of my brain up.
I saw this on my frist ride in the US: hmmm... need we say more?

My new plan for the future: rob a bank and head back over to AUS for a couple weeks! Of course that will have to be after I get everything sorted here. During the flight the airlines managed to crack my frame, crack my rear wheel etc etc. It's all ok though, they are taking care of it. But still.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

Now that I am over here, it's time to thank a few people. Thanks to Des for lending me the TT-get-around-Aus bike. Wendy for the BarBQs, Shuttles for the entertainment, Jeff for... well.. thanks for Lydell Syndrome Jeff! Thanks to Luke for the long rides, thanks to Tahlia for the endless training and the stupidest ride ideas I have even seen, and thanks for getting me out there and extending my rides. And last but certainly not least: Thanks to Shep. There's not really much you can say about Shep... a simple "thank you" is far from enough. The guy put up with, and put up 2 people for 3 months, he pours a mean rum'n'coke and there's not no way for me to extend my gratitude enough. Thank you!

Tahls and Sim on yet another long ride (Luke took the pic)

Travels gone wrong...

2009-03-08T23:04:00.001+01:00

Travel.. what a great thing.

So... I flew from Brisbane to Sydney... and that was fine, but from there things started going wrong. Because of the short time and a crappy bus transfer between so-called terminals in Sydney I missed my connecting flight from Sydney to LA. So right now I'm sitting in San Francisco airport, waiting for another connecting flight to Washington DC. 5 hours in San Fran, with nothing to do but do a few loops of the airport on the "Terminal Train" and travel is starting to loose it's sex appeal. My next flight gets me into Washington DC at 1am. almost 5 hours later than my original arrival time. Needless to say no one can pick me up in DC at that unearthly time in the morning... So I'll wait until my good buddy Greg (the former United Pilot turned control tower guy) starts work at 5am. I'll steel his car, head home, go for the 8am morning ride... then go and pick Greg up from work once he's done as I will have his car.
Ain't life great. Hey, you know what... apart from the fact that I'm getting dizzy right now through lack of food and sleep, these are the things in life that make our lives an adventure. If it's too easy it isn't fun!

Still.. the fact that as I type this the Mooloolaba group are sitting at the Prom' in Caloundra sipping coffees in the sun by the ocean before being drilled home at Jeff Lydell's hell-raising pace and sprinting for 60 signs doesn't do much to help me appreciate San Fran Airport much more.

Spriting for 60 signs in Mooloolaba Australia, beats sitting in an airport for 5 hours after 16 hours of flying with another 5 hour flight to go...

What next, we'll see... who knows what the future holds.

Until next time (or the next airport) Cheers for now!

It's a beautiful day...

2009-03-03T05:09:00.010+01:00

Sunday, bang on a week before I jump on a plane and fly to the US. And as if the idea of leaving wasn't already bad enough, a couple of Friends (Wendy (Ex Tour de France Rider), and Des (Bike shop owner and local legend)) took us out for a perfect day.

We started the day off early with a drive up the coast to see and feed some wild Dolphins off Tin Can Bay. Luckily for us, a beautiful 2meter long dolphin had swum in for a feed and to say hi to a few two legged land creatures.

Once our little friend had had enough of us, she headed back out to deeper waters and left us to go and have breakfast and a coffee... and as usual in this part of the world, we had a great view over breakfast!

From there we headed to the stunning Rainbow Beach, known for it's naturally coloured sands, and had a swim in the crystal clear and calm ocean... once again, littered with great views. Rainbow Beach... stunning!

After the swim we headed out into the "bush" a little and had a look for some creatures... sadly, or maybe luckily, the nearest we came was to this Crocodile warning sign.

Crocs... and I'm not talking about the shoes!

Can you say: Crocodile Dundee?!

As if that wasn't enough, we then went back to Wendy's for swim in the pool with a nice refreshing cold beer in hand, followed by the traditional Aussie BarBQ...Wendy likes her saussages.

Ahhhhh... Christ I'm going to miss this!!!!

The perfect end to a perfect day!

Sydney

2009-03-03T05:05:00.004+01:00

3 months is Australia and my training seems to be going very well. So far I'm very happy with how things have gone. I've added some longer steadier intervals (mainly uphill... seeing as I can't ride on the flat to save my life) and I've also been throwing in the odd little sprint here and there against the locals.

The numbers I'm getting in Training are very satisfying for the this time of the year and considering the types of workload and intervals (or lack there of) I've been doing. Hopefully this will all pay off come May and June when I want to be fit.

Apart from riding daily and loving the sun baked roads Aus has to offer, I recently shot off to Sydney for some tourist moments.

Got up one morning, went for a ride, jumped on a plane to Sydney, met up with one of my old Lecturers from University in France, walked around Sydney, saw the stunning Opera House, the Bridge, even had dinner in a rotating restaurant atop the Sydney Tower! This was just stunning, eating as you rotate, watching the sunset over the city and the lights of the town slowly come alive.

After a good night's sleep in a downtown hotel, we walked around yet more of the city, then jumped on a plane and we were back in time for another short ride and a cold beer. One of life's fantastic moments... A day that will never be forgotten!!!

First Fitness test OK

2009-02-12T10:06:00.006+01:00

My time is AUS is slowly coming to an end. I've been here a little over 2 months now, and I have finally come to the end of the base miles part of my training. Tuesday was the first day I was "allowed" to go a little harder. And so it was that I ran a little fitness test up the local 6km climb of Montville to see how I've come out of my base faze.

The results were quite pleasing. Having done zero efforts and just ridden base for a couple months, I was happy to put out 350 watts up the 6km climb (which usually takes somewhere between 15 and 20 mins). So the training is paying off. Hopefully I'll progress just as well through the next faze of my training before going to the United States and eventually being fit for some races in France right at the end of May and through June.

The Montville climb offers a good testing round

I'm currently having an easy week, which has worked out well because this week is turning out to be a little wet. But overall I have to say I'm happy with the start of the season thus far.

An easy week fits in well with a week of rain

Tribute to Pepoy

2009-02-06T02:00:00.004+01:00

Chris Hayes informed me of the passing of MTB legend, former MTB world Champion and former teammate of mine Christophe Dupouey.

He was my hero as I was growing up and racing MTBs, I loved his style. I raced with him on AVS/AG2R feeder team in 2002 and rubbed elbows with him for a couple years after that on different teams... Jesus that's really sad. He has 2 kids!!!!!! The guy was a legend. Watching him got me into cycling... He will be missed in the cycling world.

I'm lost for words..........

This from Cyclingnews.com ( http://www.cyclingnews.com/mtb.php?id=news/2009/feb09/feb06mtbnews )

Former World Champion Dupouey commits suicide

Former mountain bike World Champion Christophe Dupouey committed suicide Wednesday evening in Tarbes, France. He was said to have suffered from depression.
Dupouey won the World championship title in 1998, and finished fourth in the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996.
In 2006 he was given a suspended three-month prison sentence for participating in a trafficking network for "pot belge", a mix of cocaine, caffeine, pain killers, sometimes amphetamines and heroin.

Sim Rides with Allan Davis on PEZ

2009-02-05T05:59:00.001+01:00

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=6740&status=True&catname=Latest%20News

Another www.Pezcyclingnews.com article has just been published, recounting a little spin I went on with Tour Down Under winner Allan Davis.

Ride like a Pro: Published

2009-01-30T21:42:00.001+01:00

Well here it is. The article on group riding that a few people seemed to think was an annoyed rant when I posted it on my blog has been published. http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=6731&status=True&catname=Latest%20News

It was not an annoyed rant, but was in fact just a preview of the Pez article. Look out for another article on general training methods and techniques some time soon.

Oh dear oh dearrrr.....

2009-01-30T02:11:00.002+01:00

Visitors of today's Pezcyclingnews will have noticed a rather scary picture in the "PeloPics" section...

There's not much than can be said about this... though I'm sure Rob will have an insulting comment to make.... come on Rob, let's get this over with... lets hear it!

Look out for the Group Riding article on www.pezcyclingnews.com coming to a computer screen near you soon (tomorrow in fact acording to the Pez caption on that photo).

Owing Sprint King

2009-01-29T07:28:00.005+01:00

There's been a fair bit of rain over here in Aus this past week. While it was hot and sunny at the Tour down Under in Adelaide in South Australia, the weather here has been decidedly British. On a couple of mornings this week, as I got up and got ready to ride, I came nose to nose with a torrential downpour everytime I opened a door or window. That's a good and well for a while, you just stay in and don't ride. But after a few days you really need to get back out there and continue on with your training. With this in a mind a few mornings ago I went out in dodgy looking weather to join the group ride. Once there the weather went pear shaped once again. Shaun (a Pro from Team Panasonic who was racing in the US last year) and I took one look up and scrapped the ride in favor of a very long stint at the coffee shop. Reassured by the story of Floyd Landis downing a thousand espressos in Spain one morning when he was riding for US Postal, we down more coffees than we could keep track of. I hadn't brought enough money, and so Shaun paid for the majority.

Beat that Floyd

With that in mind: Every Wednesday on the group ride they have a small sprint down in a town called Caloundra. After the sprint they stop for a coffee at a local coffee shop. The Coffee shop gives out a trophy and a $10 gift voucher for the winner of the sprint. As everyone knows I can't outsprint a 70 year old granny on her way to the bakery, but knowing I owed Shaun a thousand coffees (and knowing he wasn't there himself to beat me in the sprint) I decided, contrary to the norm) to take part in the sprint.

With me trophy. Please ignore my jersey from a team from... erm... 4 or 5 years ago.

So now I can pay Shaun back for all those coffees!
Lets see if we can beat Floyd's Espresso record tomorrow Shaun? :-)

Something's bugging me

2009-01-29T07:05:00.010+01:00

Some things just plain bug me. I'm a bit of a complainer and moaner at times, but that's just the way I am. When something bugs me... I... well... I take a picture of it. :-)

The last few mornings I've woken up to find some generally unwanted guests in the house. It also seems to be snake time again, and I keep finding snakes on the road as I ride. However I sadly don't have my camera with me for most of the critters I come across. One of the things I was sadest I missed with the camera, was the biggest and trustiest milli(or Centi)pede I have ever seen. So in the meantime, here's just a few of my recent buddies.

Hmmmmm... I see....

They have Spiders in AUS... sadly!

And who can forget my friend from the other day...

Australia Day

2009-01-29T06:41:00.004+01:00

The French have Bastille day, the American's have the 4th of July, the British have... erm... Tea Time? The Aussies have the aptly named.... wait for it.... waiiiiit for ittttt.... AUSTRALIA DAY! What the Australian lack in originality in naming their national day, they make up for in how they spend this day.

As with any day for me, special or not, it naturally starts with the obligatory and somewhat religious bike ride. But after that it was all about Australia Day. Now I have no idea what Australia day is all about in historic terms, but I do know what it's about in this modern era. It's about doing this Aussie! What are Aussie things? BarBQs (even though that is a French word), beer, surfing, going to the beach and of course the national sport... no, it's NOT cricket as most people may think! The national sport is actually driving around drunk in a car, breaking glass bottles on the floor.

Seriously though, Aussie Day is just a great excuse to get together, have a drink, eat a load of food and have a good time.

BBQ Man Shep, something of a loner at time. Shep burned the potatoes and was sent to sit by himself at another table... :-)

After a nice morning ride, we had us a big old BarBQ courtesy of Craig, followed by a quick run into town for a beer with a few cycling friends.

Great stuff!

Really???

2009-01-19T06:30:00.000+01:00

Hmmmmmmm........................

Serious Training and "new" TT bike...

2009-01-14T09:22:00.004+01:00

It's been nothing but serious training the past couple weeks. I have been putting in the base miles and following a strict training plan.

I usually join the morning group rides and head out with them, usually either cutting off and finishing up by myself or sometimes meeting an older Pro (ex-teammate of Bernard Hinault's) Frenchman who's here for a holiday. Other times I'll just extend my ride after the group ride.

Needless to say it's all good fun, what with the weather being so perfect for it over here. However the fatigue is starting to catch up with me and I'm really looking forward to an easier week, whenever it may come.

Now... Des, the owner of a bike shop over here called Chancellor Cycles has been extremely kind and lent me a bike on which to get around and use as transportation to and from the beach and coffee shop. He had an old Time Trial bike sitting in the shop on display. It has a 650c front wheel and a 700c rear while, extremely (reversed) sloping top-tube and it's an absolute classic!

It doesn't handle very well, in fact I sort of wonder how they used to go SO fast downhill in the Tour back in those days on such funny handling bikes. But I totally love this retro TT bike! What a classic!!! So thank you ever so much Des ( http://www.chancellorcycles.com.au/ )!!!

Old head on old shoulders... Highlander eat your heart out!

2009-01-14T01:35:00.002+01:00

My Birthday was in December, and thanks to Rob Sagan we had a nice little birthday meal... He send me this pic the other day...

How old am I???

Coffeeeeee

2009-01-13T09:29:00.007+01:00

For some reason Coffee seems to be very important to 99.9% of bike riders. Some Pro riders such as Freddy Rodriguez even have their own brand of coffee. So after a nice endurance ride with some hill repeats this morning, a mate of mine I ride with over here in Sunny Australia took me up to a fantastic little specialized coffee shop for an afternoon of sipping Black Gold.

We call him... Coffee Luke... obviously his first name is "Luke", his second names is... well, no one really cares, it may as well be Coffee, because the man knows his stuff, and good lord does he like the black drug!

Coffee Luke (right) was our guide for the day

This little coffee shop is up in a town called Yandina (another one of those amusing sounding Australian names, that probably means something like "Tree of the Setting Sun", or "Mouth of crystal river" in Aborigine.

The place has that lovely "specialized" feel to it that you only get in those now all too rare dedicated and (here's the key word) PASSIONATE places.

Pioneer Coffee is just plain cool!

So here's thanking the great guys guys up at Pioneer Coffee (and here's a shameless plug for them... http://www.coffeeroastery.com.au/ ) for endless cups of coffee and a good case of the jitters for the rest of the afternoon. Thank you also to them for showing us some very interesting brewing methods.
A big thank you of course to "Coffee Luke" for showing us the place!

I've never seen THAT before... there's SO much I don't know... This thing is called a Vacuum Pot... pretty cool!

Three good reasons to check your shoes.

2009-01-10T06:44:00.002+01:00

Here is a list of three good reasons why you should check your shoes before putting them on to go riding...

Come to think of it, I think just one reason is good enough...

We found this cute little blighter floating around the house just now. Feisty little one he was too... It's an adventure a minute being over here. Aus mate... it's great!

Look at the blue tongue!!!

Group Ride Rules... get it right.

2009-01-10T00:19:00.004+01:00

Ride like a Pro: Group Ride Rules

Being strong is one thing, but knowing how to ride is quite another. Knowing how to ride in a group will increase your own riding enjoyment as well as that of the people you ride with. Above all it is a matter of safety. There are a series of basic rules to follow in order to ride properly in a group, and yet it is often surprising how few people know these rules. Now you might be thinking this doesn’t apply to you, after all, you are a Cat 1 and winner of the Thursday night or Saturday morning World Championships… Like I said, it’s amazing how many people don’t know how to ride in a group. If you are new to the sport, this will help you for the next group ride you attend, if you are old to the sport, this should be a useful recap of what you already know.

Rule 1) Not a race: a group ride is NOT a race. You are not to “Attack” off the front or try to show everyone how strong you are. That’s what races are for.

Rule 2) Bar-to-Bar: (Fig 1) and this is probably THE most important rule. Whenever riding in a group you should be riding 2 by 2, side by side (with only a few centimeters between you, you should NOT be able to fit a bus between you and rider beside you) and be perfectly handlebar to handlebar. Do not at any time sprint ahead and disrupt the flow. Even if there is a corner coming up, stay side by side and go through the corner like a well oiled machine. Riding with your bars ahead of the rider beside you is called “half-wheeling” and is a major faux pas. It is up to you to keep up with the speed of the slower rider next to you. And for goodness sake, please try to keep to the side of the road, there is no need to take over the whole lane and annoy car drivers.

Fig 1

As with everything, there is an exception to the rule. If there is an uneven number of riders in the group and for some reason you don’t have anyone to riding along side, you should place yourself in between the two riders ahead of you, with your front wheel between their two rear wheels (Fig 2). This allows the riders behind you to remain bar to bar and to keep the group tightly together. The riders behind you should ride with their front wheels either side of your rear wheel. It is not acceptable to sit directly behind the rider ahead of you and leave a gap to your side. Now before you spark up and say that riding between the wheels of the riders preceding you is unsafe, let me point out, that if everyone is riding bar to bar as they should be, you are guaranteed the space of a handlebar’s width within which to move, which should be ample. So even if the two rider ahead of you knock into each other you should have plenty of space. This is a pretty safe place to be. However you should have somone along side you before it is your turn to go to the front.

Fig 2

Rule 3) Peeling off: When you are tired of riding at the front, and you feel it is time for you to go to the back, make sure the rider beside you knows you are tired and want to go back, once you have both established that you are going back, check briefly that there isn’t someone overlapping your back wheel, then both riders slowly and gradually go to the outside and let the group come through the middle. Do not suddenly veer off to the side in a sudden movement, peel off in a steady and controlled manner. (Fig 3)

Rule 4) Pulling through: when the two riders ahead of you peel off, it is your job to come through to the front and pull the group along. If you do not want to ride at the front because you are tired or less fit that the rest of the guys, then it’s too late to avoid it now. Once you are in second wheel, you MUST come through to the front. Do not speed up, and do not get out of the bar-to-bar formation. Maintaining a steady speed, squeeze through the gap and go to the front (Fig 3). When the two riders ahead of you peel off, don’t slow down and hesitate and look around as if you don’t know why on earth they would be pulling off to the sides of the group. Maintain your speed and go straight through without hesitation.

Fig 3

Rule 5) Too tried to go to the front: If you do not want to go to the front, sit at the back and let the riders coming back from the front of the group get ahead of you. It is not acceptable to work your way up to the front of the group and then look around acting lost and confused, slowing down because you don’t feel strong enough to be at the front. If for whatever reason you do find yourself at the front, go through and take what is known as a “token pull”. You go to the front for a couple seconds, agree with the rider beside you that you are both peeling off, and go to the back.

Rule 6) Gaps: There should be NO gaps in a group ride. As soon as see a gap, fill it by riding into the space in a steady and controlled manner. There is no need to sprint into the space and then have to slam on the breaks, just gradually fill in any gaps as soon as you see them.

Rule 7) Moving about in a group: If you need to go to the back of the group, or need to move out away from the side of road because the road is damaged for example, just steady move in whatever direction you want to go in. The key to all cycling is to do things gradually and steadily. Even if there is a rider right next to you as you pull out to the side of the road, if you do it gradually, the other ride will naturally have time to move over with you. If you do anything sudden you are likely to cause a crash. This is also very important when “peeling off” and “filling a gap”.

Rule 8) Obstacles and hand signals: Now, this is a very important rule. In a lot of countries such as the US and Australia, people in group rides have got into the habit of yelling. I’m not too sure where this habit has come from, so lets set a few records straight. When you see a hole in the road, it is absolutely NOT acceptable to yell “HOLE” at the top of your voice, then weave around it at the last minute. It is also inacceptable to yell “SLOWING” when you slow down. If you can’t see the riders in front of you are slowing down, then maybe you should stick to monopoly on a Sunday afternoon. All obstacles should be warned of by a simple hand signal. This does not mean pointing at something for 5 minutes after you have passed it. When you see an obstacle in the road ahead of you, put your hand down and give a signal that lets the riders behind you know if which direction they should go to avoid it. Traditionally a quick wave of the hand will suffice. If you only see the obstacle at last minute, ride through it! Better to get a flat than to take down the whole group. On the subject of obstacle, please only point out obstacles that are worth pointing out. What obstacles are worth pointing out? I hear you cry. That’s simple. An obstacle worth pointing out is one that will damage a bike or person behind you. Please don’t point out manhole cover unless they are deeply set in the road, and don’t point out leaves or small cracks in the road, and certainly don’t point out obstacles in the next lane.

Rule 9) Yelling: As I have said above, yelling is a big no-no. You don’t see the Pros riding around Europe on their pre-season training camps yelling “CARRRRRRR… HOLE, GRAVELLLL… RED LIGHTTTTT”. The problem is this: when you are more than two riders behind the person yelling, all you can actually yeah is a general “BLURRRRR” being yelled. So while everyone should be keeping their eyes peeled for general speed changes and obstacles, suddenly the majority of riders are looking around wondering what the obstacle is that has just been yelled out. No one actually knows if you have just yelled “HOLE” and have not pointed it out, meaning some riders are scanning the ground left right and center looking for an imaginary hole. Other riders are craning their necks thinking you yelled “CAR”, while yet more riders are looking behind them thinking you yelled “George has a FLAAAT!” Yelling is strictly forbidden!

Rule 10) Slowing and adjusting speed: This is probably the biggest crash causer on group rides. For some reason, when someone slows down ahead of them, a lot of riders jump for their brakes and yank the heck out of them, almost skidding and taking everyone down with them. You should be riding ever so slightly to the side of the rider in front of you (Fig 1); so when they slow down, you either stop pedaling and start to slightly overlap your front wheel with their rear wheel, or you touch the brakes gradually, once again using the “wheel overlap” as a buffer zone so as not to slow down too suddenly for the riders behind you.

These rules may seem like a bunch of snotty European old-school pointless rules, but they come from very simple principles of general safety for a group ride. So stick to them, and spread to the good word to your fellow new-comers to the sport. For any Pro rider worth his weight in salt, these are not even thought of as “rules”. They are instinctive and are a natural part of riding. This may by why some road riders can come across as rude and arrogant. Ride etiquette is so second nature to them, that in their eyes, the only reason anyone would break them, would be on purpose.

Base Camp

2009-01-07T10:30:00.003+01:00

I have been here in sunny Australia for almost a month now. And although I have been riding a fair bit, getting out with the daily group rides and having fun, it is now time to buckle down and do some real serious training for the season ahead. No, real serious training does not mean lots of intervals and riding extremely fast everyday. Quite the contrary. It is now time to buckle down and pile on the base miles. Steady paced regular rides of over 3 hours with a heart rate not exceeding Zone 2.
This base period will last about 5 weeks before I do start adding some longer intervals before gradually ramping up to lots more harder short and long efforts before the season starts in March. And even then it will about 2 months before the body is properly sharpened for some bigger races.

Luckily being over here in sunny AUS, it is a lot easier to pile on the base miles in the sun, than if I were back home in the cold relying mainly of team training camps for miles. I am also very lucky to have a few good and experienced riders around me here who know the importance of base miles. That means I can share my long boring base mile rides with some good people. There's also a fair bit of good riding back in the hills of Queensland's Sunshine Coast, so I'm actually looking forward to the longer riders...

Boxing Day

2008-12-27T04:14:00.006+01:00

5am, the alarm rings to the tune of Paul Simon's "The sound of Silence". Ugh, I hate alarms. Role over, the sounds will go away...
Sadly the Sound of Silence persists, so I get up, stumble into the kitchen and grab a bowl. In goes the cornflakes and a chopped up banana... followed closely by the milk that miraculously stays within the contours of the bowl. I flop into a seat, eyes half open, and start gingerly shoveling food into my mouth. Next thing I know I'm clad in French Lycra riding down the wrong side of the road on an Australian highway heading to the "Coffee Club" in Mooloolaba to join a few people for a pre planned long ride.

Turns out there is a big group out there, including recently retired Pro cyclist Henk Vogels. And so we embark on a longish ride into the hills inland from the coastal magnet that seemingly attracts all Australian buildings, leaving the back-country devoid of life. The pace is slow to start with and remains slow for a fair bit of the ride. This part of the world is littered with short steep hills. The kind of hill I hate. It reminds me of Africa a bit, or of the US. The roads are so new that they haven't had the time to "settle" into the countryside like they have in Europe through centuries of Romans and clunky old Citroen 2CVs trundling along them. Here they seem to just shove down the tar-mack over whatever is infront of them without cutting out roads.

After a couple hours of pleasant and quiet country roads in a group of cheerful and friendly Aussies, we come to an intersection. One way leads home, the other leads to a 6km climb. I persuade Tahlia (a young member of the Queensland Institute of Sport) to make a left turn towards the climb while everyone else heads home.

Tahlia has got some races coming up, so she's in "real" training. I thus get roped into doing some 30second sprint intervals up the 6km climb of Montville. Montville is a great little local climb, that takes you up the side of a hill through Eucalyptus trees. Half way up the climb, the trees disappear leaving you with a stunning view all the way back to the coast. The intervals were painful. I have not done any form of interval for about 2.5 or 3 months, and having just got back into regular riding a week and a half ago after my 3 or 4 week winter break, I was in the hurt box and seeing stars!

The Climb up to Montville with stunning views of the coast...

Still it was a fun ride, and the reward after a steady spin back home with 3.5 hours on the clock was a cool fresh fruit juice in Mooloolaba by the blue ocean...

Life.... is... tough! :-)

X-mas Day

2008-12-27T04:06:00.007+01:00

Food food food and more food, with plenty of beer...
A perfect Christmas day, sunny and warm yet not too hot, a morning ride followed by coffee on the beach.

That's a big fish...

Then it was time to get the Bar BQ crankin' and do us some eatin' and drinkin'. Shep prepared a great spread of chicken, fish, shrimp, salads etc etc (the list is long), which was only interrupted every 10 minutes with Shep's excited call of "BEER ANYONE?"

French wanabee Australian: "BEER ANYONE?"

Once food was ready we sat down to an afternoon long meal, before tucking into a desert of Blockus (a board game) before heading out for a paddle in the boat... we suffered a few "ma-overboard" moments but shark attacks were luckily avoided on this December day!

Hey yo, hey ho, it's off to boat we go....

"MAN OVERBOARD...."

"Tis the season to be silly, tra la la la laaaa, la la la laaaa...."

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL!!!

2008-12-24T08:28:00.004+01:00

Oh dear oh dear... Christmas is upon us once again.Here's wishing you all very merry Christmas... Personally I am back down in the southern Hemisphere getting away from the cold and winter of my native France for the second year in a row (and loving it I might add!!!). Christmas day will kick off with a 3+ hour group ride in the morning with a few very dear friends, followed by the traditional (traditional for this upside-down world of Aussie Rules) Christmas Barbeque with some well deserved cold beers. Whilst I'm at it, I'd like to send out a special Christmas wish to: the 6am Mooloolaba Coffee Club riding group (Shuttles, Tahlia, Jeff, Wendy, Evan...); the Warrenton Cycling Center in the USA, Darren and Lychelle Lill in South Africa; my buddies and training partners in my home area of the Tarn in France (best training place in the world BTW), and of course my mom Pat, My Grandad and my uncle and Auntie Dees and Mike.

So, Cheers! Bottoms up, and Merry face-stuffing. :-)

And hopefully you'll all have less of a hang over than this guy will tomorrow morning!!! ;-)

Australian Drivers Beware.

2008-12-23T09:11:00.002+01:00

Australia is one of the most stunning places I have ever been. And I must say it is GREAT to be back here. Great weather, stunning scenery and lots of good riding with great people. The Aussies are a great people too... except for the driver who are probably the worst I have come across world wide.

Aussie bike riders seem to let themselves get pushed around by cars, and don't enforce their right to be on the road. In France we let back drivers know when they aren't playing fair.

So here's what happened to the last driver who annoyed me! So Aussie drivers beware.

OH DEER !!!

2008-12-16T23:53:00.000+01:00

Kilos of good food.

2008-12-16T22:58:00.002+01:00

The cold spell in the US had me off my bike for a few weeks... combine that with deep fried everything covered in "out-of-a-can "sauces over there and I landed in AUS with a few extra kilos hanging off my usually bony frame. Now granted some of those extra kilos might have been water retention etc from the flight (or at least that's what I keep telling myself), but a few days of good rides and the return to some good wholesome summer food of fresh veggies and tasty salads with olive oil have me heading back down towards a healthy weight.

From snow to sun

2008-12-16T22:37:00.005+01:00

A couple days before jumping on the plane for a nice 3 day flight of 26 hours (confusing huh?! the date line comes into it somwhere) we took part in the FREEZING cold Christmas Parade in Warrenton on our bikes with a few people from the warrenton bike shop ( http://www.thecyclingcenter.com/).

And then it was off to the sun soaked beaches of Queensland Australia...

The flight wasn't all that bad. Getting here to the sun wasn't as strange as I thought it would be, it was just plain heaven.

Graig took a day off work and came to pic us up in Brisbane, and kindly took us straight to the Coffee Club coffee shop right on the beach to sit and sip coffee while taking in the heavenly, sunny, hot view. Ahhhh..... We're here!

Sim gets new Time Machine

2008-12-16T22:32:00.003+01:00

I've got a new Time Trial bike. Just before leaving the US for Sunny Australia I got my hands on this sexy BMC time trial bike. I'm still playing around with the position a little bit, but this is one sweet ride.