lots of.. stuff

What a busy week. School work is piling up... Last week I got in a nice 15hours of training (which beats the previous week's 3 hours total) and did race that new Ferrus bike. It felt pretty good. Not much to talk about race wise yet. Last weekend one of our main guys flatted, so I waited for him and helped him get back in. Sadly my race was pretty much over then and I did the rest of the race alone in a 4 or 5o man group. But I had done my job, so that's what matters. I finished in 104th place (out of 150), the rest of the team (the leaders) didn't do as well as expected, but we had a 2 or 3 guys in the top 20. Once again it was a windy race.

This week the weather has been fairly good, so despite the ever growing school work and the country wide strikes and marches against a new government law they are trying to bring in, I got in 13 odd hours of training. I'm still just mainly doing miles. I'll start doing intervals later in the year. If I hope to keep racing into November, December, January in Australia, I don't want to be fit any time soon.

JP came down and spent a few days here. He got he new team bike a couple days ago, so he built that up and we did a bit of riding.






Local frame builder Andouard leads JP (on his new bike) with Alphonce in full preparation for the MTB National Championships




















The View of Albi as we head down the hills that serround the Cathar city


Apart from that not much to say except to watch out for Scott Gibbons telling people to wear their helmets on their way to the toilet at races (Scott has joined the dark side of cycling by becoming a USCF official.) Now remember Scott.... I've put you up in my house ENDLESS times, so.. next time I'm over there, I don't care where I finish, YOU have to declair me the winner!!! Got it?!? :-)

And a final message goes out to Mitch (the only perseon who ever reads this I'm sure) who has been so hard at work he hasn't been able to surf the web. Work work work.. that's all very well, but those mountains aren't going to climb themselves Mitch (that said neither is the corporate ladder).









Mitch climbs the corporate Tourmalet

New OLD bike.

A couple of little problems have manifested themselves on my bike. So I've canibalized my TT bike and mixed a bunch of shit for this weekend. I've actually ended up with a bike that is pretty cool. The only issue is that the fork steerer tube is too short, but that's OK, I've found a solution.

Anyway I built this yesterday and will race it sunday (hmmmm.....) so I rode it a bit yesterday. Felt pretty good actually. I kind of like it. It's fairly light, nice and stiff (though it thus isn't as good in corners, that TI bike just rails it). Here's a pic.

8 days a gonna

Wow, I didn't realize it had been 8 days since my last post. Oups.

So last weekend was my first race of the season. I have mixed feelings. As I'm sure I mentioned in my previsoue posts I hadn't been feeling good on the bike for about a week. I still haven't felt good on teh bike since. So the race started OK. They moved the start forward, so I didn't get a warmup at all. Oh well. One of the big desciders of this race is a fair sized climb (a few k long) just 10k into the 100k (60 miles) race. Usually if you make it over the climb OK you'll finish in the top half. So with this being my first race I was rather nervouse and was also fairly sure I would get "dropped" (or rather not make the 1st split) on that climb. Up until the climb I did as I had been told and covered a few breaks at the front. We were to have a rider in every single break. Come the hill I felt a lot lot better than expected, so that was nice. But then repetivness of the hills and the strong cross winds took their toll. I got dropped going over the top of a hill, sat in the caravan for a while and got annoyed with one of the car that kept letting gaps open in the caravan, eventualy, after much chasing and yoyoing through the cars I got back into the race. But after a little more time I once again dropped and figured that was it for me. I quite simply am missing intervals. So I rode alone for about 30-45mins before the first chase group caught me... we rode into the finish together, did a joke sprint at the finish (joke because the race had been won 3 hours earlier) to finish in the top 50 or so. I had a case of toilet rush durring the race. It really hit about half way through. I had spent most of the morning getting intamate with the toilet and things weren't looking much better by the evening. I found out later that Francois Chulda (one of my team mates) also had some "shit" problems.

Well that's the race. I had riden a total of 3 hours all that week before the race because I had a fair bit of school work. My training is still inconsistent. The previous week I had done about 11hrs, and this week I have got in 13hrs. My training yoyos all the time. I also actually put on some weight which is a bit strange and worrying.
so monday after the race one of my classes was cancelled, so I got in 3 hours, a nice little bonus ride Tuesday (I'm usually in school all day) for a 1.5 hour sunny ride. Wed was all day of classes, thursday I got in 4 hours of riding and also got to ride with Alphonce who I hadn't seen for a while.. (I felt like shit all day, all week in fact), firday I did 2 rides and got in 2.5 hrs I think, or maybe it was 3... so I'm feeling pretty happy I got in some riding this week. Even if it doesn't show this weekend (which it won't) it's good long term.

Apart from that Darren finished 4th overall in the Giro del Capo after a "bad" time trial as he says (I thought it was rather good) where he "only" finished 6th. He also finished 4th overall int he points and took out the King of the Mountains jersey... so that was pretty sweet to follow! Good on him for that.

I haven't seen John for a while. The team asked him to stay at home as a young rider was spending the night at the team house. They've also put in a washing machine for him, which is really fucking nice of them. That's a little bit of their budget and there is a laundramat just up the street, so that'll be really sweet for him. The team is also getting him a team bike afterall, so... sweet.

I STILL haven't had my TT bars returned, so out a TT bike and I'm missing it bit time!

Ok well, that'll do for now. I have a pretty heavy school week ahead of me, so... great.

Oh yeah, one last thing... (Mitch.. GET BACK TO WORK!!!)

DArren kicks it into high gear

Cape Town South Africa.

After finishing 9th in stage1, Darren Lill kicked it into high gear over the mountainous and very VERY windy course of stage 2. Darren finished in a leading group of 5 which included 3 previouse winners of the Giro Del Capo along with 2 Tour de Langkawi winners. Darren was beaten in the uphill sprint and finished 2nd. His teammate and team leader David George (ex Barloworld, USPostal, CCCPolsat etc) finished 5th.

Darren now leads the overall Mountains Classification and is currently 2nd overall in the Giro del Capo. He will still be riding in support of David George however, so it's going to be hard for him to really prove his worth (once again). Poor Darren has seemingly spent his whole friggin' career riding for others. He so rarely gets to ride for himself that a lot of people don't realize how good he is and how much potential this joung rider has.

He'll be team leader for the Tour of China, so lets hope he can get used to the Altitude and show everyone who he really is over there. But in the meantime, who knows, there might still be the odd opotunity to ride high and well.

Darren sounded pretty pissed off about not winning stage 2. Understandable; even though finishing 2nd is pretty friggin' good. I told him he has the KoM jersey, so that's somthing to be happy about to aim for.

As I type about sunny South Africa it is bloody raining here, rained ALL dey yesterday and has been a really shitty and wet week... Hmmmm.. I can't wait until next year to be in Australia for this time of year! :-)

Giro del Capo (South Africa)

The sunny and beautifull parts of the world are giving some pretty sweet races these days. After the Australian races (Tour Down Under, Herald Sun, Geelong), and the Asian races (Tour of Taiwan, Tour de Langkawi) it is the turn of South Africa to give it's roads over to the multisolored pro peloton.

South Africa's biggest race, the UCI 2.2 Giro del Capo started yesterday. Darren Lill finished 9th in stage 1. He won this stage a few years ago and kept the leader's jersey to the end. This year however, he is riding in support of David George. Bit of a shame for Darren as he once AGAIN gives his services to another rider. When will he get to truely race for himself? Well actually fairly soon. The SA National team is putting together a team for the Tour of China, and Darren will be team leader... FINALLY!

Until then the Giro del Capo should bring us some great racing with a good international field, some stunning scenary and howfully some good results for our Lill South African Climber (or at least for his team).

boringgggg.....

Nothing much going on here. I've been in school, it's been raining.. uargh, I hate that. I can't really complain, JP had to race in that shit, and he had to do it with northern team who relish those conditions. Well there, you go. That pretty much sums the week up.

hmmmm.....

I'm back!!!

I've spent most of the week up in Castelsarrasin above Montauban at the team house, trying to help JP get settled in, and also doing some training. I've felt like shit all week though. Oh well.

I came home yesterday afternoon. I got in a nice 4 hour ride today, but still felt like shit. REally heavy. I just checked the weather and they are calling for snow tomorrow... so that's "top draw old chap".

Back to school monday, my racing season starts next sunday.
I'm tired!

bar code what?

So I started to check out Scotty G's (sounds like a rap singer.. "Scotty G") website on bar code entries and stuff... good lord. Only in France can you get a car that runs on red wine, well only in the US can you get bar-code registration. What is wrong with those ameircan's? Why do they have to keep coming up with nice easy ways of doing thing that increase efficiency? What's wrong with the good old French system on mailling in some scrap of paper that the organiser may or may not get in time...? Pfff.... actually in France the team enters you, but you know what I mean.

I'm going to have to sit down and read that interview properly some time. But first... Pizza and movie night!

And PS: a big thought goes out to G who's mom has just moved to New Mexican and she's feeling a little down.

shit intervals and red wine fuel

Pheww... had my doctor's appointment, finally! So now that my back has been seen to I feel like I've been beaten up. I'm scared to move in case it pops back out again. Oh well. So I have another appointment Friday anyway.

So I went out for a spin to see how I felt, did some hill intervals. I thought I was feeling OK until I hit the intervals... then I found out I was riding like shit today. JP was feeling pretty good, so that didn't help. :-)

Anyway, tonight is a Pizza and movie night at Jay's (Jean Yves, for those of you who know the film buff no introduction is needed; for those of you who have been over, well.. Jay is a film buff.) :-)

Here's something some of you might like, especially the Americans. One of my teammates apparently drive a total piece of shite Volkswagen Polo... that runs off... get this... RED WINE!!!!!! I haven't seen this thing yet, but I gotta check that out! It's Mathieu Lamonte's (the Credit Agricole dude), so... I'll even try and get some pics. Apparently if you sit behind it it actually smells like red wine.. great.. only in France!

Tomorrow I finally get my back checked out. I can't wait.. I'll finally be able to ride fully again. Fewww... great time, some back cracking action.

Montastruc (Monte se Truc)

Grand Prix de Montastruc. A pretty big early season race near Toulouse. A fairly warm day graced the race as a good field prepared for the 2006 edition of the race. Race distance: 140k or something, fairly standard.

Click on pics for a larger view.





Russian Pro Team Omnibike get ready



French Pro Team Jean Floc'h showed up with a dimished team, but managed a good showing


JP learns the importance of good positioning the hard way.




Navigators Pro Russian Oleg Grishkine graced the race with a far from impressive performance.


But it beats going round in circles at some US NRC Crit!

But who knows, maybe he got off the plane last night... or maybe there could be a spot for Darren over there sooner than we think.

Here Oleg wears the Russian National jersey.

John Parks and ex Credit Agricole rider Mathieu Lamote suffered the pace today.

While Julien Shick does a good race but sadly finishes in the field as he is caught

Swedish Aubervillier Pro John Nilson chases to get back on. This is the same team good old Patty Jonker raced for. Not sure Pat would recognize it... doubt he cares either... doesn't care about much does old Pat.. except sleeping "eyy".



CACastelssarasin Bouygues lead the chase group

Pro team Aubervillier (once known as Big Mat) lead the chase

CACastelssarasin cover the crash

AG2R Pro Stephane Pouilles rode a great race but was caught on the line and lost his 4th spot. Stephane joined AG2R at the end of last year, and will be splitting his time between the AG2R Develpment team (Albi Velo Sport) and the French National Team until August when he will join AG2R full time.

Stephane put in a great performance racing agresively and spending a lot of the day in the break, not bad for a sprinter!

At the end of the day the unbelievably strong Russian Omnibike team take the win with 19 year old ???? Kalashnikov. The team was all over the race today (as per usual). They covered every move, every group on the road, and got multiple riders in every break. Here the distroyed the main break to form a 3 man group in the final 10k of the race. With 2 Russians in the leading 3 man group they took the win "easily". The team has adepth, with youth such as today's winer ? Kolashnikov (what a name), Olympian Ivan Terrenin and many others who's names all sound pretty much the same. You can check their not so interesting website out on www.omnibike.ru Good luck.

More pictures might follow if I can be arsed to put them up. It gets a bit boring posting so many pics. :-)

Montastruc Training

Great. So my back is messed up again. I don't know what I did to it, but I'm totally blocked. It's so painful I wasn't able to sleep last night. Arghh... I hate this shit. I got an appointment with the doctor, but it's on Monday.

So yesterday (Thursda) I didn't have class, so JP and I went and joined some of the rest of the team to pre ride sunday's Grand Prix George Pinel course over in Montastruc. 7 of us hit the road with a follow car once again. It was rather cloudy, but it didn't rain on us. The course is mainly flat, and you ride along hill ridges for HOURS... it's a really hard Belgian style race. Lots of wind, open corners, narrow roads etc etc. There's only a couple hills, but they'll 1) be really hard as the race will hammer up them, 2) will be hard because of the change in rythem from 60k an hour on the flat to hitting a hill, and 3) the wind will play into it too. After a rather boring big loop you end up back in the start town for some small finishing loops that include a friggin WALL!!! This thing is steep and nasty.

The Montastruc wall.

Come sunday the wall will be covered in spectators 3 rows deep.

So... until monday I think I'll end up spending the days on my back with pain killers... great.

Today JP and I will probably nip into town and take care of some stuff. JP need to return something to a store in Albi; he's also got damaged threads on this crank arm, so we'll have to go to some bike shops and see if anyone has some kind of cheap crankset.

Anyway... I'm going back to South Park.

oh yeah.. how about that tour of cali.. huh.. heh.. great stuff. That's gonna be a great race. I hope cycling.tv gets coverage of it soon...

Nice... great.. yep.. uh huh

So JP got back last night. Turns out he actually had a couple pretty good races. Yesterday's stage 2 was cut short due to bad weather having brought down a tree or something... the race was even on national news because of the bad conditions. HE go in a couple a breaks etc.
Marion (our DS) sent me an e-mail and she seemed pretty happy with John, so, all is good.
There's plenty to tell, but JP will put up a post today probably on his own diary with more details.

Right now it is time for morning coffee and shit shooting....

... then some work and school.

Thursday some of the team are going to check out the Montastruc course. I won't be racing that event but I might joing them on recon as I think I'm free of classes that day. Should be sweet!

Rainshine

Today Alphonce called at some unearthly time in the morning to tell me he and Andouard (the custom frame manufacturer) were going on a ride and they'd come by and pic me up. By the time I had realized that annoying ringing was the phone, it was too late. So I got up in a daze, called him back and found out I had to eat and get my ass in gear pretty quickly to be ready in time.

So 5 of us rolled out for an EARLY ride. After about 20 mins it started raining on us big time. We were totally soacked. To make things worse I felt like crap on the bike. I could hardly pedal. After about 1 hour I loosen up and started to feel pretty good. I left the group in Albi and headed hom alone pushing pretty hard to get in a good workout. Not only was I now feeling pretty good, but the heavens seemed to copy me.. it turned from miserable rain to blinding sunshine. In fact the whole day has been that way. Rain, sun, rain ,sun, rain.

Hopefully JP didn't get any rain on the races down in the Basque country today. He just called to say they were on their way home. He should be back around 10 or 11pm.

I asked how the races had gone, he said "not too bad, erm.. interesting.. I mean, whatever, I'll tell you about it when I get back...". So there you have it. About as vague as it can be.

I'm tired.. hungry too. Ugh, tomorrow is school again. Pfff.... hey, at least the weather is slowly getting better these day. Woohoo, won't be long before we'll be riding in the sunshine and getting skin cancer. Sweet.

There's a big party/night out/ thing on thursday for all the English majors... I don't know if I'll go. PRobably not, it'll mean getting home later, not being able to drink cos I'll be driving.. ugh. It would be cool to let everything go for once though. I know if I go I'll get plastered, spend the night god knows where, then regret it because I can't ride as well the next day. Riding is much more fun than drinking.. yeah, I'll go riding, screw the night out!

Steph', training for his operation


As for me.. I felt pretty dead for some reason today. Shame because it was a nice day out there. Stephane came over and we went out for a little spin. That suited us fine, I was tired and needed some recovery, and Steph' is getting operated on in a few days for a Hernia, so he wanted to take it easy.

Maybe my doctor's visit and "spinal trauma" yesterday combined with the riding tired me out...

Apart from that I ate shit loads of chocolate today.. hmmm.. .nice!






Sim takes one of his cutomary frequent pee stops.

News from racin' JP

I just spoke to JP. Today was his first BIG race with the Pros. He said things couldn't have gone worse. At the drop of the flag, there was a crash, he was cought behind it and spent the whole race playing catch up. The race ended with 5 finishing loops in town, he did 1 loop and dropped out. There are 200 riders on the start line of these races, and once you get dropped it is VERY hard to get back on. Even though the race caravan is VERY long in these races, with not only all the team cars, but sponsor cars, press cars, commisairs, VIPs etc etc, which all make it easier to get back on, it is still very hard. Trust me, I know, I was dropped quite a few times in those races a couple years ago, and bouncing through the caravan and getting back on is VERY hard. Even when you de get back on you have usually felt SO much energy on the road that you are pretty much doomed anyway.

They have luckily changed the format a bit from when I did those races, so now you can still race Sunday if you don't finish Saturday. That means that John can still race tomorrow's 2 stage. They were off to get some food, before a good nights sleep in preparation for day 2 of the Essor Basque tourture fest 2006! :-)

Pro teams present

My day ended with a trip to the Osteopath Doctor... this guy used to work with the National rowing team. He's strange, he always seems really grumpy, but he does a great job. He messed around the my back and pelvis, hopefully that will take care of my knee. I'll make sure I keep stretching it.

I just got of the phone to JP. They are still in the car (it is 8pm) driving from the Mediterranean to the Basque country. He seems OK, maybe a little apprehensive about these races. Just finishing these races is no mean feat. There will be 3 full blown UCI Pro teams: the French Jean Floc'h team, the Russian Dynamo team (With Olypian Ivan Terrenin and some guys who's name I can't remember who won Gold on the track in Athens) and the Belgian Flanders Team. Also there will be a who's who of top level amateur teams. The amateur teams are equivalent to US Divition 3 Pro teams... only with a bigger budget and usually better riders. You can check it out at http://www.essorbasque.com/ and you can find results on http://www.velomania.net/

There are usually also some Spanish team there, like Serbitzu and Euskadi, but it doesn't look like they will be there this time. In the past FDJ, AG2R and RAGT have also done it, but they must all be somewhere else... Tour of Portugal on Tour du Haut Var I guess.

Ok, I gotta go eat and stretch..
later y'all.

The Fench Jean Floc'h Team

Belgians Flanders

Russian team Omnibike Moscow

Miles apart.

As I've been sitting in Class all week, John Parks and the rest of the team have been pilling on the miles. The team did 160k on Monday including a Time Trial race in Spain... they did 170k on Tuesday, a 90k road race in Spain followed by 70k ride home to the hotel on Wednesday... I sat on my ass all 3 days! John seems to be getting on fine. I've spoken to him a few times, and also have been constant contact with Marion our Directeur Sportif. She's worried he will end up feeling left out because he doesn't speak the language... but I think JP knew that coming in. Other than that she says he's getting on fine. Some of the younger guys are getting tired, but it sounds like JP is still going strong. This weekend will be his first BIG race. And when I say big it is BIG.. there are some Pro teams there etc. So we'll see how that goes.

YEsterday rainned all day here, so I did intervals indoors. Today I met my buddy Alphonce for a ride. Alphonce (AB) is looking pretty good. He's seriouse about getting selected for the National MTB championships. One of the first selection races was this past weekend. AB won the race. It was his first victory at that level, and he isn't even on top form yet. Hopefully he'll get selected for Nationals, and he might even pull off a good ride there. Rumour has it that he will even get a brand new fully custom, hand built bike in time for Nationals.. SWEET!
Quite a few of you who've come over here know AB; he's a really cool guy and I would love to see him pull something special off!


The long road to fitness.



So I met AB for a ride, we got in 3 hours. At first I didn't feel great, but after a while I felt pretty solid. We did a loop with a bunch of short steep hills... I then left him in Albi and headed home via the hills of Carlus... these are a series of 4 hills that are at 9%. As soon as I got home I jumped on my TT bike and went out for a Time Trial test/interval. I did pretty well considering I already had 3 hours of riding under my belt. I averaged 288Watts.. I wanted to average 300Watts, but that's Ok. So I got in about 4 hours today.. not a bad day.

The Time Trial controle pannel: I like to get as much info durring myTT tests.


It was pretty windy out there today. I have noticed over the past couple years that I am unable to put out much wattage in a head wind. IF there is no wind or a tail wind I can put out big wattage, but not as a head wind. I've tried changing position, cadence etc.. but it chances nothing. Hmmm...

Tomorrow should be a long one.. but they are calling for rain, so we'll see.

I'm gonna go call JP and have a chat to him about tomorrow's race. These races really are big and pretty scary. They are like the biggest Pro races in the US. So I'll chat to him about a few things and see how he's feeling about tomorrow.

France is still a country of tradition: Sheepdogs are still common in these parts.

Life goes on.

Some days are like that.. there's something about life that just gets you down. Anyway, I had classes this morning, then came home and headed out for the usual ride. My knee was hurting a bit today. I got in a nice little 80k (50miles) under blue skies and sunshine. The first day in I don't know long that I was able to go out without having a wear a big winter hat.
It was good to get out, get some air, and try to change my thoughts a little. I felt like I was being followed all day, like I was in someone's shadow... I don't know, I can't explain it.

I called JP this evening to see how he's getting on. The team rode over to the Time Trial today, did the time trial, then rode home. Apparently it was a little longer than they had planned. John says they rode about 170k today.

The TT went OK, nothing special... the ride was good and he says he's settling in and getting on with people. It sounded like he was feeling a little better about everything, was finding his feet and getting to know the team, so that's good. Tomorrow they will be doing another fairly long ride, then race on Wednesday... I'll be sitting in school getting no faster at all!

Recovery... + JP head south.

After 2 pretty hard days of riding, today was a nice little recovery day. So JP and I spent the morning drinking coffee and watching TV. After that we went out for a nice little spin down by the Tarn river and around the lake at Ambialet, where John tried to improve his bike handling skills at a BMX park.





He still needs improvement!!!!






The good thing about recovery days is that you get to come home and sit on your butt with a big plate of steeming hot food. We threw together some rice and Omlets and headed back to the TV for some more relaxing. It's a hard life...

John packed his stuff up and we headed into Gaillac for a while to take care of a few tings, then met up with Christophe Cousinie who picked JP up to drive him down to the Border town of Amelie les Bains where the team training camp is. Again I'm not going because of school... Arghhhh!

As John drove off to spend 3 hours sitting in a car with someone he wasn't going to be able to say one word do seeing as he speaks no french, and Christophe (Couscous) speaks no english, I think John was actually pretty nervous. He's got a pretty heavy week ahead of him. Not only will he meet his teammates and have to try and fight the language barrier, but he will also be piling on the miles in the Pyrenees on the training camp, as well as doing his first races for his new team. Monday he races in Spain, Wednesday he races in Spain again, then he might race in the Basque country next weekend, not sure yet, they'll see how he does in Spain and go from there.

JP heads off to Spain with teammate Couscous.

ERhmmm.. riding.

Over the weekend JP and I have been hitting the roads. Nothing unusual about that for JP who's been piling on the miles all winter, but it's done me the world of good. Friday we headed out for 3 hours of hard riding, a lot of hills and some wind over towards the Cordes and Penne valley area. Then in the evening we had a totally wild night out!!! Oh yeah, we went out for a night on the town... we went out to BINGO!!!! hmmmm... it was good for John as it helped him learn his numbers, so now when the team yell over the radio some race numbers to follow, or KM markers John will know what's going on. We got it so totally late from our night in the city, in twas like midnight.. straight up.. for real.. midnight. Good lord we are SO wild down here in southern France. And that's not the best, the totaly hip and happening thing is that we STILL went out training the next day! Are we wild or what?!!!

So today (Saturday) we got up, had coffee, you know.. the tough life. Then we rode into Albi and joined a group ride. We got in a little over 3 hours, cam home, then went straight out for another easy spin, like 45 mins or so. I took my TT bike.

You heard of Dirt Crits? Know about CycloCross?

well check out the new rage in France: CycloDirt TT!

All in all a good day, some 4 + hours of training.

Tomorrow John goes down to the team training camp in the Pyrenees. He'll race a TT in Spain monday, a road race in Spain Wednesday, then team training... then I will most likely do some BIG races the next weekend in the Basque country before coming back, either here or to the team house.

As for me, well I'll pack my big butt on a seat in class and do that thing... hmm.. :-(
If all goes well John has the opotunity to get selected by the team for the Tour of Majorca, a tour on one of the sunny spanish islands.. major cool race!!!! I'm SO jealouse!!!

The eagle has landed...

John Parks arrived a couple days ago. I've spent the last few days in class.
Today we went to Albi and got a bunch of stuff done. We had to get some medical tests done for John's license, get a few things taken care of. It took the whole day.

In the evening just before sun down we got out for a little spin, that was kind of good.

Sitting bike, but chairs mainly.

A week of mainly sitting on my ass listening to some dude drone on about something dreadfully dull, interrupted only by the odd class of something fun and actually interesting. As per everything in my life, it appears that even university is a world of extremes, either extremely dull, or extremely interesting. We only got one result back so far from that interminable spell of exams a little while ago, and it wasn’t good. It wasn’t disastrous, and it is in a subject that really isn’t my strong point… I think my French spelling let me down some, anyway…

So Thursday I got out on the bike finally to do some Simeon Green style training… if you don’t know what that is, it is a form of training dubbed “catch up training”. I always feel like I am behind everyone else who races, and I feel that every time I go out, it isn’t just to train, but to try and catch up. That’s a little unfair to myself and I think I need to get that thought out of my head. I’m generally doing a lot less riding than in the past, but I’m doing longer rides for this time of year and in the winter weather. Actually my asthma has improved over the past couple months, so I’m able to train better. I hope it lasts. So I got the new road bike out for only it’s second ride. In 4 degree weather I headed over to the beautiful town of Cordes that all of you who have been over know well (that’s the town with the cobbled climb). From there I rode on over Vaour


In the Aveyron valley, and headed back via the hills. A great ride with a fair bit of climbing, some great views enhanced by the snow still sitting by the site of the road on the more shaded sections.

After 3.5 hours I got home, took the TT bike out for a very short spin to check my position that I have been playing with (not happy, not more alterations) and then hit the weight bench. I somehow managed to smack my knee on the stem of the bike during a little sprint today, it hurt a bit… and then while lifting weights my knee made a rather scary noise a bit like material ripping. My legs really hurt on Friday. France's very own Stonehenge on the road to Vaour

Friday I did a little easy ride, spent some time working on my TT bike position, making sure everything was UCI legal etc.





Measuring up: fitting the bike into the UCI limits












Then I did some school work and finished off with a nice little trip to the movies.
Today (Saturday) I feel pretty rough. My back has been playing up again and my knee still hurts a bit. I’ll be heading out in the cold and wet weather for a 4 hour ride with a group in Albi today. I’ll start and see how my various body parts feel and take it from there.

Training camp part 2 was cancelled. Some of the team went crosscountry skiing at Plateau de Baille... I stayed at home and ate bagles! :-) it make a dent in my training plans.. oh well. Now it is back to school and I've been wondering again why I 'm there. It only takes a dull lecture for me to start telling myself I should be out there training.

The roads are still pretty bad. Down to single lane in places due to the mounds of snow. Tere's even snow in town still. I did see Faben Fraissigne out training however as I was going for lunch... bastard was out there training... Ugh.

Tomorrow is classes all day then hopefully the weather will be a little better and I can hit the road again Thursday when I have a little time off.

Ever wonder why CSC don’t do their training camp in Denmark?

Over the past few years more and more teams have been organizing their team training camps in sunnier climes. Most teams go to Spain, South Africa or some island of the Spanish coast, even amateur teams are doing this. However we at CAC Bouygues Telecom see this as something of an easy way out of some hard work. The early season races are often run in the cold and rain, so in order to harden the team up a little bit, the Team chose to run this weekend’s training camp in Norway!

This is a landmark... so now we only have to figure out which side of the sign the road is!... hmmm...

No… the snow has been really thick here. Once a mountain biker, always a mountain biker. Upon seeing all that snow out there I couldn’t resist going out and playing in it. I’m not supposed to ride in temperature below 5 degrees… so I got on my cyclocross bike and wend out in the –3 degree weather to slip, slide and skid around the French country-side. The roads where so white and thick with snow in places, that you couldn’t even see where the road was. I swear I was having to try and keep an eye on the ditch to make sure I was still on the road, and in places I really wasn’t sure where I was. Man it was SO much fun. I figured I don’t much MTBing anymore, so it might be good or my bike handling skills to get out there in the snow and ice. I was actually giggling out load to myself on today’s ride. There were hardly any cars out there, (except for a few in the ditch.) OK Pierre, take the next right... oups!

It was great fun!





As the day goes on the snow gets thicker… I don’t see us making it to tomorrow’s training camp either…

Don't panik, itz all-white.

This is the scene I woke up to this morning. A rear sight in this part of the world. I f I remember correctly the last time we saw even the slightest snow was 3 years ago… Maybe more I can’t remember. Well obviously day 1 of Team Training Camp Part 2 is off. I don’t know how many (if any) of the guys went up to the Team HQ last night, and if some of them did, I wonder what they will do today. I don’t know what the plan is for tomorrow, I guess we’ll see how the weather pans out today and if the roads clear for tomorrow. Either way there are a lot of covered and shaded valleys around where we ride on this Team Training Camp, so even the roads clear enough to ride a bit, it doesn’t seem like a great idea overall. So… I think today will be a nice day of sitting on the couch with a hot cup of coffee, a bagel and watching the snow slowly come down…

Freezing weather for new coach Sim...

Not a bad day today. I had a fairly relaxed morning, taking care of some stuff around here. Then Alphonce came over, we had a coffee etc and dusted off the bikes for a little ride. It has gone cold again here, so it was 2 degrees (Celcius!)... we wrapped up warm and I cracked out the new Ferus road bike for a pretty hard 85k in the cold. We worked hard in the cold and the wind, and felt pretty dead by the end. The bike feels good. I need to adjust my seat position and stuff, but I'm happy. However the Aluminum frame is pretty stiff, so when we do races in the hills (Pyrenees) with real descents and corners, I'll revert to my trusty Ti bike that corners like it's on rails... the rear triangle is much better for those FAST corners on bad roads.

Once home I wanted to eat and heat out for another little spin on the TT bike, but Alphonce was pretty dead, so we ate and called it a day.

For anyone interested I will be joining the Peaks Coaching group as a coach in about May time. I look forward to joining the gang, and hopefully helping some Virginia riders improve their riding and or racing. I'm pretty excited about this, I think it'll fun and interesting work!

An easy day tomorrow and some seriouse pain and suffering on Sat and Sun. The weather is called for freezing temperatures and rain thoughout the weekend, so I'm not looking forward to it. I'm not actually supposed to go out if it is below 5degrees as it messes with my lungs and affects my asthma long term... so we'll see what happens this weekend at training camp Part 2.

Toyz for the boyz

today was a nice sunny day, I did some riding but not as much as I should... today I got some new toys for the new season...

I can't wait to get that TT rig out there and cranking out that watts... looks like I 'm going to have to do some stem adjustments though... I need a longer stem, but it absolutely MUST be the same angle, I can't be any higher. There isn't mush out there really, so we'll see what I can rig up. The road bike will get its maden ride tomorrow with a long 90k ride with Alphonce... we'll see how it handles.

Team Training Camp Part 1

CACastelsarrasin Bouygues Telecom Training Camp Part 1

Basically set up over 2 weekends at the end of January, the Team training camp is one of the few times we will all be together as a team. Once the season starts we will basically be split into 3 race programs coving races from France to Majorca, and from Under 23 races to International Elite. Myself and a couple of other guys weren’t able to make Saturday’s standard team training camp ride, due to other obligations such as studies or the track season. Therefore a shorter 80k ride with some hills reps were on the menu. Saturday was a drizzly and gray day, so although the main group of the team were supposed to do 2 rides, they merged them into one. They started with some big gear hill reps, and extended the ride to cover 4.5 hours and 140k.

Most of the guys stayed at the team house over night, but some of us drove back up the on Sunday morning for the 2nd day of the training camp. We headed off with pretty much the full team, the only absentees were John Parks who is still in the US and has just come back from his own little training camp in Florida, and Christophe Cousinie who is still in Hospital. The full 16 or so team headed out on the roads around Montauban. We first had an “easy” 40km warm-up ride all together. Great warm-up ride at 31kph over some hills. Then we stopped and formed groups according to fitness and race schedule. Our 3 groups of about 5 or 6 riders then did four 20 minute team time trial intervals over varying terrain including some mean climbs around the Penne area in the Aveyron Valley. After each interval we all regrouped and rode all together again for about 10k. After only the second interval some people started grumbling about the intervals. I must say it wasn’t easy and at least I didn't feel alone in my "fear of the interval". On our last interval our little group caught the group ahead of us, which had left 2 minutes before us. We were rolling pretty well on that interval, probably knowing that it was out last one.

Once the intervals were done we all regrouped once more and rode the 40k (25 miles) back home together. I must say however that these recovery, warm-up warm-down sessions were a little NOT easy… oh well. At the end of the day we had 160k (100miles) on the clock in a little under 5 hours, and with some pretty good hills… Ok fine, they were climbs!

Next weekend is more of the same. This time I should be able to make it to both days for the full program. Saturday is once more 2 rides. Big gear hill reps in the morning, and some high cadence workouts in the afternoon to cover 140k; then another 160k on Sunday, but this time “harder.” I’m not sure what “harder” means, but I don’t like the sound of it!!! :-) Once again these training camps include a DS and team car that follows us the whole way with spare wheels, food, water and anything else we might need. We actually had both DSs (Directeur Sportif) with us, so that they can 1) tell us what to do and 2) both see how we are riding and how we relate to each other as a team.

It’s been good to get to know everyone, start learning the names and riding styles. After this training camp there is another training camp down by the Spanish border for a week. Sadly I won’t be able to make it to that training camp.

Overall training is going pretty good. I have just had a load of exams, and I didn’t touch the bike at all all of last week. So hitting a pretty good weekend of riding was interesting to see how my body reacted. I thought I would feel really bad, but I felt OK. Despite my studies it looks like I will be starting racing a little earlier than planned. I will be starting in the relatively lower ranked National races that are more in this general area. That suits me fine, as I’m not going to be ready for the big races half way across the country.

I tried to take some pictures during the rides, but it wasn’t really the sort of riding where you take pictures and look around at the countryside… so I apologize for the poor pictures. Also note that team don’t have their team bikes and new clothing yet, so in the pictures everyone looks a bit mix and match, patchwork-bike-team.

This week I will be getting in some good training locally, mainly alone and with Alphonce, then a couple rest days and back to Team Training Camp for part 2. After that it’s back to school. By that time John Parks should be here, so hopefully we’ll be able to get in some training together.

Tune in soon for an account of Training Camp part 2.

Thanks for reading.
Sim

a little down time

Today was my first day of trying to relax a bit after all that school exam stuff. I spent most of the day taking care of some stuff around the house I needed to do, some computer maintenence, cleaning, all that kind of fun stuff. Then Steph came over and we had a coffee and a little ride, where I got the great picture of what it looks like to be surprised by a camera... Tomorrow will be another short ride, just a couple hours with steph to get the legs moving and I should try and take care of some more stuff here at the homestead... Then Sunday it will be Team Traning Camp. Once I am totally free of school work next week, I'll try and hit the road big time again.

OK people.. just a few more exams and I'm done.. then it's training camp BIG time. I'm both looking FW to it and dreading it. I haven't ridding for so long it's going to hurt, but then again I need the training and it's going to be great to hit the bike again. Assuming the weather stays good of course!!!

I am SO stressed right now it's not funny. We'll see how I feel during training camp. I'd like to hit some motorpace ASAP, but not sure when and where... I need a driver. I'll try and get mom to do it, but she's pretty busy these days. Hmmm. lets see.. how else can I get back into shape rapidly.. hmmm... pizza and beer.. that's it!!!

Later y'all.
I'll keep you updated with if I actually manage to get into shape over the next couple weeks.

Mising it up. Plans for the future.

As seems to have been the case over the past few years of mixing cycling with real life, I have yet another jam packed season ahead of me. For the past 2 years I have been studying, taking planes at the last minute, and racing the day after a transcontinental flight. I suffered it in 2004, in 2005 and it doesn’t look like anything is going to change in this final school year. Along with racing and going to school, I have just got news that I will going to Italy in May for the Giro d’Italia. No, I won’t be racing it, but I’ll be working once more as a guide for Bikestyletours.com. However, May is when my finals are. My finals finish on the 19th, and I need to be in Italy on the… yep, you guessed it, on the 19th. I’m not totally sure how this is going to work out, but it looks like I’ll be sitting an exam and going straight to the airport to ride 130km a day after a couple weeks of exams with no training. It’s going to be both hell, and fun. I can’t wait. It’ll be great to be back in Italy, I haven’t been back there since a racing stint 2 years ago. If anyone out there reading this has booked a trip for the Giro with Biestyletous.com shoot me and e-mail and let me know.

In the meantime I am right in the middle of exams right now (we have 2 big exam sessions a year), I have to go to one in a minute in fact. I’m not getting in much riding these days. Last week I only did 2 rides: one was a 130km cold, windy, hilly and pretty fast ride on Saturday. It felt good to be out there. I have a team training camp at the end of the week. I’m really worried because I won’t have been riding for over a week, and it’s really going to hurt! Oh well, such is the way when you try and mix everything up, C’est la vie. I hope I get some good grades so that I can concentrate a little more on racing with a clear mind next month.

Things are also taking shape for my 2006-2007 winter. My plans to spend next winter in the Australian summer, working in a bike shop and riding and racing are slowly coming together. No Cyclocross over there, but I’ll make do with some sunshine instead. What a tough life! That’s going to be SO much fun!

So until next time with a Team Training Camp update, stay warm and stay riding…

Thanks for readying.
Sim

Feel free to e-mail Sim with questions or comments on: Jetlagsports@wanadoo.fr

wow, I actually rode my bike

Yesterday was a nice, sunny and relatively warm day, I did a little revision in the morning (mainly playing with my computer) and went into town in the afternoon to get some stuff. My whole day disappeared and I didn’t ride at all… Not very serious for someone who is supposed to be coming back to racing this year… oh well, what you gonna do…

Today was another warm, sunny day. Warm means 10 degrees (that’s about 50 for you Fahrenheiters)… I did a little work in the morning, spent a little too much time trying to sort out some problem with a camera driver on my desktop, then I ate and got in a good 4.5 hours. That was about 130k, and at a fair pace, with hills and lots of wind. I’ve never ridden that far at this time of year before… I guess I thought I needed to make up for yesterday. I also know that I am going to be embarrassing at the team training camps over the next few weeks, so I need to get in some miles.
Above is a pic of a couple of a couple guys from the group riding down the Tarn valley on today’s ride. Winter riding! Some guys were suffering and group kept getting split... here we wait for some back markers.

Friday 13th

HEY.. it's friday 13th... that's acutally lucky for me!!!!!

Oh, you gotta check this out. I saw a buddy of mine I hadn't seen for ages. HE used to race but now doesn't touch the bike. He's a weird guy. So he wants to see me because he's got "something" he wants to talk to me about. That scares me because last time he said that he had a business idea for the future and wanted me to help him out with it. His idea was to go to the UK, get a london bus and turn it into a sandwich stand/van over here in France. Actually not a bad idea in some way.. but dude.. where you gonna get a londong bus from. Anyway, so I Was scared. Eventually he came out with it. He wants to get his hands on british phone box. You know those big red british phone booths... but.. get this.. he wants to turn it into a toilet, and put this bloody thing in the middle of his living room.... I thought turning it into a shower in the bathroom might be a better idea. The guy's a totaly freak... how and where he gets his ideas I have no idea. My theory is that he's been smoking some pretty good stuff...

Watch this space for more stupid ideas of what to do with British red medal stereotypes...

Hey y'all...
I should be studying right now but instead I'm checking shit out for Australia next winter. Rental houses look expencive, but if I can find a job it might all work out. I'm also checking out pictures of the area.... shit, I can't wait to get over there, it looks SO cool. I'm sure if I can get a job in a bike job I'm going to have the best fun EVER!!! Looks like good riding around there too, so we'll see... right now it looks like a dream place.

I'm gonna have the best 6 months of my life sweating it out on the roads with the Kangaroos while everyone over here freezes there nads off... SUCKERS!!!!

I really neeed to keep up to date with this.

Frankly there isn't much going on right now. At least in cycling terms. I'm getting in little riding; the exam period started a couple days ago and goes on for a couple weeks. I've got exams every single day next week. I hope to get in a good ride on Saturday, 4 hours at a good pace: an endurance ride, then hopefully I can get in a couple of indoor interval rides so as not to loose even more form. But if it is raining or snowing on Sat, I really have difficulty seeing myself out there freezing my nads off when I could be sitting indoors.

John Parks gets here on the 7th of Feb, so that's pretty soon. I told a buddy of mine in school that John was ariving Feb 7th, he started laughing and said "yeah, so ain't gonna be doing ANY friggin' work then, you guys will be out riding every day and sitting around watching DVDs." I fear this guy knows us too well, I think that is exactly what we'll be doing. John's being here should get me out on the bike more and help me traing better. He's been training like a mad man and will be in race shape as soon as he gets here, so I'll have some catching up to do as well as school work.

The adventure starts soon...
Back to the papers, books and..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzs

better never than late

Good lord...

It was ONLY been 4 months since my last update... Sorry!!!! (like anyone reads this.. oh yeah, Mitch does! :-) )

Well not much going on.
I'll post something my new team and the team presentation sometime soon.. you know, like in the next 5 or 6 months....