Build up to the Tour de France

As the Pro peleton gets ready for the Tour de France by racing National Champs, I'm getting ready for the Tour by lying in bed and drinking coffee. I've had a fairly good batch of racing recently, and I must admit I'm feeling really really worn out.

A few weeks ago I was very happy to ride off the front on the final climb to claim the Pyrenees Championships. After that I got wear my new jersey as Champion in a stage race near Lourdes. This was a pretty cool stage race with some mean stages. The Time Trial stage was rolling for the most part, but finished up the first KM of Hautacam. I was happy with 7th place in the TT stage. Another stage went up over the Col du Soulor and then finished up the climb to Cauteret. I was well placed up the Soulor in the 6 man lead group after bridging up to them about half way up the climb. Then I lost it on the very wet descent with dodgy crabon rim breaking and never got back on. I also cracked on the final climb to the finish in Cauteret. But I was still 11th overall so that wasn't too bad. As a recovery ride the day after the tour I rode up Hautacam to see what all the fuss was about. Hmm.... recovery hey?!?

Then last week I did a stage race near Bezier. On paper it wasn't a hard stage race and I had planned to focus on he the Time Trial stage and hoped to go for the King of the Moutains jersey. The TT stage I managed, but the Mountains jersey... well.. I never even saw it. The first stage was actually very hard. There was a small group off the front when I went off on a short steep climb in the final 6 or 7 km and took one other person with me. So I was 8th on that stage. The Time Trial stage went well as I rode to 3rd place on my beloved TT bike. The Mountain stage went a bit wrong and we really screwed it up as a team. Spend the day chasing. I eventually cracked on the last climb of the day. I just about managed to hang on and took the group sprint for the line. It was a long uphill drag to the finish. I don't actually know where I or we as a team finished on the final stage or in the overall. I'll post that when I find out. But overall it was a fairly good showing.

Yep, there are fat guys in France too...

So now I am trying to recover a little. Before the Tour near Bezier I was exhausted and spent the week feeling terrible. I did well in the Tour but I think the fatigue has accumulated and I want to make sure I am well rested for the Tour trip with Bikestyle. The trips are actually very demanding. The riding, although usually fairly slow, is long hours on the bike. The start times are early and the nights are usually late. OK fine, so they are late because you hang out at the Bar drinking beer with everyone... yeah yeah.. tough life. :-)

Weather has been shit here. So I'm going to wait for the sunny parts of the day and go for some medium length easy rides. Ohhh... time for more coffee.

Lonnnnggg time

Good lord. It's been over a year, and so much has happened since then. Well, on the request on Mr Sagan and Mr Sonnenburg, I've opened the blogger and am dusting off the screen.

Chances are that all the interesting things I could have to write about have actually already happenend this year and there won't be much more to write about.

Racing has been going rather well. I'm very happy with this year so far and I hope it keeps going this way. Even if things don't keep going I have already had a good year, so I have nothing to loose.

I've been really busy recently. The Tour de France is fast aproaching and I this year I am more involved than ever with Bikestyletours.com. So I'll be heading off in a little over a week for the Tour. That means no more racing for me for over a month. I'll do a lot of long miles but they will be pretty slow, so racing in August is going to be touch and go. We'll see what my fitness is like when it comes to it.

Well that'll do for today. I'll try and update this daily... hmmm.. yeah right, lets say every 2 or 3 days then.

I might be doing a Bikestyletours blog durring the tour, so watch this space to find out more about that. Don't watch this space too much though because you might find yourself watching it for a whole year with nothing changing. I am SUCH a slacker.

Just in case anyone actually reads this. Hi to Mitch you was a regular (rather THE regular), and also hi to Craig who will be giving me shit for a month durring our Tour trip. For those of you who don't know Craig, he is a regular on the Bikestyle Tour trips and is coming back this year for his 3rd or 4th trip. I can't keep count. Every year I rip the piss out of him more and more, and yet he keeps coming back. It's a bit like a science experiment... see how far you can go before something cracks. ;-)

Craig has been going on and on and on at me asking for race reports... well, here you go Craig, I'm still holding out on you on the race reports, but in the mean time you can read race reports from year gone by when I did nothing, won nothing and pretty much sucked all year long.

And as I know most people like photos on these sorts of things... here's a pic for pic's sake.

In fact if you can guess what it is a picture of and where it was taken, there just might be an autographed peice of scrap paper for the lucky winner.. so get your answer in quick. Not sure who it will be autogaphed by yet.. that you'll just have to hope you win to find out. :-)

Actually that's not a bad idea. Maybe I'll do some kind of game like this durring the Tour. Win a Bikestyle had if you can guess what the picture is.. hmm....

Selling the Ferrus

Hi everyone,

It's only a little over a week until I fly back home, and I thought that if I can sell my bike before leaving it might make my travels easier. The bike is a 2007 Ferrus, and I got it in early June 2007.

Ferrus is a small French company named after a town in the south of France called Castelferrus. (details below)

So if anyone is interested , shoot me an e-mail or give me a call.

Bike: Ferrus Aluminium with Carbon Chain stays and Seat stays.
Size: 56cm center to top (51cm C-C)
TopTube:56cm
Fork: Ferrus Carbon with Aluminium steerer tube.
Stem: Deda Zero 100 (polished)
Bar: Deda Newton (polished)
Seat Post: Syncros
Seat: San Marco Concor Ti.
Groupset: Full 10 speed Ultegra equipped, with Dura Ace shifters.
Front wheel: Fulcrum Racing 3
Rear wheel: Mavic Aksium Race
Weight: between 8 and 9kg (can't quite remember sorry)

Quick Update

Just a quick update.

Life here is getting hectic. It is exam time again and I am feeling very stressed.
Last week I did the Tour de Correze with the team. A BIG event that was really good fun. It was a hell of a weekend. 2 stages of 160k. Torrential rain and small ridiculously bad roads on Sat... our team car broke down half way through the race... just a long story. But it was also great. Nothing but pain and suffering.

Here is our team at the Team presentation.












That all really. Not riding much at all right now. Exams etc, Saturday I'm going to spend the day working for Bikestyle getting ready for the Giro, but apart from that, cycling is being put on the back burner for 2 weeks. Kind of sucks as I am feeling fairly good on the bike, and 2 weeks of less riding (even if I don't stop riding totally) will put me back a step.

Next update will probably be in 3 weeks when I get back from Italy.
Later y'all.

Alphonce is Midi-Pyrenees Champion!!!

Alphonce wins Championship

Click on images for a larger view

Yesterday was the Midi-Pyrenees MTB championship. I was sadly not selected for the Tour Du Lot et Garonne, so I went up to watch Alphonce race, I took my MTB that I hadn't touched in way over a year, and did the race myself.

AB (Alphonce) has been training for this championship for 6 months. Early last week he pulled a Sim, and messed up his back. He had it put back by the doctor etc... but when I spoke to him Sat evening he wasn't in high spirits. But come the day he was feeling a little bit better, and once the race had started and the blood was flowing his back muscles loosened up and relieved that pain a bit.

AB was 3rd on the starting grid, I was way back in 30th. The start was blisteringly fast, and mainly on the road. 3 guys got a good gap on the road section, I fought my way through the field and started to bridge up to the 3 (where AB was setting the pace) but I didn't quite make it up to them before we hit some downhill, rocky singletrack. I'm fairly fit at the moment, so my legs felt OK on this race, but my technical skills have pretty much totally disappeared. I was sitting in 5th place when I passed AB standing on the side of the track. His spare tube had fallen and got stuck in his chain (what are the odds). He dealt with that and came back stronger than ever, passing me and working his way back up to 1st place all within the first lap. So by the end of the day AB won by a tire's width in the sprint finish with one other guy (they did the whole race together and "off the front") and now has a nice Regional Championship jersey he gets to wear for 1 year, he also assured himself a selection for the National Championships in mid May.

Congratulations AB!!! You da man!

As for me I plodded on, finished top 10 somewhere I think, then came home and went out for a little road spin. Not a bad training day overall. I enjoyed the MTB race, but was frustrated with my riding. I need to ride the MTB more than once a year if I want to enjoy myself more. :-) But above all I was happy to see AB get a well deserved and hard worked for win. I'm happy I was there to see it, but in a way I wish I hadn't raced so that I could have watched him and taken photos of what will always remain a big day for him.

Next up: National Championships!

Bad news for AB.

I had something of an easier week this week. Well, I guess easy

is all relative. That big race Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday all day in school. Actually I did something TOTALLY wild Tuesaday.. wait for it.. y'all ready.. I went OUT. I know.. crazy. After class a couple of us went out and had dinner etc. It was fun. I got home late: ie: way past my 9pm bedtime. :-)

Thursday I had a good 3or so hour ride. I felt pretty good, great views and a fair bit of sunshine. Friday was an easier day. I went into town, met someone for lunch etc. Then felt really lazy all afternoon. today I did 3.5 hours and tomorrow I think I will do an MTB race as I don't have any race obligations with the team. I have developed something of a cyst from the team shorts that are a little too small for me. So lets just say the seams are not really in the right place. So a couple of days off the bike this week have been much appreciated.

I am only doing the MTB race tomorrow because it is the Championship race, and Alphonce has been training for this one for the past 6 months. He really wants that jersey. I spoke to him today and sadly he's messed up his back and is it a lot of pain. He went to have 2 vertebrae put back into place yesterday, but it isn't looking goof for tomorrow. SUCKS!!! It reminded me that I haven't had any real problems with my back for a little while now, so fingers crossed things will be ok for a while still. I feel bad for Alphonce though, I knew exactly how he feels and how much pain he is in!!!

So..... yeah.. there you go.

Apart form that summer is on it's way for sure here. Not much else going on. Exams are fast approaching and we are organizing a class Bar B Q for next wednesday.. so that should be fun. Then it is exams until Friday 19th and Italy here I come!!!!

school soon done!

LAst week I had got a good bit of riding in. Then JP's parents arrived in town on Friday. It was a great to meet them. Really nice people! They came to our race on Monday. It was the highest ranked race before getting into UCI Continental Tour stuff. I actually had a pretty good race for once. Considering the level I wasn't planning on finishing. So I attacked from the gun. I ended up finishing 25th, which in a race of that level made me feel pretty good about myself to say the least. That morning there had been a women's French Cup race on the same course. Sadly we didn't get to see that.

I don't even know if I will be racing this weekend yet. I wasn't supposed to. But after my race on monday, they might kick someone else of the team for the Tour du Lot et Garonne and put me in. These bigger races limit the amount of riders you can enter, so that everyone has to show up with a 9 man team or something like that. So we'll see. In a way I would be pretty happy not to race. I kind of need to know what I am doing in advance and prepare myself mentally during the week. It is also the regional MTB champs on sunday, and I would really like to go and watch Alphonce race. He has been planning his season around this, and he hope to win it. It will also be part of the final selection for the National Championships for him.

Apart from that things are getting hectic here with school work. Exams finish on May 19th at 12:30... I fly out of Toulouse at 15:15 for Milan. The exams are just around the corner, so the work load is really pilling up.

Well there you go, that's pretty much it for now. Not much else to say except that it is really nice and sunny out there. Summer is on it's way for sure.

A quick thank you goes out to Scott who has been really supportive of me, has always had a kind word to help in racing and school etc... and who obviously always brings in a very interesting political comment regardless of the subject.

Thanks mate!

PS: JP has returned to the US for 2 weeks. His flight over was a mess. He might do the Ephrata stage race in PA. So if anyone sees him out there, give hhim a yell and a shout!

racing(ish)

Well yo y'all I ain't been updating this much have I?! What a slacker... pffff.
So.. here's a race report I rote for good old Scotty's RacingUnion website (www.racingunion.com)... including Scotty's little editor's note that made me laugh pretty hard.. point is.. he's right, that's what it is, but it hadn't occured to me that people might not know it. :-)


race report from the Classique Nord Charente The day before Paris Roubaix, is a "mini Paris Roubaix" in north western France.




Thursday 7th April, I get an e-mail from my DS who has just returned from the tour of Majorca saying that I am racing both Saturday and Sunday. But Saturday is not just any race.

Friday 8th, I load up my car and drive up to Castelsarrasin to the team house where I sill spend the weekend. John is at the house (of course, he lives there) and so is another team mate who is from central France in Poitier and had to spend most of the week down south for some tests being run in Toulouse. A number of other people are also at the house this weekend as Saturday morning will be an early start. We are supposed to have a team meeting Friday evening to discuss our racing schedule for the rest of the season... but in typical French style, the meeting is first put off for about an hour, and eventually put off all together. Fearing that the team meal that night might be a big plate of simple pasta with no sauce etc, John and I sneaked out to get some food, and I also needed a new cassette and some brake pads. So we hit the bike shop which was miraculously still open. I got what I needed and we headed towards the shops. Realizing that if we got some food, everyone would eat it thinking it was team food, we decided against getting actual food and sneaked into the local McDonalds for some rather inappropriate fare. Making ourselves feel better about our sinful act by recounting the story of Chris Horner's fight to get a burger and fries during last years Tour de France, we munched our food quickly and headed back to the house. The guys were waiting for us to go and eat... so we all piled into the team cars and went out to a cafeteria for dinner, paid for by the team. So John and I got in 2 meals that evening. Americans. puh. (** - see editor's note below)


Saturday, the big day. The team loaded the vehicles and got everything ready for the long drive up to northern France for the Classic Nord Atlantique. 2 cars and a mini-bus, 3 drivers and more wheels than you can shake a stick at accompanied the 11 rider team for this mini Paris Roubaix. After about 2 hours of driving, we stopped for lunch. John and I looked at each other and people started to pull out Tupperware full of food, we had prepared nothing. A moment of panic went through us until we found out that 4 or 5 of the other guys also had nothing. So the team paid for our cafeteria lunch. The choice was limited, and we needed some kind of carbs. So I went for fries and sausage, far from ideal. Back into the vehicles we piled for more driving. Eventually we get there. The team helpers get all the bikes out, get everything sorted, fill the water bottles, get our race numbers etc etc. I had put on my new chain, so I got changed and went off to shake the legs out after that long drive. 5 meters out of the parking area and of course the chain is slipping all over the old cassette. So I go hunting in the back of the van, all we have in 9 speed is a cosmic carbon with a TT cassette, so I put the cassette on my wheel and off we go to race 130km of dirt on a 11-19 cassette that isn't shifting very well anyway.



The race gets underway with a 10km neutral start, after about 20km is the first dirt section. There are 15 in total, each one named and with a big sign at the entrance with the name and distance up for all to see. The first hour of racing was at 44km average, and there was no hiding in the field, it was strung out all the way. I really didn't feel well at first, and not long into the race, that greasy sausage and fries started to come up. I threw up 3 times and got dropped twice. I sat in the cars for a while and waited until Marion pulled up in our team car. For some reason I was really thirsty and had gotten through a whole water bottle in only 30k. She told me that there was a little group of riders behind me with Thibault Marc (one of our guys) in there, so I could wait for them... she was a little surprised when I asked her for a water bottle this early into the race. In fact you are not allowed to be fed within the first 50km of the race, but I'm guessing no one saw because we didn't get a fine. Then I worked my way through the caravan and got back into the race. Sadly a little later the food came up again to say hello, and I was off the back, this time with Couscous (Christophe Cousinie, one of the area heroes who is on our team this year), he's not in great form at the moment as he was sick over the winter. I sat in and let the other guys who were with us do a little work, but seeing it wasn't doing much I took control of things. I worked my way through the caravan and got back into the race once again. I think Couscous followed me but the other guys dropped. About half way into the race, a break had got away early and we didn't have anyone in it. As we headed up a little hill John attacked at the perfect moment, it strung us all out and I wanted to kill him because here came the food again. Sadly for John it came to nothing. So we put 3 guys on the front to try and close the gap to the group off the front, the 3 were Beaudet, Parks and Trouche, then we had 3 other guys sitting in the field. As we hit another dirt section everyone flatted, there were guys all over the place. Seemed like all but 2 or 3 of us from our team flatted. A few meters later John got a flat too. This race was absolute carnage back in the team cars. Cars were stopping all over the place, they were running out of wheels, there was dust everywhere.




Seeing as we no longer had our 3 guys up front I got myself up to the front and tried to control the attacks. But by the 2nd section of dirt near the front I started to drop back as people let gaps open. Frankly from this point on I don't know what happened. There were cars all over the place, riders in ones and twos, guys crashing in the middle of the "road", motorbikes going through farmers' fields. I do remember being amazed at the amount of spectators out watching the dirt sections. We would come crashing over the dirt, through a field out in the middle of nowhere, and there were all these people just standing in the middle of a field in the north of France cheering a bike race. Well the rest of the race is a blur of dust and confusion. All I know is that less than half of the field finished. Only 2 of us from our team finished. I was quite happy to be one of them even if that northern style of riding with lots of accelerations isn't what I'm best at. I actually didn't flat. Although a lot of it is luck, I think that my years of mountain biking really helped me to choose the right gear and adopt a pedal style that minimized the risk of flatting. I was quite amazed actually because before the race I pulled out a big chunk of glass that left a big deep hole in my rear tire.

I'm pretty bummed for John who flatted, and then (maybe stupidly) waited for a team mate who also got a flat. John was riding a very smart race. Now he wouldn't have been able to do anything about the group that was off the front and stayed off the front, but I feel pretty sure John was on a good day and could have got himself a top 20 finish... which in that race would have been more than respectable.

I may not have got any flats, but I did crack my rim. I'm pretty annoyed as I now don't have a rear wheel. That was my race wheel, and I only have a really heavy and crappy shimano rear wheel now. Sucks. I also tore my saddle. After the race, it was back in the cars for the long drive home. We got in at 11pm, and it was off to do it all over again early the next morning for 150km of racing with a slightly different team consisting of 5 riders who had done the Classic Nord Charente. John and myself were there, but that's a different story. Another slightly modified team race on Monday as well. I wasn't part of it, John was the only one to do all 3 days. He didn't have to, but he chose to go monday anyway, and was totally toasted.

Classic Nord Charente (Paris Roubaix) in a few words and numbers:

130km
15 dirt sections1
st hour at 44kph
41kph average for the whole race.

website: http://perso.wanadoo.fr/pascal.baudouin/velo.htm

France 3 coverage: http://www.racingunion.org/ct.ashx?id=bad5a8f3-2b8b-492b-91d2-5496b08759eb&url=http%3a%2f%2fjt.france3.fr%2fand click on 19/20 Poitou-Charentes and then click on Dimanche 09 avril.around 7minutes in Results: 1- LEBRUN Charles Henri (CC Marmande) 2- Limoges V. (Blois CAC 41) 3- Mainguenaud (Deux-Sèvres C) 22- Pozza S. (CC Castelsarrasin) 36- Siméon G. (CC Castelsarrasin)

(** editor's note - - - there is no real literal translation for what sim is giving you here: "Americans. puh." the french have a stunning array of dismissive gestures and phrases. the gestures tend to be small. you are generally not deemed worthy of any sort of vocalization or arm waving unless you run over their citroen with tractor or you're caught stealing their heating oil or groceries. as a result, the most common thing you're likely to encounter is this "puh". it's very amusing as i knew immediately what sim was talking about. to make this work, you puff out your cheeks ever so slightly, form your lips like you're going to say the letter "p" or the beginning of the word "pug" and then push the air out your lips. the rest of your face is motionless. to add emphasis, you can supplement this with an almost indiscernable shrug or a barely detectable flick of your hand. try to look off slightly from the object of your disgust. these small gestures speak volumes. oh yah, and i'll try to get some pictures up fairly soon from the race.)

Tiaa Cref and Darren

Lill south African climber Darren might finish the season with US Pro team Tiaa Cref. Jonathan Vaughters may add Darren to his team if all goes well.

The real key for both parties is the future as Darren is still young and can still develop as a rider, and Cref will be entering the Continental Pro (Ex Division 2) ranks next year with an aim to enter the Pro tour in 2009.

It's been a lot of hard work to find Darren a team, a lot of talking, contacting negotiating etc etc, but if this works out it will all have been well worth it.

Working with J.Vaughters should be a good experience for Darren, as JV is a very knowlegable and scientific guy with a good support structure, good equipment and many invites to some great races... and of course a long term plan aimed at a solid future.

ermm.. no idea for a title.

This week was a fairly easy one for me. Lots of school work. Monday was a recovery day and then I helped Tom and Denise move house all afternoon, tue and wed was school all day. Thursday I did 3.5 hours and that's pretty much it. I leave tonight to go to the Team house. WE have a meeting tonight, then tomorrow we race up north somewhere, 120k of a mini Paris Roubaix with drit roads and all kinds of crazy shit. Then sunday is a 150k race somwhere, I don't even know where. Shoudl be fun. I'll be tired as that is a lot of hard and long racing for me who still hasn't been doing much real training, and still haven't started any intervals or anything.

Looks like we have a bunch of good raceing from now on. I'll have to take a break for exams and then I head straight out to Italy, but the racing before and after that looks good.

Villeneuve something race

Last weekend was a good race for me. We had no real leader so I was able to sit in and see where my form actually is. I was pretty happy with my performance.

Tim G won AGAIN... blah blah blah, race started with bad rain, all the usual boring race stuff, we pedaled etc etc etc

Tim G won on Sunday

Albi's New Zealander Tim G the REAL JetLag.



Sunday's race winner was New Zealander Tim Gudsell (riding for AG2R feeder team Albi Velo Sport) who had just got off the plane from Commonwealth games. Talk about JETLAG. Still I guess he must have been working pretty hard and trianing well. When you are on form you are on form. He was dropped on the last hills of the day, but found his way back to the group and is a pretty good sprinter, so he won the race in the sprint.



He did get a Bronze medal in the team persuit at the Commonwealth Games, so... good for him! A great race on little sleep. This is his first European win I believe, so I'm sure he will have gotten through a fair bit of Champaign this month.









Here is Tim on the front on his was to a Bronze medal in the Team Persuit at the recent Commonwealth Games.

the week, Hail yeah.

So sunday was nice, monday was sunny too, but I had classes etc. Tuesday was a national strike, so no classes... but it was raining on and off all day. I went out for a morning spin as someone was coming ove rin the afternoon to do some school work. I headed out for a spin, befor eI knew it it was raining on me heavilly, then I ran into one of the older guys from Cadalen who rides, and just then it started hailling.. hard too!!! My face was really hurting and I was drentched!!!! UGh

So I got home and the sun came out.. but not for long.
What a day.

Race PS

Oh yeah, our main man Julien got into the front group, attacked and was off for a solo win but was caught 10 meters from the line... he finished 7th a little dissapointed to say the least!!!

Race

Well, Sunday's race was pretty fun. I was to cover the first part of the day.. so I followed some breaks etc, just made sure we had someone in every move. I even attacked once. Not sure why, with my training (or lack there of) it was probably a bit silly, but I was an opotunity on a bit of a climb... got the field a bit strung out but it really didn't go anywhere.
Apart from the John and I were the only two to really do anything. We pulled our leader up out of the wind, then closed the gap to the main break so that he could jump across the gap at the base of a climb. It was a bit annoying because the rest of the team just sat around folloing wheels and did their own race, racing just for themselves and no one else. Luckily John and I somehow managed to finish ahead of most of them. Our aim was the get our man up front, and that's what we did. I mainly kept him out of the wind, then when we closed down the gap to the break, John but in a massive and impressive turn on the front, strung out the entire field and got everything perfectly set up for Julien (our leader) to jump across the gap without taking anyone with him.

We then formed a bit of a group of about 40 riders and rode in to the finish. I tried to controle the group so that there weren't attacks left right and center. No point "racing" at that stage, if you are so far back you need to race in a groupetto and help eachother out.

With 1k to go I was going to lead John out for our little group sprint. I hit the front, rounded a corner with about 500 meters to go and found there was a steep rise hidden behind the corner. I hit a wall and slowed down a lot. But still I think mayb 2 guys came around us, one guy took John a bit by suprise and came around him. In our group we finished 3rd and 4th I think, I'm not sure if I was 3rd or if John was... not that it really matters, the race was over by then.. but it was kind of fun.

It was a nice sunny day, so that was sweet.

Jeff Cup Mitch

PS: Mitch, I expect a full report on Jeff Cup.. well actually no, not a FULL pedal stroke by pedal stroke report, that'll get boring, but I expect to know what happened!!!!!!!! So get off your Dilbert Cubed butt and type me a report. :-)

Good luck out there mate. And to anyone else out there racing this weekend!

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! :-)