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

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

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

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

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

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)

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

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

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

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)

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.

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

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...

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.