SHEP FACE'O HORROR COMPETITION

This just in, hot off the press. New COMPETITION announced!!!

Craig "Shep" Shepherd, Wannabe Tri-fagElite and accountant extraordinaire tried his hand at bike racing last night. "The Stig" jumped in the deep end (of the washing machine) and entered a Crit. And look at that, like every good employee he's wearing his Bikestyle clothing, what a Pro he is.


The competition is this:
Looking at Craig's face during this crit, is he:

a) having so much fun he's laughing like a 12 year old school girl.

b) crapping himself because he's overshot the corner and is about to hit that curb right under his nose

c) in so much pain that his face is distorted almost as much as it will be when he joins me for a week of riding my local hills full gas at the end of this month.

Post your answers in the Comments section. Only 1 answer per entrant. (Craig Shepherd is not permitted to enter!)

The Competition will end on June 16th, and the lucky winner will get a Pezcyclingnews cycling hat, second place will get a post-card, and third place will get a kick in the teeth.

In the even of more than one entrant... I mean more than one correct answer, we will draw the winner out of a hat, and the person with the correct answer who has paid me the most will be declared the winner.

Thank you for entering.
;-)

POWER-Tap!!!

Oh Yeah baby! There it is! The new Beast, the "Work of Art that Works" to use Maglite's rather appropriate slogan.

In the words of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin "Sheeey's a Beauuuutry, Mayyyte!"

I got my grubby little hands on this Friday afternoon... within hours it was built up and on the bike for a quick pre-race 50k spin... by Saturday it had been given a true and thorough test at the International 58th Boucles Du Tarn... a very stiff and trustworthy wheel that gave me all the data I needed I pull off my best result in my Favorite race of all time... Well... I'm being a bit geeky now. Not that my eyes were fixed to the unit the whole time, but it was nice to be able to pace myself a little better on the climbs... for a nice little Normalized average wattage of 298W over a mere 3.5 hours. What wasn't nice was watching the wattage shoot up to over 1200W every 30 to 40 seconds during the first 45minutes or so of the race... the first hour was at 47kph average... hmmm... didn't feel that bad. ;-)

I'm excited... THANK YOU POWER-TAP!

(Thank you also to French divition of Power-Tap MatSport for a great and friendly serice!)

Can you hear that??? I think it's coming from the grape vine...

My home is surrounded by vineyards. It's not only a grate place to live, but a grape place... oups, sorry, a great place to ride. Whether out on a short local recovery ride, or on the way back from a long grueling training session, no matter which way you come home, you cannot avoid riding through lush and carefully manicured vineyards.

The Gaillac wine region isn't France's most well known, but that is because they stick to very small, traditional, homegrown wine making methods, and the Cave de Tescou boasts some tasty little nummers... or should I say numbers, depends how many you've had I guess.

Now let me tell you (MR CRAIG SHEPHERD)... there are NO screw-top bottles of wine around these parts. Each parcel of land is different, and each wine has it's terroire, non of your mass produced, every bottle tastes the same wine here. I know I might be banging on about this a bit, but everyone knows I wine a lot.

Shhhhhhhtttt.... can you hear that? Listen!!! Hear it?...

Tour de L'Ariege (Pyrenees)

OUCH! 3 stages, Big mountain passes and nothing but rain and crashes. Hmmm.... Still a fantastic race!!! How often is it that you get to race over the huge mountain passes of the Pyrenees?

Stage 1: last minute pannick

It rained the whole time. I was planning to go for the King of the Mountains in this Tour, and try for a top 10 overall. But from stage 1 I could tell I wasn’t feeling great. I made it over the first climb of the race in 3rd spot, and got myself a few Mountains points, but that would be it sadly. The stage actually finished in a crazy uphill mass(ish)-sprint on soaking wet cobbles in a twisty little Pyrenean town. A Police motorbike in the final 1km blocked us, and my teammate Hugo and I had to stop, unclip, get around him and sprint like mad so as not to loose any time for the overall. Our team walked away with the green jersey at the end of the day, and the rest of us all in the peloton, safe and sound... well, except for a few scrapes and bruises.

(Eric got the Gree Jersey on Stage 1)

Stage 2: Sill in with a chance


Stage 2 would be surprisingly similar to stage 1. I felt as if I had dead legs and just wasn’t performing right. One of our guys crashed, another got a flat and 3 of our boys went back to help him and were forced to chase for most of the race in the team cars. It once again all finished in a very surprising uphill mass sprint. Two of us from the team finished in the Peloton and were therefore still well poised for the overall classification. However some rider were already 20minutes down overall. So although a sprint finish, the Pyrenees roads of the Ariege were starting to take their toll.
Stage 3: the BIG mountains

Still a little snow up at altitude...

The big one. 4 mountains on the day, 2 mountains of well over 1000meters, the final 2 climbs coming in the last 30km of the race, and the finish up the top of the Mont d’Olmes ski station at 1700meters. Things didn’t go quite to plan once again, and I was the only one from the team vaguly able to follow the pace over the climbs. As I crested the second to last climb alone just outside the top 20 and shot down the wet descent I was reminded of the dangers of cycling. There were riders all over the road, some standing by cars their bikes over the other side of the road. Some climbing back over the edge of the road to the bikes that lay under barriers at the side of the road… it was carnage. Speaking of carnage, we then hit the final climb. 17km of climbing through the clouds and in the rain to the finish were snow still sat at the side of roads. I really wasn’t feeling right, and my team car could see it as clear as day. They kept coming up along side me and encouraging me, reminding me that this sort of terrain is what I’m made for, but for some reason I just couldn’t get my heartrate up.

National Champion and King of the Mountains jersey winner Glacial (FRA, Tarbes) rolled in over 20minutes back on the last stage.

At the end of the day I finished 19th on the stage and 18th over, we came away from the race soaking wet, with 3 inured riders from crashes, 2 abandons, one cracked collar bone and a lot of doubts in our minds.

That was pretty much the last time I got to wear my Pyrenees Champion Jersey, as the Championships are on June 8th. Everyone will be trying to take the jersey off my back, even my own bloody teamates... Bastard. :)