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.

Trans Pyrenees.

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

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

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

So here’s the breakdown of my week:

Sat: 185k

Sun:50k

Mon: 152k

Tue: 140k

Wed: 160k

Thu: 128k

Friday: 106k (“Only”)

Sat: 140k

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

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

We were up pretty high for most of the week.

to the hills.....!

Time Flies!!! I’ve been back home a little over a week already! Nuts.

Well, you know it’s summer when:

- You sneeze every minute from hay-fever,
- The narrow French roads are melting and your tires make a sticky whirring noise as you ride through the wet tar.
- The Boucles du Tarn is tomorrow
- Tomatoes are starting to grow in my garden
- I actually find sweat dripping down my face on a recovery ride
- You start having to think about the Tour de France
- You eat more veg than anything else
- You can’t find your leg and arm warmers
- You’re happy!

Tomorros is the 150km Boucles du Tarn. Probably my favourit race of all time. Big names like Vinokourov, VandeVelde, Bocharov, Jalabert, etc etc have won this race in the past. I’ve always wanted to do well at this race but have either not been in shape due to whatever reason, or have had to miss the race. The only time I was fit for it was last year, when we had a guy in the break, which blocked the rest of us a bit, and finished 17th (team mate finished 9th) and the rest of the team where behind us. Top 20 it that race is pretty darn good, and I was pretty flippin’ happy with that.
Tomorrow however we have more riders that spots in the team cars, so a couple of us will have to ride 30k back to our own cars/the hotel. I’m pretty sure I’ll be one of those riders. :-)

Then Sunday morning I’m leaving at 5am for the 5 hour drive to Barcelona to work with Thompson Bike tours at TransPyrenees! We’ll be doing some big rides through my beloved Pyrenees. Days of 150 and 160k, (I think the shortest day 97km) some days with 3 or 4 major climbs. I can’t wait!!!

Back home... and racin'

The flight back home to France via Germany was pretty painless for once. Although I’ll miss a lot of people, and although it is sad the “adventure” has come to a close, it’s nice to be back home. Nice to be able to drive down a narrow road at 80 mph. Nice to not have a slow person in a big powerfull Chevy stop on the side of the road because you are driving on the same stretch of extremely wide road. Nice to find all my beloved cheeses again, Nice to find my collection of wheels and endless bike crap… best of all, nice to get back to racing!

I Left the US Tuesday evening, (Where Greg announced over airtraffic controle to everyone that he was wishing me good luck for my upcoming races) arrived back in the south of France on a wonderfully warm and sunny Wednesday. Then raced the Team Time Trial Championships Thursday.
I left for the race Thursday on my own as the event wasn’t too far from my house and I was meeting the team there. I got off late… then realized I had forgotten my cycling shoes… so turned back around to get them.
Then as I got off the motorway I got all disorientated and took a wrong turn, effectively going back the way I had just come. Anyway, I eventually got there nice and late… but as it turned out our start time wasn’t for a couple hours anyway.

The race was fun. We had a really good group of 4 (3 had to finish) and we rode better than we have ever ridden before. Technically for a TTT we couldn’t have done much better…Ironically however, we didn’t do as well as in the past or as expected. Although we rode better and although our time was better than the previous 2 years, we only finished 4th. A pretty crappy place to finish. I’d almost rather be 6th and clearly out of it. The last 2 years we finished 3rd and 2nd… and this year, no medal. :-(

Oh well.
Next will be the Boucles du Tarn, then off to ride from one end of the Pyrenees to the other with Thomson bike Tours for 8days, then it’ll be time for the International Tour of the Pryenees.. Hmm… I might need to get in some climbing before then, The flatlands of the US won’t be helping me much up the Aspin and company.

Thanks to everyone everywhere. The Shep for putting us up in AUS, to Greg for the hospitality in the US, to Todd for the hospitality and the use of a car! The Rick for “everything” to Tim for all the obvious stuff, to Lisa for keeping me somewhat sane, to Jim for the beers… to Chris Hayes for giving me endless SHIT, to JP for making the racing fun and to Haymarket and NCVC for having me guest ride with them.

Now, it’s 5am, I’m awake for some reason (Jetlag I’m guessing) and it’s time for a coffee watching the sun come up over the hills behind my house.

Rain and wine.

My previous post “tour of Ephrata Summer is here” was a little overstated to say the least… it has done NOTHING but rain the whole time since then! I’ve pretty much been off the bike… watching the rain a falling. Not much to say or report on that. Only about 2 weeks now before I’m back home in Europe… I have Team Time Trial champs in 2 weeks and I’m not even really riding at the moment. But as they say, “c’est la vie”.

In the meantime I’ve been having lots of coffees and going wine tasting. So you really can’t complain about that!!!!

Actually finished a CRIT!

As I‘ve said before, I hate crits with a vengeance! I haven’t finished a crit for about 3 years. Crits in Europe are not “real” bike races and are more of a summer time “show”. They are certainly never included in a stage race. So it was with much trepidation than I entered the second day of the Tour of Ephrata. The morning Team Time Trial I was actually quite looking forward to. We VERY nearly missed our start with NCVC. A few of us went to take a pee and next thing you know they are counting down our start time. We literally only JUST made it. The first section of the TTT was flat, then it turned uphill. The first section went not too badly for us at NCVC. It’s always extremely hard to do a TTT when you don’t know each other too well or how everyone rides. But we did a pretty good job for the first half of the course. Then once the road went uphill it was a little harder to judge everyone’s state of freshness. Especially after a pretty hard race the day before. But we did the best we could considering we don’t ride together regularly, and at the end of the day it was a fun event. The afternoon event wasn’t looking so good… a 4 corner extremely short course Crit… and with US riders who spend 80% of their time riding these kinds of events.

I must say I am actually very proud to say I actually managed not only to hang on, but also to stick it out through the intense boredom of going round in endless circles and seeing the same scenery over and over again… I actually finished a Crit.

They say a picture tells a thousand words. And there is no doubt that this picture a friend of mine send me the other day certainly expresses the pain I was going though in that crit better than any words can. Now that would be a pretty cool pic if I were to tell you I had attacked and was off the front solo going for the win… but truth be told, I was dangling at the back all day suffering like a dog… (see pic).

Thanks again to the NCVC guys for a great weekend of racing!

Tour of Ephrata, Summer is here!!!!

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

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

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

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

Finally some miles...

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

Tour of the Battenkill,

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

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