up in the air

The first race of the year is tomorrow. A nice jaunt of 120km. Im nervous but at the same time Im not, as I have no idea what to expect. The legs felt good during quick training ride yesterday so that gives me a bit of confidence. With all the terrible weather I havent been able to get out for a lot of solo rides over 120km. Because of that, I notice I fade after the 80km mark. My game plan for tomorrow is to sit in and concerve until the final part of the race then if I feel good try to get into a break or something. First race of the year is always a gong show.

In europe they say each country has its own style of racing. Ive heard this from many people. In France they say its just attacks. Right from the gun. The whole race is attacking. Team-mates attacking team-mates who are int the break. Attack after counter attack. Simply put, fast hard racing and mass chaos.

It remains to be seen.

I went to the local big-box sport store the other day looking for a Wilson Volly Ball to make a "Wilson" friend. I just wanted someone to talk English to, like out of like on the movie "Cast Away." I even found some sweet straw in the garage for it. Unfortunatley I couldnt find a Volly-ball. I guess it isnt a big sport in France.

yellow cup

The legs are starting to come back to me after a couple days of rest. I was hoping to hop on the rig today for a couple miles but it seems to be downpouring, which is in vogue here in Normandie lately. For some reason it seems to hail at least once a day aswell. Today just might be another trainer day.



Im not too worried about the amount of miles I get this year as I have a secret weapon. I realize I have been doing everything wrong the past few years. I stumbled upon something that made everything so much clearer for me. GQ magazine(British) has given me step by step instructions on how to win a Stage of the Tour de France, so with this guide, if I follow it I should be a shoo-in for at least one stage. Watch out Mark Cavendish.

Mistranslation

Whoa, what a past few days! I just completed a good little training camp with the team Saturday and Sunday. It went pretty well until I got horribly horribly sick hours after I got home. I got kicked in the face in the worst way possible. Suddenly I felt like I was going to get sick, then the next 2 days I spent either hugging or sitting on the toilet. If I wasnt in the bathroom I was lieing in bed shaking with cold. It was terrible.

I thought I had food poisoning but no one on the team seemed to have it other than myself, and we ate the same food all weekend. Yikes it was terrible. I feel better this morning and managed to eat a bowl of oatmeal(first food since 1pm on Sunday) and that went down ok, the coffee on the other hand is fighting to show itself though.

Well. Other than that the training camp went ok. It was a weekend of mis-translations thats for sure. On Friday I got a call from my team director telling me we were going to camp in AN HOUR. "Holy Shit" I thought. and I rushed to pack my bags before he arrived to head to the hotel. Turns out it was a mis-comunicatioon and he was dropping another rider off at the house in an hour.

So, we go to camp the next day at 11, get checked in, have lunch and suit up. The new team kits that were suppose to be in Friday were late, which is the case with every other clothing order in the history of mankind.

So, we got ready and I asked how long the ride would be. My impression I got from The DS was 70km which I thought was a bit light but didnt really think much about it. 40 km into the ride we approached the area of Suisse-Normandy, which you can imagine is full of small mountains. So, I was thinking this ride was 70km, so I rode hard up it and to my surprise came out in the font group of about 4 guys in the 5km climb. It was then as the ride carried on that I realized that this ride was much more than 70km. Having only brought enough food and water for 70km I was fighting a huge bonk brought on by the effort of the climb, and I travelled back to the team car to beg for food.

The thing about Normandy that ive learned is that the rides always seem to start out easy. It isnt until 50km that everyone basically attacks and attacks the ride becomes hard. If its not hard enough then you work on paceline, which is slightly easier but you still go like 50km/h.

So I basically rode myself into the ground to finish the ride, but all in all it was a good 120km.

The next day we awoke early to slap out another ride. As the trends are going now in Europe it was cold(about 2-5degrees) and rainy. The pace was ok at first, but then again it went up and attacks and climbs took their toll on me. I rode until the 90km point in the paceline but then just didnt have any power left(not to mention I was harbouring a horrible virus which I didnt know about) and dropped off.

So, I rode back to the hotel. Problem was I got lost along the way. Now, my french is good enough to ask where something is or where a hotel is or even a town is. The thing about France is that in 5km/sq there is about 60 small towns. So, everyone I asked had never heard of this town we were staying in, even though it was like 8km away. YIKES>.

Anyway, I managed to find the hotel and made my way in just before lunch with a total ride of about 135-140km, about an hour more than I anticipated. I was feeling ok, just really frustrated as you can imagine.

Well Im feeling better today and I might jaunt down to the boulangerie to get a coissont. I think I can afford it consdering the only thing Ive eaten for 2 days was perrier and coke.

Other than the sickenss and the mis-communication life in France is ok. I miss my woman like crazy, but I'm heading to Ireland to see her in a month, cant wait!

Patton

The days are passing and the weather is getting steadily better. I find myself stuck with a slight cold though, so I'm going to take the day off today. I need a haircut and to do some errands aswell.

Ive been having some serious bootie problems as of late. 4 pairs of booties( 2 winter, 2 summer) should be enough to sustain someone right? Well after 2 weeks I have broken 3 of the four winter booties I have. 2 zippers broke(one that was just repaired on PEI) and another the stitching ripped on the velcro. Holy Moly.

I have a very modest size 9.5 foot and am wearing large booties. They just dont make them like they use to I guess. Ive been wearing mis-matched pairs in order to keep the feel warm, but as mentioned, another one broke yesterday.

I went for my first solo ride of the year yesterday. It seems like no one rides alone here. There is always people going on group rides and they randomly show up at your house to go riding. Its nice but at the same time I like my solo rides. Going from riding in a group of 5-10 guys to solo where your open to the wind definitly shows that I still am weak as a kitten.

France is unbeliveable. Yesterday for my ride I went in a random direction out of town, taking random turns and manged to have a great ride. In this part of Normandy its insane hilly. I was either going up or down, similar to PEI, but the climbs are steeper and much longer. Its really unbelieveable riding. Beutiful views, great roads. If PEI is one of the best places to ride in North America, France is 10x that. Not to bad-mouth PEI or North America, but it really is unbelieveable.

I can see why cycling is so huge here. There are great programs to develope juniors, and also the roads are super quiet so parents wouldnt have to worry as much as in the rest of the world. Of the few cars you would see on a ride, they seem more respectful than say.......oh Tucson Arizona. On top of that most of the group rides even have a follow car. Wether it be a father of a young person or just a random guy who likes cycling, there is usually the club's van that follows any scheduled ride.

The team has a training camp this weekend, where we get our new kits and cool stuff. I dont really know what to expect. I dont even know what kind of rides we will be doing. That has been the trend of my time in France. Becuase of the language barrier i just go into situation not knowing what to expect.

Luckily there are some good people taking care of me.

Moi en France

I managed to hop on the rig both Saturday and Sunday after a good trainer session on Fri. The weather still didnt co-opegrate, but we faced it anyway. Saturday was a nice 2degrees, and Sunday was a very cold -10 for the start of the 9am Sunday morning ride.

I dressed in most of the winter gear I had, and I wasnt freezing, but I was not comfortable thats for sure. Being the Canadian in the group there was no way I could skip out on the cold ride. I told everyone this day was like a nice summer day in Canada. Luckily working construction taught me a couple good tricks to keeping warm on the cold days.

We did a good 100km each day. The legs feel like their comming around, but its hard to tell when its that cold. I had to make sure I had high RPMs as the legs felt like sludge if I dropped below 90.

Some of the roads are still covered in snow, which causes mass panic in France. I had to work on the cross skills and managed to fall once, no harm done though.

Bofore most rides it seems the people get together and have a french coffee. Which is of course fake coffee. Its nice to chill out before the ride.

Couple more bizzare to me facts about France:

-The doors ALWAYs swing into the building. I dont think I've encountered one that opens out.

-The Milk doesnt have a fat percentage on it, and is kept in the isle of the grocery store un-chilled. Pops told me they might kill the bacteria with UV light.

-Your plug adapter for France will work on some houses, but not others, depending when the house was made.

-No one puts milk in their coffee. I put some in mine one day and people saw, now I`m the talk of the town.

Tomorrow, a coissont, and rest.

outrageous

Well it happened again. The snow fell. This time a good 15cm. This guy went for a walk.

Spell check doesnt work in France

The weather has taken a turn for the worse. The balmy 10degree temps I had when I got here have long since gone. The temps are in the negatives and yesterday I did intervals in Francks garage on the trainer. It was my first real set of intervals and they felt ok...not great and the last two I died on but again, thats to be expected.

I was suppose to go for a ride this morning with a teamamte but awoke to a good 2cm of snow on the ground that had fallen overnight. Button down the hatches, warm up the Diesel for 20 mins, put on your snowsuits as its mass chaos in France. I really dont feel like riding the trainer again today, especially when I have to ride to Francks to go on it.

I set up the SRM fully yesterday. Talk about a nightmare. Imagine setting up 2 of the most finicky bike computer of your life, where the tolorances are 1-2mm on a frame that is so 'new' it was never designed to work with in the first place. There were many brackets and modifications to be had. Just to get the SRM from the box onto the bike took about 6 hours total.

Not only that, the software isnt the most user friendly. With the Garmins I found I could DL it and figure it out as I went, but with the SRM I'm constantly looking at the manual to figure out what I'm doing wrong. On top of that there is so many odd numbers and settings it puts out, once you have it figured out another setting and number jumps out at you that doesnt make any sence. Ahh well at least I look like I know what I'm doing.

I picked up a new coffee maker at the Supermarche the other day. Its funny, In Canada, land of the decent coffee, its hard to find a good coffee maker. I had to go to a specialty store to find the one I had. In France, land of the terrible coffee(from what I've seen) you can find a good coffee maker for 10 euro at the grocery store. Makes sence I guess.

Man I complain a lot.

France What

Well I'm here in France. As usual getting packed up was stressful as my new SRM came in hours before my flight was set to leave which threw a wrench into my plans. No matter, I ended up getting to the airport with a decent amount of time and had a very un-eventful flight. Nothing crazy happened and it was smooth sailing.

I'm one of those poeple who cant sleep on planes, and this was no exception. Being an all night flight I'm going on about 30 hours of no sleep and I'm starting to hit the wall as I write this.

I got a pick up from my team director/driver and Franck, one of the older fast guys in Paris ,and I was was greeted with a nice coissont, and a strong cup of espresso. They marvalled how I could fit 2 bikes in one bike bag, and I marvalled at how useless I am at French. Problem.



So it seems that most of the people on my team, and who Ill be living with dont speak english. Dont get me wrong I dont expect to move to France, and have everyone speak English for me. It just means I have to kick start my french skills in a bad way.



The team car is fully legit being a Renault, with sponsor logos all over it. On top there are enough racks to hold a few bikes and about 15 wheels with speakers on the top to yell at riders. Its pretty funny actually. The best part is the "peleton" horn which is the one you hear if you ever watch any PROTOUR bike racing vid.



We crammed all my stuff into the car and made the way into Paris for a quick stop over at a friend of the teams. There we had some wierd french alchohol called Ricard, which you mix with water and tastes like black liquorish. Im pretty sure Andrew told me to stay away from it if I knew what was good for me. Its pretty terrible stuff.

2 days later____________________________________________________

Fast foreward a couple days as I am now settled and have internet at my host house. I went for a couple rides with the team and it turns out the team is one of the biggest in the area with about 12 riders. We did a couple 80+ km days and the terrain is surprisingly hilly. Its a lot like PEI with rolling hills. The guys are pretty fast as some of them have a lot of kms in their legs. The first day I felt fine but the second I was cooked by the end of the 100km mark. I was expecting that with the cold,being the first few rides of the year and the guys drilling it on the climbs.

The scenery is exactly what you would picture rural France to be. Any view is like out of a Europe calendar. You ride through hilly spots through fields with a ton of churches. The roads are super narrow and every now and then you pop into a town that has 15 buildings from 1200AD. Old guys come out smoking and watch you go by. Its really funny how steriotypical it is.

Ill go into more detail about things in later posts but here are things I have noticed.

-Apparently taking your shoes off to go into a house is a Canadian only thing as everyone doesnt do it here and in parts of america I've noticed.

-People kiss on the cheek to say hello, women get it on both cheeks, kids only on their right.

-No one drinks real coffee. Its a power like making hot chocolate. They drink 15 cups a day, but its the mix. I went looking for a steriotypical cafe today in Centreville Flers and there was nothing to be had. Bummer.

-Everything is little, cars, meals, houses espeically. The house I"m staying in some of the stairways are just as wide as my shoulders. The cars are smaller than a bike length and height ways.

-French keyboards are annoying.

These are some other things I have noticed and I'll keep more coming. Its bizzare here, very bizzare. Its much more difficult than what I imagined. The language is of course, but just that everything is slightly differant from Canada. I'm not complaining, its just difficult to get use to. My french is comming along quickly actually. It sounds terrible but at least I can get by now.

With that I'm off to bed, more pictures tomorrow.