a couple days

It has been quiet week for me. I had a bit of fatigue at the end of the races and a few weeks of training. Whether it was from the training, the weather, or an underlying sickness, if your tired, your tired.

So with that I havent had any killer days this week. A few 2h+ rides, some alone, some with the boys and a lot of time at the coffee shop. The coffee shop is more of a bar that serves coffee. Its ok...I get what Im looking for. Stu and I had a pretty good date there last week.

We race again this weekend. A DN1,2 race Im told so its gonna be a douzy. Im told its a difficult race, but I dont know what to expect..it could be a race around the parkinglot and I wouldnt know until I arrived there. Suit up and go with the flow.

Ive noticed that Crits and Time Trials dont seem to exsist in France....Their logic seems to be "why would you race 50km Crit when you can race 180km at crit pace, then have a few 5km loops around the town? "

I ordered some books from amazon.co.uk and thank god they came in last week. Other than being addicted to the computer, the coffee shop and the odd ride, my filller for the day has been these books.

Cooked

Whoo, it was difficult weekend pour moi dans le velo. I knew going into this weekend that I was racing twice. No big deal I thought, espeically when the first race was only 80km. I thought that 80km was odd, but thats what I was told. Saturday rolls around and I find out the morning of, that the race isnt 80km, but 170km.

Franck who told me about the race but he ment he was only going to stay in the race for 80km. So I find out in the morning that the race is a DN1/2/Pro race. This means its just below ProTour here in France. With a couple of French Pro teams thrown in there too, I knew I was getting into the real deal.

Well talk about a hard race. Holy Crow. I only lasted about 80km, and rolled into town for an even 100km on the day but the race was insane. It was probably up there with the hardest races Ive ever done. You are always working and fighting for pack position. Whether your going up or down or on the flats your usually working. Pack position is crucial and you have to fight for it. It had 3 laps of a 50km long course, which was really cool followed by a small crit. We raced though a lot of small towns which threw a lot of road furniture at you, and road dividers just popped out of no where.

I was pretty much terrified for most of the race. To be in a pack of 200ish guys going like 80km/h with people elbowing you fighting for position....the only way to destribe it was controlled sketchy-ness.

There was a huge crash mid-race while we were going about 65km/h. I didnt look back as I knew I would see death for sure. The race was Neutrelized and we re-grouped to get things under control again.

Finally at the 80km mark there was a KOM and with a bunch of attacks from the pack I just blew...knowing I had to race tomorrow, I was ok with that. Its good to see the level of where you have to get to though! I doubt there is a harder race in Canada....maybe Nationals some years or Beauce.

The next day we had a interclub/DN2 race. It was only a 100km but my legs were fried. We still had a good 150 riders but the race was very un-eventful for me. The break went away first km. I made it into the 2nd break a couple times but nothing came of it. My legs were cooked, so I sat in and finished 50th or something like that.

My team mate Ben won the friggin' race. What a guy! And young Stuart proved to surpriese everyone and took 3rd. Holy Crow.

Turns out I won 10 euro in a Sprint during the race that I have no idea I won. Problem is that I forgot to give my number back(standard piece of paper with a number on it you pin on your jersey) which turns out is a big deal in Europe. In Canada or the US it wouldnt matter at all but apparently I HAVE to give it back. So to get my 10 euro prize I have to ride to this town 35km away and find some bike shop to give the number back. Its bizzare, but thats how it goes I guess.

I made the paper in the town where my team is based out of. I think mostly because its an oddity that there is a Canadian in their midst and for no other reason.

Im feeling pretty tired after the past couple weeks. Ive been doing a lot of intensity and that DN1 race being my 2nd real race of the year took it out of me. I think Im going to slip into some LSD and minimalize the intensity before running off to Ireland for a couple days. We'll see how that goes.

The Plain

(Again, things never seem to work as they should in France so the pics are first, stupid electronics)

Last weekend was the first real race of the year for me, and oh man did I feel it! The thing about racing is that it pushes your limits in all ways. You have to think sharp, you body has to be sharpe and you have to push yourself further than you noramlly would in training.

The worst was my hips. I went from doing mostly LSD and intervals to 3+ hours hard in the drops over terrible gravel-type roads. This is quite a change for the old body and when I got off the bike after the race my hips were sooooooo sore I could barely walk or bend over. The next day every little muscle in my hips were pretty much torn apart and I looked like and old man walking around.

Tuesday I did some climbing intervals. Its interesting using a power meter. I thought I would simply plug it in and go for a ride, not pay attention to the numbers and just send the file off to coach Luc. Honestly I hate electronics and prety much everything to do with them, but I notice I use the SRM as a tool now, and Tuesday I realized how valuable it was. I noticed when I did the intervals on the climb while standing the power was much better than last week, but while doing seated intervals the numbers were a bit down.

Makes sence as 2 days before was basically allllllllll seated power intervals. But its interesting to see real number that show that part of your riding is tired.

Yesterday I made the push for a 4 hours ride. Again, the wind has been brutal here and you find yourself either riding at 20km/h or 45km/h. Like last week the last half hour I bonked which I was expected, especially fighting the wind.

I felt a bit tired too, so Im taking today and tomorrow pretty easy. I have to race twice this weekend....the details of the race is something my understanding of french cannot grasp so Im going to go with the flow. Apparently there is hills in one of them?!

I have one more week of training before I go to Ireland/Paris where I wont have my bike. Im looking foreward to it. Luckily the trip co-incided with a rest week so Im trying to push myself a little bit more as to justify a week of the bike.

Hopefully a week with my darling will ease the mind. As the saying goes, when your head is good, usually your legs are too.

Race

(The Internet, my computer or blogger isnt working so your getting the pictures first! Stupid electronics!)

After last weeks terrible showing on my part, I entered the second race with a little more aggression knowing I had to fight a lot morein the pack. I couldnt let any gaps form during the start and in the eschelons otherwise in France it seems your done for. It was a smaller field this week with about 70 riders, and the course was differant, being mostly flat but with an UNREAL windy section.

We had a 9km loop, with one section looking exactly like Paris-Roubaix. It had the narrow narrow roads through fields(team cars werent allowed this race, only motorcycles) with super high banks on either side. There wasnt any cobbles but a mixture of dirt, gravel, and broken chipseal. It was so cool to look up while riding and see dust blowing around each rider in the pack.

The backstretch before the finish line was tough as we were only about 20km from the Atlantic, and you could see directly to it. There were no trees or buldings to block the wind and you could definitley feel it!

The race started very chaotic. Everyone was nervous and rammed into the narrow streets from the startline heading into the field section. After a couple laps it calmed down as some guys dropped off, the pack narrowed and everyone got a feel for the race.

A major break happened mid-race. I made a huge push to get into it where a teammate followed me into the wind. We made it, but once we hit the really windy section I simply couldt hold the echelon and dropped back again, cooked from the effort. My team-mate stayed in the break which was good. I though it would all come together in the end for a sprint but the break ended up staying away...hah.

It was so windy its hard to describe. At one point I looked up and saw a rider get blown over into the field about 5ft. If France Im leanring if you dont know how to ride in an escelon you learn really really quickly!

From that point when I dropped off back into the second pack, it was an un-eventful race really. The break stayed away and people continued to drop off. I had to fight each time to make sure I was in the front going into the windy section otherwise you were gonner.

I ended up netting 15th of 20 finishers, 4th in the pack sprint. With about 70 entrees, 15th is ok.

The Boys who were in the break did great. Guillaume netted 2nd on the day! Rodolphe a 7th and Ben a 6th(Im pretty sure ?).

Lessons learned yesterday. If you get blown off the road and find yourself riding in a ditch or on grass or dirt....its no need to panic.

On the Friday spin young Stu and I pedalled to the crazy old town of Domfront. Its about 20km away from Flers, and is right out of the middle ages. Its pretty insane this place. I think Domfront was orginally as castle with a giant wall surrounding it. Some of the wall and castle have colapsed or were destroyed in one of the 10 wars since then, but it was neat because you could look at the ruins and see the walkways built of stone and see inside the castle. The whole town is built on a hill, with a modern-ish town built on the indside. Its really facinating to see.

Stu and I also chatted IN ENGLISH. the first face to face conversation Ive had in a month, and manged to find a real coffee machine in a bar. And we all rejoice.

into thin air

The days have been passing here in France. The weather has been slowly getting better, but the wind has picked up it seems, which makes for effective training but hard annoying days on the bike.

I rode Monday which normally I wouldnt do, but since my race didnt go so well I hoped to ride off the extra calories I packed in for the race. The legs felt a bit sluggish, but otherwise the ride was fine. I did a good 3 hours on Wednesday that lead to a major bonk. As I mentioned the wind has been annoying and combine it with consistant climbs, it takes it out of a guy!

Ive always ridden alone when building my base, so its been good to get out alone and just explore the area. France is unreal. You can have the best ride of you life simply by exploring. Most roads dont have signs or names but there is usually a direction arrow to where you want to go along the way. The riding here is so nice I would go here as a cyclotourist when Im like 50, hopefully Im still riding then, but the palce is a cyclists dream.

I believe a solid bonk is good for you every now and then. It keeps the body in check and tells it when it has to adapt, and start taking in more energy. This is what I was hoping to accomplish, and Im starting to feel like my old self again.

I did intervals today. HARD ones, and now that I have gotten into the high end, I hope the body knows where it has to go to race effectively. It takes a few of those sessions before It gets the idea I think.

More observations about France.

France likes to burn things. Since most of the houses are about 500 years old a lot of them still use a fire place as a primary source of heat. If you look to the horizon on a chilly day in France you will see a haze of smoke covering the rolling terrain. It looks nice but it reaks havoc on this guys asthma. During the cold snap I was dredding the cold days.

So the French will pretty much burn anything. Paper, wood, plastic, plastic bottles, garbage...anything thats lieing around goes into the fire.....along with burning Canadian cyclists legs.

There also seems to Condom machines everywhere.

downer

Well that was terrible. I basically got kicked in the face. The worst is that the race started how I predicted it would. There were about 120 or something riders and it started off really fast. I didnt get a warmup and right off the gun I was fighting for position as we went though this small town. Its bizzare to have to dodge traffic furniture with 120 other guys fighting it out.

The packs here are pretty aggressive and the wind played a huge factor today. With stroms all accross Europe we had about 80km/h gusts, and when the pack rolled around a corner to start the first climb out of town I was blasted by the wind. It was horrible posioning on my part. I tried to hide as best I could but I bascially went back-words. The climb then started with me directly in the wind and that was it really. With no warm-up, a ton of attacks, and bad positioning I was popped out the back. I was kind of in shock to tell you the truth..everything happened so fast.

It was a really shitty way to start the year and was a lot like getting thrown into the cauldron on full boil. I am far from getting my racing legs, but the poor positioning is what killed me. Racing in France is not like racing in the US or Canada. You simply cant make mistakes like that, especially with the wind playing such a factor.