Finding a Rhythm

So the last little while has had the theme of settling in and finding my rhythm. A pattern or routine to adopt to optimise my training and avoid excessive boredom when I don’t have any more training to do. yes, there are things that need to be done, but most are small and take a very short amount of time. I am also getting used to more and more of the routes around here. That is leading me to find more and they all tend to go uphill. That is normally a really good thing, but it is hard to do multiple days of climbng for hours without getting a little tired. So, the Bord de Mer (road along the Sea) looks increasingly appealing for its lack of hills. Either way, I am a lot further ahead in my development than I was later on last year. Through all of this, I am starting to feel at home not only in Plascassier, but with the French culture itself. When I came here last year, there was a bit of a culture shock with almost everything, be it large or small. There was the language barrier, eating differences, the sports on TV were different, and pretty much everything felt foriegn. This year has been different. I got here and nothing suprised me. I knew what to expect and I had also taken a French course at University this past fall, so I was better able to communicate. Now I feel adapted and French culture seems to grow in me as well.

Outside of settling into the lifestyle, I have done some magnificent rides. There is one up to Mons on a single lane road carved into the side of a cliff. Another going up through St. Vallier de Thiey to Caussols saw me pass the snowline. It is kind of odd for me to compare these climbs to the famous ones of the Tour de France, because those no longer look too bad. Yes, they are still a bit longer and steeper than what I am riding here, but I am getting so used to the mountains here that in a race, I would feel great climbing for an extended amount of time. On a side note, yesterday I saw three professional riders out on training rides. Of the first two who were riding together, one was from Ag2r and the other from Silence-Lotto. After, riding alone was a rider from Aqua & Sapone. This is a pretty good area to ride right now compared to other parts of Europe.

Peymeinade pre-ride, kind of

I usually don’t write too much about training, because it is just that and there is not usually much of a story. Things here are new and quite different and a lot of the time there is drama and a little excitement to it. So, Saturday I woke up and got ready for my ride. The night before Yanick had asked how many hours of training I had to do and I told him three and a half. He then called around frantically and put together a training ride to pre-ride an early season race based in Peymeinade. So, I am ready to ride at ten when most of the Sprinter Club starts rolling up to the house. We wait and then finally head off for our ride while Yanick goes to search for a lost rider. We roll through Peymeinade and then wait, but no sign of Yanick, so we keep going. The road we are on leads to Draguignan and is quite undulating in the hills of the Var. I commented last year on an racer, Olivier Vors, who served as my main competition in a few races. He now rides for the Sprinter Club, but he still likes to attack as much as possible and make it hurt on the climbs. Attacks start on one of the earlier climbs and I figured this was a good time to do an interval that was in the training. So I put in a big effort and pull back a few escapees quickly. I have just reached my optimal heart rate zone and then Olivier is off. Some others follow slowy and I hop on as well. Soon, however, I have gone a ways out of my zone and the time for my interval is done. The problem is that the road continues up. I allow myself to get dropped and float back to a slow group to recover. After the descent, we hear the turkey horn of Yanick’s car and the new rider, Fabian is out on the bike with us. The ride continued to escalate in pace and I realised my intervals would come whether I wanted them or not. I settled into the pace and then on the next really substantial climb I went with Vors. I rode with him, ahead of him and at one point put him under pressure. But my heart rate escalatd again and I had to shut it down near the top, not losing to much distance. We made it to Draguignan and waited to regroup. Once Yanick arrived behind everyone, he pulled out a large quantity of ride food and such and loaded everyone up with it. It was a good thing too, because when we left to continue on the course, we got lost and Yanick took the right route. Apparently Olivier, who was the only one to have previously done this race, didn’t remember the correct turn because it was raining when he did the race. So we turned around and went back up through Draguignan towards Peymeinade. We couldn’t go too fast because there were some younger and less experienced riders with us who had nothing left in their legs. Without Yanick there to follow them, we had to make sure they got back. Nonetheless, I was never told any of this and stayed up near the front where I rode confused until Jean-Micheal let me know what was happening. As we got close to Fayence, we saw Yanick go flying by in the opposite direction. So we re-grouped a little and then continued on. Soon, Jean-Mi had picked up the pace a bit and I went with him. One of the other stronger guys had a flat and was a ways back, so we just went ahead and picked up the pace again. We made pretty good time, just 2 of us and rode decent pace back to Plascassier. I found out Jean-Mi was 2 hours late to see his girlfriend and that she was waiting, so I guess that is why we didn’t wait for the others.

The ride ended up being 5 hours, an hour and a half more than I was supposed to do, and we did 150 km. It was not easy riding either. At one point it was a strung out death march up a 6 km climb at 30+ km/h. So I was a little tired returning to Plascassier and wanted to just sit and do nothing. Later in the evening though, we went to see Loic’s basketball game. He is Yanick’s son who is around 23-ish and plays on a lower league professional team. It was entertaining, but I was tired. I came back and slept my first solid night’s sleep since I got here.

Climbs. Everywhere.

Well, the end of the week and the sun has been out. I found out some of the first races I will do may include some professional teams, so I asked my coach Andy if I could have a few more hours on the bike. With more hours I can also do routes that I have never seen before and it keeps things fresh around here. So, Thursday I went out to do 4 hours and found myself riding new territory. The thing about the roads here is that none of them are flat. That is not just talk either. I can not do a single ride without experiencing more than a few climbs. This ride on Thursday turned into a day of non-stop climbing then, because of that truth about the South of France. I decided to ride towards Tanneron again, but from a different approach. I didn’t plan on riding the Col again, but there is a Lake near there that I wanted to see. The road took me up towards Tanneron, and then through Marjoris as I inadvertently did part of the Paris-Nice course backwards. After some substantial descending I found the lake and then tried to figure out where I should go next to fill out the time. A sign providing direction towards Frejus helped and soon I was climbing and decending through the Var towards the sea. I came upon a huge red-rocked descent with a view of the bay that Frejus sits in and it was beautiful. It was then that I realised I should be trying to get back so I don’t spend too much time on my bike. I turned to take the shortest route back, towards Mandelieu (pretty much Cannes) and the road started to kick up. I proceeded to climb over the l’Estéral, an 8 or 9 km climb. At the top of the l’Estéral, a rider rode beside me in a bright pink, but obviously his cycling team, kit. He asked if he could ride with me and so we chatted for a bit, him speaking mostly English to me and me trying to speak mostly French to him. It turns out the guy is 23 and had raced for a bunch of DN1 teams over the past years. He would be racing the Coupe de France Look des Clubs series as would I, so he is also a 1st category racer. Talking more with the guy, Wilfred, he had tons of information. He has a bunch of friends who are now professional and he was able to offer me some very useful knowledge. We rode back towards Plascassier and he left to continue his six and a half hour ride. When I got home I felt the effects of doing my first longer ride of the season, especially one filled with lots of difficult climbing. When I got off my bike I could hardly walk. I had bonked (used up all my glucose/glycogen stores) pretty bad and I was lucky it hit me within 3 km of the house. Resting would be easy after. Staying awake until dinner would not be and wasn’t.

Back to France

Well, Thursday I left Edmonton and Friday at about 1:00 PM I arrived in Nice. The flight went from Edmonton – Montreal – Paris – Nice. It was a long flight and I was happy to land, but all I wanted to do was sleep, and once again none of my luggage arrived. We drove to Yanick’s after I talked to people from Air France and I had a bit of a nap despite wishing to stay awake. That affected my sleep that night and I was up for a few hours. When I slept again, I did not wake up until almost noon, something very rare for me. Once I was awake, we got things together pretty quickly to go out for a training ride. It was raining and I had to borrow everything except shoes, pedals and helmet, but it was a pretty fun ride. I was quite cold without my selection of cycling clothes, but the route was very interesting and the rain stopped after riding for about 45 minutes. The rest of the ride was pleasant with 3 other younger riders. Romain ‘petit-bras’ was one as was Jooris. Romain will also be riding for Le Creusot this season, but with their Category 2 team. Jooris is a 14 year old cyclist from the Alsace region who is spending the year living at Yanick’s place and racing for the Sprinter Club de Nice. This guy is nice and a great cyclist for his age. He can be a little trigger happy when it comes to efforts on the bike, but that will change with experience.

Anyways, Sunday’s ride was a full team outing in Nice where the sun shone and hundreds of cyclists came out to do their respective rides. It was cool to see when we got there that so many cycling teams and clubs with riders of all ages were organizing for or were already on their own group rides. A bunch of Sprinter Club guys gathered around Yanick’s team car, he made sure I had enough clothes on, as I still awaited one bag, and we went off. Now, the strange thing that happened here was that I spent a month living with Yanick last year and we went on a ride completely different than I had ever done before. There were lots of short steep climbs and it seemed everyone wanted to attack for some reason. Always persistent and panting like a dog was Joori. Later in the ride after doing a circuit back through Nice, we started riding back up to Yanick’s house in Plascassier. Again, I was taken on a new route up another cool climb. This time there was only 3 of us left going towards Plascassier. There was Joori, Jean-Micheal (whom I know quite well from last year) and myself. Up the climb, we were not riding overly hard, but Joori still could not keep up. He paid a little at the end of the ride for all thoses early attacks. But, regardless, that kid is strong. As we got back, I relaxed and soon my last bag arrived. It felt wonderful wearing my own clothes again.

Yesterday was a rest day and I pretty much spent it lying on the bed reading and watching a movie. Today however, I got to go out and do a 2 hour ride, so I was excited to explore the area. I knew a bit about where I wanted to go. Watching my Paris-Nice DVD while training indoors gave me a good idea of some rather rough terrain to abuse myself with. In the race, they climb the premier categorie climb of the Col du Tanneron en route to a stage finish in Cannes. I wanted to find this. So I rode in the direction I thought it might be. I went down into Pégomas which was a pretty cool town itself and then turned towards higher ground again. I then rode through Auribeau-sur-Siagne and found some signs pointing me towards Tanneron. When I found the climb, I was thrilled. It was narrow and steep and sent on for a long time. I rode up to a junction with an amazing view and then realised there were probably 5 ways to climb up to Tanneron and the way I went was not the same as Paris-Nice. I’ll have to do it the reverse way on a longer ride. I actually will be doing an early season race with my new team that finishes in Tanneron, so I will try and scout out that possible route.

There is not much going on here other than riding, eating and relaxing. It seems a bit foreign with nothing to do, but that is not really a bad thing.

On the Horizon

Well, University for me is done until mid-September next year. Christmas has also come and gone along with New Years. That leaves only one defining focal point on the horizon to await in anticipation. What I am talking about is of course my trip to France. In one week I will leave for Nice again. After a little over a month there, I do a few races and a training camp in the Frejus area with my new team, Le Creusot Cyclisme, and then return to Le Creusot with them. Preparation for this has been a bit scattered, but the reality of it is beginning to sink in. I leave for nine months to race as close to professional as one can get. I looked into the meaning of the “DN1″ category of which I am now part of and it excites me. The category was formerly espoir as per the UCI category. The French cycling body changed this however to encompass some older riders as well and exclude many espoirs. The category in essence is one developed for riders primarily 19-22 with the goal of turning professional by the end of that time. The older riders still may have the ambition to race at a higher level, but many are kept on because of their experience. For example, one of my teammates, Jean-Christophe Peraud is 31. He possesses, however, a vast amount of skill and knowledge. He is one of the best mountain bikers in Europe, with World Cup and European championship podiums. He will also represent France in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. The team hopes he will pass on his knowledge to the younger riders of the team (which includes me; I am the youngest rider on the team).

 Overall, I am quite excited to find myself in a new and unique experience which will expose me to a level of the sport that will challenge, develop and also provide opportunities for me.