Time to blend in a little

With a Kermisse finish rate of just one in three I was praying for significantly better fortunes for my second week on the bike here in Belgium.  The week started in a decidedly ‘dodgy’ manner with a meeting with my new team ‘Lotto Olympia Tienen’.  Up until Tuesday night I had only ever exchanged emails with the manager and a rushed phone call between myself and the club president in a mixture of phrasebook Flemish and broken English did little to put me at ease.  I arranged a meeting down In Tienen at an abandoned military airfield after dark and in what sounds like a scene from crime watch.  I was due to meet the boss in the car park.  After a rather apprehensive afternoon filled with my housemates dividing up my possessions after my inevitable murder, I made my way down to Tienen.  I was pleasantly surprised when I arrived to find a good sized group riding in formation around the airfield and plenty of parents on hand clutching flasks as their children made their way back to the car park.  I asked around with my solitary phrase for the team manager.  I waited in a café just off the airfield nursing my cup of coffee and pretending to read my Flemish phrase book, not to actually learn anything, more to deter people from approaching me and quizzing me for a minute or two as I shrugged and smiled like the village mute.  Finally after an hour the Manager arrived and arranged to take me to his house to sort out the clothing.  A quick drive later and we entered his kitchen, there; perched on the table he had his air rifle…so much for putting me at ease! But never the less he was most helpful, kitting me out in Lotto’s vibrant red, retro black and high visibility yellow.  We parted with a handshake and another appalling moment of my poor Flemish as I wished him good morning…oh dear.

I have been here two weeks now and I am ashamed to say my Flemish is coming on like a hard kermisse…a tough start full of a lack of understanding followed by abandoning shortly afterwards.  Action was needed, or more importantly, Dutch lessons.  My first rest day came around and I decided to do something about my poor Flemish whilst combining it with one of my favourite past times…Television!  My new Dutch teacher is a 30 odd year old man, dressed mainly as a lion or a plant as he teaches me and thousands of other Dutch children aged between two and Five our alphabet and numbers 1-20 every morning.  Kids T.V is a decent way to learn actually, sure I feel abit silly but no more so than asking around half way through a race what the commentator called out.  I get to practice these few phrases occasionally on the local baker or shop assistant. 

Onto the racing then and I had a point to prove after 2 straight DNF’s.  Nieuwrode was Sundays venue for 116 kilometres of Kermisse action on a pancake flat course with a couple of tricky sections.  248 riders decided to make the most of the good weather and as the flag was dropped the bunch was in good spirits, largely due to the 16 degrees and sunny conditions.  My race started badly… Only 3 or 4 kilometres in I hit a pothole more like an uncovered manhole than a small crack in the road.  My handlebars turned down on themselves leaving me with 110km or so still to go and a position on the bike that resembled The Hunchback of Notre Dame.  I pootled around at the back sulking for several laps before I realised that abandoning simply was not an option when the course was this easy and the weather this nice.  I hung around the middle of the bunch, only once poking my head of the front of the peloton before we came round for the last lap.  I kept up the front and managed to avoid a couple of you’ve been framed crashes in the final kilometre and eventually I rolled over 36^th from 165 finishers…tantalisingly close to the prizes but a noted step in the right direction.     

The good, the bad and the downright ugly

Well as the calendar turned to 29^th February  2012 it could only mean one thing, nope, not that a girl would propose to me but that it was time to return to Belgium.   A quick blast through to my new home in the Belgian town of Olen seemed to brush off the gloss of my eight month long dream to return to Belgium.  I was reminded of how bleak the countryside is, how regional the radio stations are and by the grey clouds hanging over Zeebrugge, how I shouldn’t get the shorts out just yet!

First up was a visit to my new house and I must say it’s a cracking place, plenty of room, digital T.V and Internet, enough space for all our bikes… the foundations are in place for a good year.  Having had just the one full day to settle in, Saturday was to be my first race of the year.   Molenbeek-Wersbeek, a kermisse south of my area and for many a nice season opener.  We arrived a full hour before the start and thank god we did, the line for ‘inschriving’ or ‘signing on’ to us brits snaked round the block.  Having stood for over an hour in the line, watching riders meander back with numbers going into the Hundreds, we finally got to the desk and I was given number 204.  The line continued on a good half an hour after me until finally 283 other riders had paid their entry fee.  On this note I should give a quick mention to the world of kermisse racing which has been ravaged by the recession seeing entry fees for races go up a whopping 66%...from 3 euros a race to 5 euros.  Still in comparison to British races which require you to pay anywhere between £15 and £30 I guess Belgium will continue to be cheap as frites. 

Onto the race then, the course featured nice wide roads, a couple of 90 degree bends and a fairly easy climb which meant at least half of the course was downhill.  I was mainly after a good reintroduction to racing rather than a 120 kilometre break and with such a large bunch, sitting near the front was easy enough.  I avoided a couple of late crashes and kept  high enough up the bunch to roll over the line around 50^th after the days 75 mile jaunt.  I was pleased to finish so comfortably if not a tad disappointed in myself for not really taking as many risks as I should have done had I been riding for the win. 

Sunday… and now we get to the bad.  It’s never nice packing the car under a constant patter of raindrops.  Even worse when you emerge from the car at the start of the race and find the road nicely slick with water, diesel and a horrible coating of Belgian grit.  The race was a simple enough affair, 120km around a 5 kilometre circuit, a couple of tight bends and perhaps 160 riders.  I started well enough, finding the rhythm from the day before and I settled in for a long slug in the rain.  Sadly my race was cut short when after just 8 laps my front tire decided it was time for an early shower and gave up the ghost leaving me to nurse a puncture back to the car.  Kermisse races don’t have any follow on service vehicles so once your out the back it’s time to get back to the car.  If I was to search for a positive I would say that I was pretty comfortable in the peloton and I would likely have finished the race had lady luck favoured me more… but having a three hour race cut short by a puncture wasn’t the worst ending in the world!

And finally we get to the ugly duckling, the race nobody will ever love.  Wednesday was to be a 120km kermisse in the west Flandrien town of Gooik.  I raced there last year and knew from experience that the attritional course would provide a worthy winner.  As I rolled down to the start I was astounded at the varying levels of clothing the peloton had on them, from guys in shorts and Jerseys to guys in full blown windtex’s, leg warmers, buffs and rain capes.  I went for a mid range look with winter gloves, knee warmers and a thin top.  It became apparent on lap one when the heavens opened that perhaps I had got the dress code right.  The mercury touched only 3 degrees and by lap two rain was lashing the bunch as the wind whipped in across the open fields on every side of the course.  As the 11 lap race came round each time a steady stream of riders were making their way into their cars.  At first it was the guys in shorts, then the guys in leg warmers who pulled out until with around half the race gone the field had shrunk from 108 to around 50.  I had a brief bid for freedom on lap 3, dragging a couple of average riders with me over the courses main climb before being reeled in by the diminishing peloton a few kilometres later.  Each lap the main stretches of the course saw the strong riders split the race into echelons.  I finally met my demise with five laps to go when, unable to feel my hands and to be more honest, with legs that felt they were going to burst I was detached from the back of the echelons and left to limp into the cars.  The kermisse had a deserving winner as only 11 hardy souls finished, these were the guys who I was laughing at on the start line, who I thought were wimps for wearing too much clothing…how wrong I was.   There is precious little to take away from a horrendous race like Gooik, but finishing a race shivering and soaked to the skin does force you to learn how to take care of yourself.  You learn quickly how to strip down to your birthday suit and part with your dignity as you throw on every item of clothing you can find before heading off to find a hot drink. 

In a slightly lighter look at international failures my shopping experience this morning highlighted our inability to read Flemish when we picked up two cartons of apparently full fat fresh milk.  Upon reaching home my roommate Rob poured himself a glass and promptly spat the contents down the sink.  A bit of googling the label revealed that what we had in fact bought was called buttermilk.  Sure it sounds nice but in reality it is simply the waste product of the process of making milk into butter.  Still at least we only bought a couple of cartons as opposed to stocking up!         

No Train, No Pain, No gain

Ah training, as athletes this is where it all started.  Nobodies first ever bike ride was a race.  Whether it’s a leisurely spin on the canal on a warm evening, a dull day on a gym bike staring out at the rain or a 100 mile epic with your mates, training is where it all begins.  I once read a quote by Peter Van Petegem that said no one ever got lucky at Flanders and Roubaix.  This is my basic principal, the goals may be slightly scaled down for me but the hard truth is right there.   As I look out at snow laden fields and the slivers of tarmac that criss cross the dales like a chess board, it’s all too easy to sit behind a window, sup your hot chocolate and look at equipment that claims to make you faster.  And this is where Van Petegem comes in.  For six weeks now I have been back in the endless routine of getting up, fueling up on porridge and heading out into the cold, with nothing more than my pockets crammed with homemade flapjack and an ipod full of motivational beats for company.  I train largely alone; weekdays are where the real difference is made for me.  My standard training consists of a couple of back to back days of long rides, on average 4 hours long, followed by a shorter harder day for speed, then back to the monotony of a couple of long rides again with either a rest day or a spin on the rollers to let the body recover.  I am sticking to a set plan every week of around 20 hours riding and a strict café budget of 5 pounds so as to not get lulled into easier rides.  

Training days are rarely the same.  There are days when you go out and feel as though the wind is on your back the whole way round, when the pedals turn effortlessly in a smooth action and where you head thinks… faster and the body delivers.  If you manage a couple of these a week then the form is coming along nicely.  Then there are the days when you curse every little rise in the road, when the slightest gust from a passing car is resented for the next hour and when no matter what track your listening to it just doesn’t ‘do it’ for you.  These happen a couple of days a week as well but if every day was a good day then you would never have a good day…something to think about.   In between my outings into the dales there is normally at least 1 day a week on the rollers.  Rollers are an example of brilliantly simple engineering, 3 rolling pins and an elastic band, so simple and yet so painful! I remember my first experience of rollers, I hopped on a pair before a prologue at the junior tour of wales and within 3 seconds I was on my backside with half the car park staring at me wishing they’d had a video camera and an envelope for you’ve been framed.  Since then I have come on a lot.  The rollers teach you to be smooth, efficient and allow you to do all this without leaving the house.  So once a week I don the summer kit, set the bike up in the garage and ride for an hour with nothing more interesting to look at than the pointing on the garage wall and the clock as it creeps by.  An hour is perfect, any shorter and you don’t get the race rhythm in your legs, any longer and your prostate goes to sleep for a couple of days.  The controlled environment is the perfect place to measure efforts without being interrupted by a poorly timed railway crossing or an overly keen motorist.  So there you have it, training, come March and the training will be put to the test as all eyes will be on who rode through 3 chains in winter, who trained abroad, who put the hours in down the gym and who partied a little too hard over winter. 

I should give a brief mention to this year’s team which I am pleased to announce as ‘Lotto Olympia Tienen’.  I know little of them so far but I will be giving the new bike it’s first competitive outing on 4^th March so stay tuned for my first race report with the new bunch of lads.     

Happy New Year

Well it’s been several months now since my last literary venture into the world of cycle racing.  So before I get into the nitty gritty of my plans and ambitions for this year, there is abit of housekeeping to be done.  2012 seems to have nearly matched last season for drama already, I seem to have experienced more highs and lows in just a few short days than even George Michael.  First came the excellent news from the Dave Rayner Fund that they would once again be helping me this year financially.  This kind of Funding is a great relief to me and around 15-20 other promising riders nationally, helping to Pay for accommodation and food whilst I live abroad.  The work that the fund does in order to raise such huge amounts of Money, all with the aim of helping young riders turn professional outside the rigours of British cycling cannot be underestimated.  I even played a small part in fund raising myself by helping in the auction of a couple of signed Jerseys at the annual Dave Rayner Dinner.  So there we go, the euphoric high in knowing that I had the funds to go abroad.

The 6^th January 2012 was a memorable day for me for a couple of very different reasons.  Firstly it was my final day of paid, full-time employment down at the Job centre.  My colleagues were as always very generous and wished me the best for the remainder of the year.  In many ways I will miss the occasional moment of office banter but I will be glad to see the back of bureaucracy and the daily grind of hearing my alarm clock go off at an ungodly hour.  So as I began to fit the pieces of the puzzle together and build my life as a full time athlete I received frankly the worst news I’d had in a long time.  I got home the very day I’d finished work to find my trusty steed of a bike had been stolen as I slept.  I had never had anything stolen before, certainly nothing so close to my heart.  My favourite bike, My specialized sl had been stolen along with a couple of sets of racing wheels and a nice pair of Oakley Sunglasses.  For a short while I reminisced about all the times I had relied on that bike to get me home on a long training ride, The way the bike had been like a brother to me as I spent most of my racing life on that frame and spent hundreds of man hours lovingly cleaning it and many more hours riding it from the dales of Yorkshire to the rolling roads of Northern France and right through to the Bergs of Belgium.  But no doubt the bike is now being flogged off the back of a rag and bone wagon by a Junkie for a fraction of its value.   I will continue to peruse ebay every few nights in the vain hope that I will be re-united with my favourite bike.

I’m a philosophical man though, the glass for me is half full.  With one hand my training bike has been taken, and fortunately with the other hand I built a splendid race bike just 2 weeks prior to the Burglary.  The new machine is lighter, faster (or so I’m told, although I’m yet to reap the benefits) and…white.  I have been forced to take the new bike out onto Yorkshires dirty lanes, clocking up miles, constantly tinkering with the position of everything like Jerpeto to Pinocchio in the hope that this bike will feel like my old trust worthy steed.  So when will the pedals be turned in anger you ask?  The cycling season is rapidly approaching.  I Hope to be able to announce my team here within a couple of weeks once pen has been put to paper (or at least email sent to manager).  My aim is to be in Belgium by the start of March with renewed ambitions, a better build up and no doubt many anecdotes of my attempt at international relations!

I wish you all a happy new year and every prosperity.       

Autumn is upon us

As the off season approaches and the evenings draw in to what seems like an approaching winter, it is ultimately time for reflection.  For some riders the season has been a fruitful few months to be celebrated with a few beers, for others the season has been one to forget.  It is easy to do the latter, to think of Belgium as an experience not to be dabbled in again, but a loss doesn’t become a defeat until you refuse to learn from it.  I had a fantastic time, met some great people and now have quite a few stories to tell the grandkids in years to come.  But if I look at it from a purely sporting point of view I cannot consider it an overwhelming success.   I trained a lot, that cannot be questioned but whether it was the right sort of training… I suspect not.  I clocked up more kilometres in those four months then I did in my entire second year as a Junior, but as a crazed Belgian man told me ‘you must have pain in training to not have as much pain in racing’, perhaps some of that is lost in translation but the principal was that for the future a more focused and harder training programme, as opposed to just mileage is needed to ultimately succeed.  So that is my brief if slightly harsh summation of this season.

The off season is never quite the rest period you think it’s going to be, for the very pinnacle of the sport they have their contracts sorted and they can watch the leaves turn brown without having to be constantly checking emails, hopeful that next years team has just come knocking.  For me this is the time of year to sit down, update the palmares and make a list of which teams I hope will offer me a place for next year.  I actually like this part of the year, sometimes I think I should be a writer as opposed to a racer, but journalist stuff can wait where as racing is a young man’s game.  Being a true Brit, I naturally under sell myself, this seems to be a British disease where we are so modest that every achievement was down to good luck or any other reason rather than the fact that we were just great on the day.  Once the C.V is typed it’s time to send it off to half the Pelotons management and hope something decent comes back.  Give it a couple of days and the responses come back, the uninterested teams tell you that you can ride for their team, all you have to do is buy your own kit, make your own way to races and basically act as a free advertising board for them.  The interested teams offer more, free kit, entry fees and if you’re lucky, a bike.  My thanks for the translation of my C.V go entirely to Google translate, a truly wonderful and free service. 

Every year I watch the road season end, mostly I’m mentally worn out from juggling work and late season racing, this year has been slightly different though, I’ve done 38 races but haven’t raced for a month now so my batteries are better charged than previous years.  I get the annual irritation to do cyclo cross, it’s like an itch that I can’t get rid of.  The idea of ‘cross’ is better than the actual racing.  I watch the likes of Sven Nys make it look like poetry on the bike with more bikes than my entire garage at his disposal.  Once I don the knobbly tires it is more like Anne Widdicombes performance of Swan Lake, but like I say the idea of this relights the competitive fires and with Autumn upon us I am hoping to dust off the old bikes and have a bit of a go.  Just a quick congratulations to a couple of guys I used to race with, Luke Rowe and Andrew Fenn who have both just been announced as fully fledged proffesionals in the highest tier, well done lads!     

Hopefully if things go to plan I will start with a couple of cyclo cross races later this month so check back later this month for the thrills…but probably more spills of my first cyclo cross appearance in 4 years!          

Back to life, back to reality

The last month has been a major life adjustment.  Like George Michael sang, it really has been back to life…back to reality, right, enough of the clichés and on with the story.  Fitting back into the endless routine of 6am starts and late afternoon finishes down at the office is harder than any 5 hour day on the bike.  The bonus of it all is that with a bit of luck you get paid at the end of the month whereas with the labour of love that is cycling, all you end up with is a token few euro’s at the end of the week.  There is a downside to life in an office full of generous people who all like to celebrate good news by bringing in a cake or two.  I must have gorged my way through half a bakeries worth of cream buns by now…none of which were good for my cycling!  I am trying to cut out this most unathletic problem by listening to the wise words of my sister “nothing tastes as good as winning”… this may take some time folks!

I’ve had a crack at three races since my last blog entry.  I’l start from the top then.  Thursday 16^th June was to be a relatively straightforward race over in Preston, Lancashire.  The race was largely me and a couple of other lads versus a strong wheelbase team who seemed determined to prove their strength in the smallest of mid-week criteriums.   I was aggressive as always but my early gamble of fine weather proved to be my undoing.  I had gone into the race on tyres suited to dry courses and with a fierce downpour just 20 minutes from the finish I was left to complete the course as if I was riding a 50p coin.  I came home 12^th, soaked to the skin and in need of a hot chocolate rather than a protein shake.   If there was a lesson to be learned it would be…don’t wear white socks if there is a cloud in the sky and perhaps a better warm-up than riding 50 yards from the car to the start line. 

Next up was the big one, my personal favourite race of the year, Otley town centre Criterium.  I have had a love of this beautiful race ever since I rode the under 16 race as a child.  The way the race gets progressively harder, the way the hill seems to slap you in the face with a seemingly briefer lull each lap of the race.  I think part of it’s charm is the fine balance between bunch sprint and break away, this always reminds me of the famous scene of the lion chasing the gazelle, the pure power of the lion seems the bookies favourite every time  but the finesse of the gazelle always seems to hold onto the slimmest of odds.  I started the race with some concerns over my fitness but with some much appreciated local support and about a weeks’ worth of caffeine I got stuck in.  With a couple of laps to go a pile up on the hardest part of the course cost me a decent position in the speeding peloton but this is preferable to going down in a crash anyday.  The finale of the race played out like a dream for the crowds of 4,000 or so.  The peleton chased hard but the supreme effort of the riders in the break ment the race was decided by just 6 riders, the local hero Scott Thwaites taking a very popular win and no doubt casting his name in Yorkshire cycling legend.  I crossed the line mid bunch, 37^th place was not particularly worth a big mention but I always enjoy riding this supremely well organised event in front of a distinctly partisan crowd. 

Just 4 days after Otley, the National championships were upon me.  I had entered many weeks earlier when my race programme had been of a decidedly harder nature than the criteriums I was turning up to back in England.  The course was set to be run over 122 miles of rolling Newcastle countryside.  I had previously ridden well so far north so my expectations were that I could finish the course on what turned out to be a glorious day.  I had significantly underestimated the power of a certain Sky pro cycling team however.  The race started ridiculously slow for the first 10 miles, the bunch was clearly waiting for a brave rider to light the touch paper and attempt to crack sky’s stranglehold on the race.  The race kicked off literally with a bang…Mark Cavendish’s rear tire blew out on the descent towards the hardest hill of the day.  For the sky riders this was there alarm to clock on and begin the days work.  They put 6 guys on the front on the run into the Ryals, with it’s slopes of 33% I was already hurting by the time I reached the bottom .  I crawled up over the top clinging to the rear of the bunch and encouraged by a couple of over enthusiastic fans giving me a welcomed push.  As the peleton reformed over the ensuing miles the sky car overtook the peloton, delivering a hammer blow to the chasing teams.  Sky had put 6 riders in a lead break of 12… the race was as good as over.  I suffered for a further 2 hours on two more ascents of the Ryals, the pain over this point of the course was only briefly interrupted by the moron who decided to blast his airhorn in my ears going over the top.  I was briefly tailed off on the last ascent, My attempts at regaining the Peloton were going well, with Roger Hammond using his vast power and me encouraging him we were in the convoy and in sight of the bunch.  Just a couple of miles short of the finishing laps I had a decidedly unpleasant moment when what I’m guessing was a bee…yes a bumble bee flew into my mouth and stung me right inside my mouth…before being promptly swallowed.  This knocked me for six, suddenly I was struggling to take in full breaths and I immediately decided to knock the hard effort on the head.  I wheeled my way round to the finish disappointed but still shocked at the way in which I left the race.  The race was won in truly crushing fashion by Bradley Wiggins.  It will be good to see the national champions jersey contesting the worlds biggest race next week at the Tour de France.  I will always enjoy the idea of riding with the worlds best riders much more than I enjoy actually riding with them…the last bit hurts…a lot!       

Back in Blighty

I have now been back in England for a week or so.  The first thing that struck me is just how hard riding a bike in Yorkshire really is.  For a start there are the comparatively epic hills to contend with and if I cast my mind back I don’t recall such breezy conditions for this time of year before.  I soon settled in to a routine of midweek chain gangs and weekend café racing, both of which were something I was beginning to miss back in Belgium.  My first day back in full time employment soon came around and for what felt like the first time in months my alarm clock went off to tell me it was time to earn a crust again.  I won’t lie, my first week has been a shock to the system but it’s nice to use cycling as a way of stress relief and fun as opposed to just using the bike as a tool to do a job.  On Wednesday evening I felt the need to race again so with a quick phone call to my friend Rob we had arranged to race at the relatively local Preston arena course in Lancashire the following evening.  It felt strange to have done a full day’s work and still to race in an evening but this is what the rest of the season has in stall for me.  The race was to be just over an hour held in failing light with a gentle breeze and decidedly cool temperatures.  I had a crack off the start line by myself and lasted just a couple of laps out in front.  This was not a serious attack but more of a safe way to warm up by myself and familiarise myself with the course at race speed.  Having been brought back into the bunch I followed a promising little move after half an hour, I did my share of the pace setting but our trio were given a tight leash and were brought back after only 3-4 kilometres out in front.  I sat back sensing a bunch sprint and began to prepare myself for the mental stress of picking my way through the peloton for a last lap effort.  I raced the last lap perfectly following some good wheels, I entered the last corner slightly too fast in my eagerness to go for victory, this was to be my undoing as I just feathered the breaks which ultimately cost me the win.  I crossed the line 4^th, within a bike length of the win but still pretty pleased.  It had been a relatively successful outing for me and Rob who took 5^th in the sprint.  The level was not that of a Belgian race but there were still hard points and some tough racing done that night.  Finally I have had a chance to let the dust settle on my Belgian experience.  On this note I feel as though I should extend my thanks and gratitude to everyone who helped me, although I seemed bitter towards my team manager in my last blog I feel I should give some thanks to him for allowing us to use his accommodation and allowing us the chance to race with a great team.  They truly were some of the best moments of my life and something I will no doubt recall for many years to come.