This weekend the Giro d'Italia begins, otherwise known as "official summer cycle racing season". It starts in Holland this year, with the prologue in Amsterdam on Saturday, then Sunday's stage running in and around my old stomping grounds the Utrechtse Heuvelrug to finish in the Utrecht city centre. We had initially planned to be there to watch the stages in person, but between working out the logistics (ferries, lodging, bike storage), predicting the weather (cold and possibly rainy) and recovering from last weekend (which only ended on Monday night), we decided to give it a miss. We'll probably head there for a warmer sunnier July visit instead.
Nonetheless, the next three weeks will mean Giro fever around here and on the Kingston Wheelers forum. I'm planning to catch a few stages at the new Look Mum No Hands cycling cafe in central London, but mostly I'll be watching the stages at home: studying the attacks, watching the way the race plays out and seeing how well the teams cope with the pressure of protecting a leader's jersey or trying to win a stage. A rougher and more ruddy-cheeked sibling to the slick Tour de France, often seeing snowy conditions and gravel roads, the Giro is stage racing at its raw best.
I've even selected a team on Velogames, though historically my sports pool teams have done quite poorly! Maybe this year that will change.
Type
Name
Team
Value
all-rounder
Christian VANDEVELDE
GAR
8
all-rounder
Vincenzo NIBALI
LIQ
14
climber
Carlos SASTRE
CTT
20
climber
David MONCOUTIE
COF
12
sprinter
Andre GREIPEL
HTC
10
gregario
Linus GERDEMANN
MRM
8
gregario
Sebastien HINAULT
AG2
6
gregario
Ignatas KONOVALOVAS
CTT
6
wild card
Alexandre VINOKOUROV
AST
16
With 100 points to play with, I took a gamble on Vandevelde, that Dutch-named American, coming into form sooner than he thinks. Sastre is my sentimental favourite and Gerdemann is hopefully ready to burst forth with his huge talent. And Vino of course as the wild card, because hey, the guy really is a wild card.
Much better cycling fans than I write much better previews and reports of pro racing, so I won't even bother to try that here. Check out the very excellent Podium Cafe instead for day-to-day Giro chat and in-depth analysis. And Velonews for the news, results and interviews.
After my post about Theo Bos and the Tour of Turkey crash (mostly my translation of his version of the events), Velonews.com contacted me to ask if they could use it on their site. I said no problem, and also mentioned that I liked to write other stuff too -- so should they by chance have something else they wanted covered, to let me know!
Sure enough, Tom Boonen's cocaine bust happened about a month later, but much of the media coverage was in Dutch of course. Velonews asked me to put together a little article summarising the Belgian media's handling of this fall from grace by Belgium's biggest sports star. I found a couple of interesting articles including this interview with Quick Step team manager Patrick Lefevere, and wrote a piece about it last weekend. The following Tuesday I was quite pleased to see it on the Velonews site with me listed as a "London-based journalist"!
The article is here for those who haven't seen it yet. Pretty cool to see my name in print like that, and hopefully it won't be the last time either. My love of writing has been rediscovered and rekindled over the past few months with my regular posts to this blog, making me think I should take it a bit more seriously and write more in general. It would be nice to carve out a little niche on the side, but even without a paycheque I've been enjoying putting thoughts on paper again for others to read.
Even though I lived in Utrecht for nearly 3 years and was a member of Hellas Triatlon for most of that time, I never managed to make it to one of the club's patented weekend training trips to Belgium -- til now. This past weekend was the road cycling variant (in November it's the mountain bike one), so once I had confirmed that I could go, I set about planning how I was going to get all the way from Kingston to a little village in the Belgian Ardennes called Petit Mormont.
Friday
It began with Jim dropping me off at the station in London for the 06:59 Eurostar train to Brussels, where I grabbed a Belgian Intercity train to Liège, then loaded up a rental car to drive the last 90km to Mormont. Everything went smoothly, though I cursed my soft-sided bike bag with every step I had to carry it through the train stations and down to the rental car place. Certainly the bag is a lot more discreet than a giant bike box, but some small wheels would have been handy! Traffic along the E25 highway was light and I managed to arrive around 1pm at our hostel-like accommodation in Mormont. I unpacked and built up my bike, and got ready to head out on a sunny but windy ride.
By then several others had arrived from Utrecht, so we got a small group together and did 60km through the Ardennes, taking in villages with names like Samrée and Erezée and Manhay. Villages in that part of Belgium, I soon found out, consist of a few houses, some cows and maybe a gas station. Hardly a pub or cafe or convenience store to be seen. And judging by how quiet the secondary roads were, I had to wonder what these Wallonians did for provisions, let alone for fun. Then again, I suppose there just aren't many of them living there. After spending several years in crowded Holland and England, I guess I've forgotten what it's like to be in the middle of the real countryside where there's maybe 30 people per square km. In fact, the Ardennes reminded me more of rural Canada than anywhere else I've been in Europe so far: forested valleys as far as the eye can see, logging operations along the twisty and rolling roads, and friendly albeit simple and slow-moving local folks.
Saturday
By morning our full complement of 40+ triathletes had arrived at Mormont. Most of the bunk beds were taken and the common areas were jammed with bikes and various clothing and gear. In typical Dutchie fashion, the cars coming from Utrecht carried not only people but bins full of the groceries we needed for the weekend -- everything from huge sacks of potatoes and kilograms of cheese to a few dozen packages of ontbijtkoek -- so our only local requirement was fresh bread from one of the bakeries in a nearby town.
After breakfast, the cycling groups for the day began to form, based on distance and speed of the ride (and the company!) desired. I ending tagging along with the "long, fast and strong" group heading into Luxembourg, led by one of the club's cycling coaches who was marked closely by our club's resident pro Dirk Wijnalda. I figured at the very worst, if I couldn't keep up, at least I had my Garmin to find the way back. But I needn't have worried; even though the first 2 hours were a hammerfest at times, as the stronger guys relentlessly attacked each other up every climb and across the flats, I managed to hang on pretty well without blowing up.
At the 60km mark, our first stop for coffee and cake, the group split into two with half turning back for home to complete a respectable 110km for the day. The rest of us ventured further into Luxembourg, with the highlight of the day being Vianden and its 6km climb from the river valley to the castle above, the first km of which was on typical Euro cobblestones (photos found on flickr and courtesy of HappyMac, since I forgot to bring my camera along).
The rest of the day ebbed and flowed, the biggest ebb being at 135km when we realised we were over 35km from home, it was beginning to rain, and we'd nearly run out of food. A quick stop at a Wiltz gas station and its miraculous bakery section with fresh cakes and bread for an energy refill and we were off for the last hour or so, climbing yet another beautifully paved 6km 4% grade traffic-free Luxembourgian road and then descending into the less-well-maintained Belgian roads back home through Houffalize. In the end I was quite happy with my day: 172km, 2220m of climbing, 174 watts normalised power, for just under 6 hours of riding at 28.8km/h. I even managed to hit the final 2km climb with good legs, hitting an average of 230 watts (pretty close to my FT) and proving that the longer the ride, the better I get relative to most of my riding companions!
Sunday
This was the day of Liège-Bastogne-Liège aka Luik-Bastenaken-Luik aka La Doyenne, the final race of the spring classics season. The riders were going right through Houffalize, a mere 9km from where we were staying, but since they weren't due to pass through til 2pm or so, a few of us decided to ride west towards one of the earlier climbs on the route at Ny. We got there just in time, dropped our bikes by the side of the road and tried to create something interesting for the TV cameras to see (note the yellow helmet in the photo below; from left to right Peter, Jeroen and Gerard hamming it up).
Within 10 minutes the caravan of trucks, motorcycles and official race cars had started to drive through. Then we heard the helicopter and spotted the riders through the trees below, with the peleton moving very fast to the bottom of the climb. Even on the climb they never dropped below 30km/h, I'm sure. They were past us so fast there was no time even to identify the riders! I did make a video of them going by, however, catching the beginning of the attack off the front that would turn into the day's long 4-man break, not to be reeled in til more than 150km later. And listening to this video makes me realise how annoying my voice is and how bad my Dutch has become...
We had planned to head to Houffalize where the riders would come through again in a few hours, but in trying to avoid the busy main road, we ended up underestimating how far it was and realised that we'd miss them. So instead we rode a leisurely few more km, a couple more long draggy hills and nice fast descents, stopping for coffee and to sit in the sun for a bit, then continuing back to Mormont. I grabbed a quick snack then a few of us rode down to Houffalize in search of the town's beer tent where they were showing the last bit of the race on big TVs. Wallonian Philippe Gilbert had escaped solo at this point so the crowd was quite excited; a short while later, Andy Schleck caught and dropped him and then went on to win the race, much to the Belgians' disappointment. We rode back up the hill to Mormont for 120km on the day, with 1600m of climbing over 4.5 hours.
Monday
It rained quite heavily overnight, and the morning dawned with a chilly wind and variable weather. With 350km of cycling in my legs for the weekend -- added to the 250km I had already done in England earlier in the week -- I was happy to take a day off the bike and go for a short run instead. Many of the off-road routes around the Ardennes are well-marked with signs on the trees and arrows pointing the way, with big signboards showing how they intersect. Mistakenly thinking that since the paved roads had all been a nice gradient, the walking paths must be as well, I followed the 5.5km route down to the river and was met with a narrow path that descended 60m in 240m: a 25% grade! In my running shoes on wet, slippery, rocky and rooty ground I descended as carefully as possible, and didn't dare turn around and try to go back. The path along the river was equally treacherous, but I was finally rewarded with the climb back up to Mormont, an Achilles-punishing kilometer averaging 10% that I half-ran and half-walked. It took nearly 40 minutes to run 5.5 km in the end, ouch!
Though I didn't have my camera with me, I managed to find some shots taken by a previous traveller, Karen Hendrix, of the same path, giving a pretty good idea what I was up against.
Monday afternoon I drove back to Liège and took a train to Brussels, then dropped my stuff at the left luggage kiosk at the station and wandered around touristy Brussels for a few hours until my train back to the UK was ready to board. My legs are still recovering from the weekend's punishment, but in a few weeks I'll be all the stronger for it.
And I had a great time! I got to hang out with my Dutch friends for a weekend, re-experience my summer camp days, cycle tons of miles, catch a bit of a pro race, see two countries I'd never visited before, and tax my brain to remember a bit of its rusty French. Definitely worth the trip!
Having had a little break from cycle racing the past few weeks for the marathon, I was eager to get back to it. Last week my monster 15 hours spent training (but the weather's just been too nice not to get out there and ride!) meant that Sunday's National Women's Team Series race just outside Nottingham would be an interesting test of the legs. As a member of the Surrey League ladies team, I was racing with a handful of other women from local clubs -- all of whom, like me, don't have enough teammates to put together their own teams -- for the first time this season. It's a team series, meaning that the top 4 results per team count toward the points ranking, and the final trophy goes to the winningest team rather than an individual (though each race rewards individual winners too of course).
The race started out fast with several riders on the front (most notably elite rider Charlie Blackman of the London Dynamo) driving the pace and controlling the attacks, but after four laps when it appeared that no cohesive break would stay away and the bunch was whittled down to 30 or so riders, things settled down a bit. On the sixth lap as we approached the main climb on the course, a little 500m 3% affair, I found myself at the front and decided to take a run at it and see what happened. I hit the climb hard and didn't look back til I got to the top -- much to my surprise, the bunch was more than 50 metres behind me! Unfortunately I was now descending into a crosswind so I tucked down and did my best, but after 2km the bunch came back (note to self for next time: if the motorcycle pulls in front of you, you've been caught and can stop working now).
The legs felt good though, almost like that little super-threshold effort woke them up, so I stayed near the front of the remainder of the race, hoping a late break would still materialise. My teammate Jen Hewitt had a few digs, as did some other riders, but again nothing stuck. So the flat finish meant a bunch sprint, where my skills are not particularly well-suited. Being a bit scared off by the argy-bargy and generally poor bike handling of the field in the final lap, I did not try to contest the sprint and instead just stayed safely out of trouble, finishing 23rd overall. The race was won by Laura Trott, the up-and-coming and talented junior who placed quite well at the recent KW Dunsfold 3rd cat road race. I discovered one of my teammates, Nikki Wheeler, can put in a sprint, so next time I'll know to try and help her out better if it comes down to a bunch finish. The photo above of Jen on the front with me a ways back in the bunch (both of us in white jerseys) is a pretty typical view of the Sid Standard race. The British Cycling write-up, where we both earned a nice mention despite finishing outside the top 20, is here.
But the truth is, for me to have any success at women's racing (or any racing for that matter), I need to create, join, or force a break to happen -- not solo! -- so I can put my ability to suffer at threshold for a long time to good use. Looking at my power profile according to Coggan, my five-second peak power is the equivalent of a lowly cat 4, and at one and five minutes I'm only a bit better at mid cat 2 level. It's power at FT where I'm strongest, as I'm putting out ~230 watts with my 54kg, making me a 4.25watts/kg solid cat 1 equivalent. And given what seems to be some hill climbing ability on steeper grades, I think I need to find some hillier races with better prospects for a break escaping and staying away til the finish. (As an aside, now that we've got our new Powertaps, I need to do another round of testing to make these numbers a little more firm and set myself some goals.)
Hillingdon Tuesday Night Series
Jim's been wanting to do some more racing, so despite a nice steady 90km ride on Monday afternoon that left our legs a bit tired, last night we headed over to the Hillingdon summer series (my favourite local circuit of all that I've raced so far) to take on the cat 4 race. I had been playing with the idea of entering the E/1/2/3 race as there's a £15 prize for the top female finisher, but once I got there and saw a) how huge the sign-on list already was, b) a well-known pro men's team warming up, and c) women's pro rider Leda Cox who would undoubtably take the prize money, I wisely decided that the cat 4 race was the way to go. And that way Jim and I could race together, a first!
All was going well, with both of us in the front 5-10 riders for most of the race. I had gone off at a good pace almost immediately, as the bunch had started so slowly that I feared a massive acceleration where I would not be able to grab a wheel, and ended up leading most of the first lap. Then the attacks started, but with a headwind going up the hill and a tailwind coming down the back straight, conditions were not great for a solo break to last. Jim bridged to (or chased down, depending on how you saw it) a London Dynamo rider but that didn't last, and he ended up on the front as the E/1/2/3 race stormed by. A few other guys put in some digs and the bunch always collected them back into the fold after half a lap or so. The E/1/2/3s passed us once again, rather scarily through the hairpin turns where a lot of riders have difficulty holding a line, but everyone made it through safely.
Around 15 laps into it, I put in some effort latching onto escaping riders, thinking that even though the sun was setting, there was a lot of time left in this one-hour race. That cost me as I had slipped back to 15-20th place by the time we got to the lap board, and stupidly failed to notice that we were heading for the bell lap til the bell was actually ringing. Well out of position to do anything in the final lap,I tried valiantly to move up on the back stretch and nearly did it on the final corner, til the wheel I was following sat up and stopped working. Alas, unless I'm in the top 5 or so coming around that corner, I just don't have the power to put in a strong finish against the guys, so even though I got around him and got some speed up for the little climb, it was too late. To add insult to injury, some well-meaning guy who was determined to get 19th instead of 20th place muscled me over towards the grass in the final chicane, killing all my speed.
At that moment, I could see Jim ahead who was in a better position for the final sprint, but then a massive crash took down four guys right in front of him, so I slowed up completely and just rolled across the line (after I had a close look at the four downed riders and determined with relief that he wasn't one of them!) The crash looked nasty and I think one of the guys involved was a Twickenham rider that I'd already shouted at twice during the race to hold his line (the second time after he'd been weaving all over the back straight in an attempt not to do any work on the front and get people to come around him). Jim had to lean into a rider next to him to avoid riding over one of the downed rider's heads, but he stayed upright himself, though his sprint was finished.
I'm a bit annoyed with myself for missing the lap boards and losing focus right at the moment when I needed it the most, but given the crash, maybe I'm glad to have been in the back half of the pack towards the finish. It didn't look good and an ambulance with flashing lights turned into Springfield Rd as we were riding home, presumably to collect one of the victims. That's about the 3rd or 4th race I've done at Hillingdon that contained an ambulance-worthy crash, and I've only raced there 5 times! I wonder how long til the law of averages gets me. I definitely wish it could have been longer as my legs felt great and longer races suit me anyway. As it was, the one-hour came up a bit short, only 42 minutes which was about 17 laps, 38.6km/h avg speed.
I think some of the riders in our race could learn a thing or two from these guys on how to hold a line going up the final hill...
At the final stage of the Tour of Turkey on Sunday, there was a horrible crash in the final kilometre. Theo Bos of Rabobank and Daryl Impey of Barloworld went down into the barriers, and from the initial video it seemed that Bos had completely thrown Impey down! It was too unbelievable for words. Watch for yourself:
Seeing as Impey is South African and therefore blogs in English whereas Bos is Dutch and even the Rabo team doesn't have an English site (and judging from the way that the English and American press and forums immediately called for Bos to be banned, suggesting that what happened was purposeful and malicious), I decided to do my best to translate Bos' explanation. The original Dutch is here.
The usual caveats apply: the following is written in my words, Dutch is my second language so the translation is not going to be perfect, and any Dutch speakers who catch mistakes in context, please let me know!
The reaction to the crash in the Tour of Turkey speaks for itself. On Youtube it looks like the crash was caused intentionally. Even Lance Armstrong said that I deserve a long suspension for it. A response that I completely understand if you look at the video and the comments about it.
Of course I myself have been following the video and discussion rather painfully. From above it's difficult to tell but it seems like I'm pulling him off his bike. In reality, I'm completely trapped and I'm being pushed into the barriers on the left, and reflexively trying to keep him away from me as a last ditch effort. At that moment the only right option to prevent a crash. With my front wheel, I believe I hit the foot of one of the barriers and then together with Impey went sprawling.
Everybody who knows me well knows that I would never purposely take risks to cause a crash in such a way. Why would have I taken myself down. I've been sprinting for years at a high level on the track. The keirin is well known for its push and shove antics, and risk-taking. But know this: I'm not known in the cycling world as someone who takes extreme risks. In Japan it's even my nickname. It's not in my character. It's making me sick to hear of it.
When I switched from the track to the road, I deliberately chose Rabobank's continental team. This was so I could learn the sport in a sheltered environment. I wasn't expecting to be known in the sport for this incident. As a matter of course, I've given my side of the story to Barloworld. I want to make it right with Impey and I've said to the team that I would like to have a conversation with him and tell him my side of it. I've got no reason to hide from him, though I do understand that he's quite angry.
I feel really badly to have made the news in this manner. As a sportsman, I want it to be known that I'm quite beside myself over this. I'm bothered by it. I hope there are more videos out there. Maybe if they're shown next to each other and frame by frame analysed. I've done all I can to prove that there was nothing I could do. What happened was not on purpose. Not even in the heat of the moment. I would like everyone to understand that this is not how I win my sprints. I love this sport. Sport is on the cutting edge. In all respects, fair play is a part of it. Anything less than that is not worth it to me.
Cycle racer, semi-retired Ironman triathlete, former ice hockey player. Philosopher and scientist at heart. Home-grown Canadian but more recently Dutch- and British-influenced.
