This weekend I had the pleasure of spending the weekend with two French guys from the team Stephane and Loic at Stephane's ancestral home that is not used by his rather large family as a holiday home, no one is actual resident there that is situated just outside of Tours in the Loire Valley. Absolutely lovely, dead quiet and apples orchards all around us. The weekend comprised of three races, the first one a 1/2/3 just the otherside of Rennes with both Sunday and Monday being 2/3 races.
The race on Saturday began in horrible conditions though they soon improved and after about 40mins the day actually turned out rather nice though it did mean all of us racers did get really hot in our wet weather gear. It was a fast 3.3km loop to be completed by the 75 of us 30+ times, it has a small stretch of quite bad cobblestones and a real draggy section that was completed exposed to the elements. I made the front split everytime with Sam Allen who was also there excepted when it actually occurred after 40mins and 2 laps later the next split happened which again I missed. This was not through lack of attentiveness on my part, but from the sheer lack of training I have in my legs where in a good though small field and with the pace exceedingly high my legs just got completely burnt out. I was missing that couple of extra percent that otherwise would have meant that I would have made the first group. Anyway the race continued to split apart and I found myself out in front by myself where with a couple of laps to go I suffered the indignity of getting lapped by Sam and the front group. At least I could help Sam a bit by giving him some of my drink (see my earlier reference to wet weather gear) and he managed to pick up a brilliant third. I rolled in a bit later coming 27th, though I was mistakenly put down on the results 33rd. Only 34 finished and I was the only one from the team to finis so that's something and I felt much better for having done the race, my right knee was only ever so slightly stiff, but coped well which was a big bonus and the two weeks of enforced lay-off seemed to have done it the world of good. Unfortunately this was tempered by the fact that after a couple of laps rather than put my glasses through my jersey zip/collar, I thought I would be smart and dump them in the grass in a innocuous place near no-one where I could then go and retrieve them later. Sadly someone had taken the glasses and no-one had handed them in, so the moral of the story is kiddies always keep your belongings with unless you personally hand them to a friend or relative whom you trust!
After the race was a 120 mile to Tours and like most car journeys I slept all the way and upon waking up and arriving at the house I was met by such a typically French site I had to laugh. In the little front garden were some berry bushes, a couple of cherry trees, some strawberry plants and a pond, not filled with fish, but frogs. Stephane told me when he was younger and he visited his grandparents here he would spend all day catching and eating them. The house was pretty big, with a few mod-cons though the decor had not changed since the 1950's with some antlers in one room, lots of family pictures in the other with wallpaper with loads of deer on. With a pasta meal that night, Stephane went under the house to the vin cave where it brought up this 2002 local red.
The next day we woke up to a lovely a morning and we went into the local town, where Monday night's race was actually going to be held and went and had a big meal at a Hotel/restaurant owned by a former pro cyclist who rode for Festina. 3 courses consisting of a tomato and carrot salad followed by a plate of pasta in a butter sauce served next to an alive and kicking piece of flame-grilled steak. The latter is quite interesting to know as clearly here in France the customer is just served and how the chef and restaurant believe the food should be not the customer. Fortunately I like my steak to still be a cow mooing so I had no problem. Then we finished with some creme brulee.
After the meal we headed to just south of Tour to a lovely little village by a creek for the 2/3 Tauxiny race, 75 competitors going round a 6.5km 16 times. The loop was really technical, exposed and undulating, a proper hardman's race however just before my warm up lap the Heaven's opened and after 3km I punctured on the warm-up lap, luckily the race steward's car was behind putting barriers across the roads so they took me and the bike to the finish. So I had to somewhat fatefully change my rear wheel to a deep section due to the puncture. The race was run in the most apocalyptic conditions I have ever had the pleasure to ride in and within a lap the peloton was split to pieces, thanks to the weather, course and the fact 10 fell off the bikes around the lap. I made the first group which numbered at about 15, but was being reduced every lap by crashes, punctures and the difficulty of the course, unfortunately 6 laps I took a heavy tumble and brought enough guy down with me. Up to this point I had felt ok during the race and was confident of getting a top 5, but it was not to be. The crash was heavy, but fortunately I did not do much damage to either myself or my bike and so I cycled gently back to the finish, got changed and continued watching the drama unfold from the warmth of the car. A ripped gilet, shoecover with some cuts, bruises and grazes was all I got as well as some aesthetic, superficial damage to the bike and a shoe. Only 15 finished the race with about 30 crashing out, a few abandons and some punctures, Loic managed to get 12th even though he had to cycle the last half of the final lap with a puncture. After the race we headed back to the house where I preceded to grunt a lot as the hot water cleaned my wounds and so Stephane and Loic thought to cheer me up with yet more pasta and some Alsatian beers.
The next day we headed out for an easy 30km cycle and the conditions were beautiful though a bit chilly and then back to the Festina hotel/restaurant for the same meal that we had yesterday again, not that I was complaining. After that and a little siesta we prepared ourselves for that evening's race in the town of the hotel. Stephane and his family being local legends was really keen to do well as was I after my disappointing results so far that weekend. I thought to myself what is the main difference between my recent good run of results and my mishaps over the previous two days? And only one answer presented itself, it was the fact I had not worn my Astana headband for the previous 2 days and therefore failed to channel my inner Vinokourov!
Once I put it on under my helmet I knew then I was in for a good performance though not quite to the same degree as I was hoping. The course was relative flat though the finish was on a short sharp hill that got steeper as it went up, 40 times this 2.7km route with plenty of good primes available. Alas after 2 laps I managed to get into the break, but we never got more than 25 seconds away from the peloton who kept us on a very tight leash and we never numbered more than 6 riders, ideally we needed 10 to stay away. There were a couple of guys from the same time who cleared up the primes until about halfway through the race the peloton swallowed us up. From here on out the peloton split and re-gathered itslef continually until with about 14 laps to go quite a big group went, unfortunately I was a bit hamstrung by a lot of people not willing to work to get across to this front group, but eventually I got there with 10 laps to go. With 8 laps to go on the little climb about a mile away from the finish someone dropped a wheel and couple of teams blocked anyone trying to get across. The break numbered 11 and also contained Stephane; he managed to get third and the break stayed away. With about 4 laps to go I began attacking relentlessly though I was feeling my right knee quite a bit at this point eventually I got away with Loic and two others and then Loic launched his sprint really early for 12th place, I followed and when he began dying with about 50m to go I slowed up to not wanting to roll my team-mate as at this point our other two companions seemed quite far from us, unfortunately one of them managed to nick in front and grab 12th leaving Loic with 13th place and me with 14th.
I have to say I was a little disappointed as I knew that day I could of won, what counted against me was the fact the local cycling mafia turned up and helped to split the primes and decide the race outcome amongst themselves, which made me feel a bit better about the result. After the race we had a beer at the beer tent and chatted to the locals who seemed to be very disappointed in Jonathan Tiernan-Locke's season thus far as well as saying that being a Breton is the same as being English/British or as close as a Frenchman would get to being one anyway. We then headed back to the Festina hotel where the race officials were having an after-race meal together. For 5 euros each we were also allowed into this little lock-in and eat from the buffet, but as Loic and Stephane won some prime money they paid for me. The manageress of the hotel must have taken a shine to us over the preceding days and gave us some chocolate pudding and two bottles of red wine that must have cost at least 20 euros each if bought at the restaurant!
After this we headed back to the house where we then stayed up chatting about the race, about the recent Jalabert drug revelations and the French National Champs until the early hours.
The next day we had a long drive and finally, feeling a little worse for wear, I was in the comfort of my own bed. What a great experience though and if I was to do full justice to the sights, sounds and experiences just from the weekend alone, well, this blog would be very long indeed.
I hope everyone is well and doing well in their races, until next time stay on the bike!
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