I've just been working out how many days racing i've had this year... turns out i've done 73 days racing in total between the 19th february to the 11th october! Not bad and may explain the reason my legs have been on strike recently. This includes...
- 2 wins
- 10 top 10's.
- 3 UCI 2.2 stage races
- 9 stage races
- 1 National Champs
- Lots of travelling around france...
- A lot more kms covered on my Félino Gatopardo
Looking ahead to next season, i'll be staying with Bic2000 with a couple of major changes... firstly, i'll be leaving Quimper and heading up to Brest to a team house with a couple of other riders from the team, namely Laurent Le Gac and Gwenael Simon... Yvon is moving on as DS, to be replaced by Christophe Gouyon, arriving from Nogent DN1 so he already has a handful of experience given he is only 23!! A couple of new signings include Sylvain Cheval (Lorient) François Lancon (UC Nantes A.) and moving out are Matt Jeannès (Cotes D'armor) Vincent Rouxel (Not sure), Yann LeQueau (Leucimie Espoir Quimper), Arnaud Le Boulanger (hanging up his racing bike) and Clement is still waiting on a couple of Professional teams final decisions... good luck to him there.
Some details such as kit and equipment are already being sorted out... we will once again be riding Félino bikes, the Tigre frame, equipt with 2010 ultegra and the new ksyrium SL wheels with Aksium wheels for training. In terms of team kit, this is where things get a bit wacky!... the president has obviously developed a fetish for Rock Racing team kit as he wants to incorporate their designs in our kit for next season!!! minus the skulls and cross-bones etc but with the wacky colour designs. This with the already very "stand-out-ish" apple green colour will surely get some heads turning! Just have to wait and see.
I may also be getting involved in an interesting business enterprise ... to be confirmed in the next few days... watch this space.
keep spinning
8 Oct 2009
6 Oct 2009
Being a tourist in Paris!
The Wilier TT Bike (above) was a real eye opener infront of the Lampre team bus (below). They didn't have the full range of bikes on show however as 3 had been stolen over night!
Another awesome TT bike, the BMC TT01 (above) and below the Pinarello Prince à la Valverde!
Moving out of the bike show... below is the Renault Megane Sport in the Renault Sport shop. Below that, a Renault racing machine!
Finally below is the Peugeot Sport Le Mans racing beast! This was one of the best shops with proper loud music giving it a really good atmosphere.
the end is nigh...
What does nigh actually mean? the end of my season is nigh... ?! On writing this i am in my final week of the season with one final race to shine on... just a little 200km espoir classic Paris-Tours espoirs...normally i would be super up for a race like this however given my current form it may well just be a case of survival!
Last weekend is where i realised that a long season racing elites week in week out has finally taken its toll and to put it lightly i'm cooked!
The first of two races last weekend was a race which normally would be a good one for me being a tough circuit with a two good lumps to get over, and 28 laps making it a tough day... however after an active start i hit a bad patch after about an hour of racing. Going up the harder of the two hills i had no power and quickly went out the back. I carried on in a group just out the back and ended up a lap down... i still finished 22nd but it's the first time i've ever finished a lap down so took a hit on the self-esteem there. Two days after i was lining up on another tough local circuit race which had the same outcome with the legs not recovering from the efforts i was putting in... this time i pulled out after an hour of racing knowing that it wasnt my day and there was no point killing myself to stay in the peloton.
Following this weekend i took a few days off the bike and started preparing for Paris-connere, a 180km one day classic which i would use as training for the following weekends Paris-Tours.
Paris-Connere went pretty good seeing as i hadn't done many miles in the week and lacked a long ride, however i was active throughut, but missed the split of 20 odd riders in the crosswinds which went on to the finish. Behind i finished in the peloton, happy to have finished given over 100 of the 220 starters had dropped out. So thats the race reporting done...
... i went up to paris on the thursday before the race as, with Laurent Le Gac, we had managed to get 2 "press" passes to the Salon du Cycle - Monde de deux roues which is a big cycle show on the Champs Elysees with all the brands showing off their new products. I'll post up a few pics after this blog.
While in town we had a quick scoot round paris taking in the standard tourist spots and doing the shops up and down the Champs...like the Renault Sport shop which was by far my favorite!
pics to follow...
Last weekend is where i realised that a long season racing elites week in week out has finally taken its toll and to put it lightly i'm cooked!
The first of two races last weekend was a race which normally would be a good one for me being a tough circuit with a two good lumps to get over, and 28 laps making it a tough day... however after an active start i hit a bad patch after about an hour of racing. Going up the harder of the two hills i had no power and quickly went out the back. I carried on in a group just out the back and ended up a lap down... i still finished 22nd but it's the first time i've ever finished a lap down so took a hit on the self-esteem there. Two days after i was lining up on another tough local circuit race which had the same outcome with the legs not recovering from the efforts i was putting in... this time i pulled out after an hour of racing knowing that it wasnt my day and there was no point killing myself to stay in the peloton.
Following this weekend i took a few days off the bike and started preparing for Paris-connere, a 180km one day classic which i would use as training for the following weekends Paris-Tours.
Paris-Connere went pretty good seeing as i hadn't done many miles in the week and lacked a long ride, however i was active throughut, but missed the split of 20 odd riders in the crosswinds which went on to the finish. Behind i finished in the peloton, happy to have finished given over 100 of the 220 starters had dropped out. So thats the race reporting done...
... i went up to paris on the thursday before the race as, with Laurent Le Gac, we had managed to get 2 "press" passes to the Salon du Cycle - Monde de deux roues which is a big cycle show on the Champs Elysees with all the brands showing off their new products. I'll post up a few pics after this blog.
While in town we had a quick scoot round paris taking in the standard tourist spots and doing the shops up and down the Champs...like the Renault Sport shop which was by far my favorite!
pics to follow...
22 Sept 2009
Dream Team + FITTY!!!
Here's a photo before the start of the Ronde Mayennaise on sunday where we won the team prize making us Champions of France of Division 1 espoir teams and Division 2 teams. Good stuff. Below, after the podium with the stuffed teddy "Marsupilami" which we took home! Winners!
17 Sept 2009
The weekend just gonee was spent in the rather inhostile region known as La Manche... known for always being windy. And it didn't let us down for our flying visit! Clement, Matthieu, Laurent, Kevin Collin and myself were in the town of Cherbourg for the 3 days of... Cherbourg.
Stage 1 started off at break neck speed as we took off with a fat tail wind only to swing a right at the end of the road = Crosswind! It was at this point i realised that my radio wasn't working and i was getting no info on when and where the wind was. As a result i was very badly positioned and missed the first "echelon" as about 15/20 rode clear. Luckily for us (as all 5 of us missed it!) there were a few other teams who had missed it too and a hard chase back on got us back to square one, minus a fair chunk of the peloton i should note! The day was marked mainly by the wind and a lot of time was spend cursing at how the guy infront was always a lot smaller than me offering little wind resistance... a problem i will always have unfortunately! At about 20km to go on one of the final hills of the stage a small group went clear including Clement and they would hold a small advantage until the line over a chasing group of 40 odd including all but Kevin. Clement took 3rd for the stage at 9 seconds... race on!
Stage 2 was a steady stage until the final 40 odd kms as a break of 4 got away and stretched out to 8 minutes before and real chase was organised. With Clement 3rd we gave a helping hand and come the last 6km all was back together. We had protected clem well all day but i'd also said i was feeling great and i only had to do a small amount of work on the front to save my legs for the final hill 2kms from the finish which would be decisive. In the mad tussle for position at the base of the climb a hand full of riders hit the deck infront of me and i had nowhere to go... the split seconds where your saying to yourself "i'm going to crash... i'm going to crash..." passed and i nearly saved it by some swift breaking and turning however the guys behind obviously weren't as exceptionally skillful as myself ;) and they came flying into the back of me and joined the pile up. Game Over, for the stage at least. I was gutted to say the least. However up the road clement pretty much completed the job and took 2nd on the stage, missing out on yellow by 2 seconds as Arnaud Corteille of UC Nantes Atlantique just nicked it.
Damage report... chainring marks in my forearm and leg... road rash and bruised knee... broken shifter on the bike.
Stage 3 was a short 55km morning stage on a pretty much out and back route with a good wind to keep everyone on their toes. From the gun a small group of 14 got clear with me in and the stage would be spent with my 13 new made pals for the morning up until the finish line, however not without incident. The max advantage we had was 55 seconds but with a few teams missing out and the French champ present and at only 38 seconds on GC, Nantes were forced to ride behind. Everyone pulled through well and come 2 km to go the gap was at 20 seconds and the attacks were starting to kick off. It was around this time when the majority of the break didn't fancy following the course route to the left as the road looked rather nice straight ahead... yes we went the wrong way as the signallers on the corner were caught napping. A quick skid stop and U-turn got us back on track but with the peloton at about 5 seconds behind it was a mad dash to the line for the last km. It turns out one of the fellas in the break happened to take the left turn and he finished ahead with 4seconds to spare. On my part i had missed the 1km to go banner and was confused as to how far the finish was... until we swung a right and the finish was 100m infront. I finished 10th for the stage with the rest of the peloton arriving ontop of us on the line. Frustrating stage as i was feeling great.
Stage 4, the afternoon stage of 100km, was a fight from start to finish. I didnt have a great impact on the stage apart from a fair bit of riding on the front especially in the final 20km where we and Nantes got on the front to try to bring it back together for the finish. I imploded and swung off in the last 2km hoping clem could hold his position in the front and keep 2nd overall... however both himself and the yellow jersey got jumped and lost out to Kevin Lalouette from USSA Pavilly Barentin who took the overall by a slim 2second margin thanks to a final break in the last few kms. A third on GC and top 3 in the team classification plus a top 10 stage for myself rounded off a good weekend away.
I've tried looking for photos of the race but cant find any for the moment.
The following day, Monday, there was a local race which is part of the series Trophée Aven Moros in which i was lying 2nd overall. I was going to go along and watch the race nonetheless but just before we left i decided i would race... turns out even with legs shot to pieces after the weekends efforts i took 5th. Last year i got 2nd here arriving with Salva Vilchez... this year he was up the road and won alone. He's been off form for a few weeks now, however i can say from what i saw on monday that Salva Vilchez is back and he ain't pissing about!
A steady week is on the programme before heading off to the Mayenne region on saturday for the Boucles de la Mayenne on sunday. Another big one day elite race.
Until next time
Stage 1 started off at break neck speed as we took off with a fat tail wind only to swing a right at the end of the road = Crosswind! It was at this point i realised that my radio wasn't working and i was getting no info on when and where the wind was. As a result i was very badly positioned and missed the first "echelon" as about 15/20 rode clear. Luckily for us (as all 5 of us missed it!) there were a few other teams who had missed it too and a hard chase back on got us back to square one, minus a fair chunk of the peloton i should note! The day was marked mainly by the wind and a lot of time was spend cursing at how the guy infront was always a lot smaller than me offering little wind resistance... a problem i will always have unfortunately! At about 20km to go on one of the final hills of the stage a small group went clear including Clement and they would hold a small advantage until the line over a chasing group of 40 odd including all but Kevin. Clement took 3rd for the stage at 9 seconds... race on!
Stage 2 was a steady stage until the final 40 odd kms as a break of 4 got away and stretched out to 8 minutes before and real chase was organised. With Clement 3rd we gave a helping hand and come the last 6km all was back together. We had protected clem well all day but i'd also said i was feeling great and i only had to do a small amount of work on the front to save my legs for the final hill 2kms from the finish which would be decisive. In the mad tussle for position at the base of the climb a hand full of riders hit the deck infront of me and i had nowhere to go... the split seconds where your saying to yourself "i'm going to crash... i'm going to crash..." passed and i nearly saved it by some swift breaking and turning however the guys behind obviously weren't as exceptionally skillful as myself ;) and they came flying into the back of me and joined the pile up. Game Over, for the stage at least. I was gutted to say the least. However up the road clement pretty much completed the job and took 2nd on the stage, missing out on yellow by 2 seconds as Arnaud Corteille of UC Nantes Atlantique just nicked it.
Damage report... chainring marks in my forearm and leg... road rash and bruised knee... broken shifter on the bike.
Stage 3 was a short 55km morning stage on a pretty much out and back route with a good wind to keep everyone on their toes. From the gun a small group of 14 got clear with me in and the stage would be spent with my 13 new made pals for the morning up until the finish line, however not without incident. The max advantage we had was 55 seconds but with a few teams missing out and the French champ present and at only 38 seconds on GC, Nantes were forced to ride behind. Everyone pulled through well and come 2 km to go the gap was at 20 seconds and the attacks were starting to kick off. It was around this time when the majority of the break didn't fancy following the course route to the left as the road looked rather nice straight ahead... yes we went the wrong way as the signallers on the corner were caught napping. A quick skid stop and U-turn got us back on track but with the peloton at about 5 seconds behind it was a mad dash to the line for the last km. It turns out one of the fellas in the break happened to take the left turn and he finished ahead with 4seconds to spare. On my part i had missed the 1km to go banner and was confused as to how far the finish was... until we swung a right and the finish was 100m infront. I finished 10th for the stage with the rest of the peloton arriving ontop of us on the line. Frustrating stage as i was feeling great.
Stage 4, the afternoon stage of 100km, was a fight from start to finish. I didnt have a great impact on the stage apart from a fair bit of riding on the front especially in the final 20km where we and Nantes got on the front to try to bring it back together for the finish. I imploded and swung off in the last 2km hoping clem could hold his position in the front and keep 2nd overall... however both himself and the yellow jersey got jumped and lost out to Kevin Lalouette from USSA Pavilly Barentin who took the overall by a slim 2second margin thanks to a final break in the last few kms. A third on GC and top 3 in the team classification plus a top 10 stage for myself rounded off a good weekend away.
I've tried looking for photos of the race but cant find any for the moment.
The following day, Monday, there was a local race which is part of the series Trophée Aven Moros in which i was lying 2nd overall. I was going to go along and watch the race nonetheless but just before we left i decided i would race... turns out even with legs shot to pieces after the weekends efforts i took 5th. Last year i got 2nd here arriving with Salva Vilchez... this year he was up the road and won alone. He's been off form for a few weeks now, however i can say from what i saw on monday that Salva Vilchez is back and he ain't pissing about!
A steady week is on the programme before heading off to the Mayenne region on saturday for the Boucles de la Mayenne on sunday. Another big one day elite race.
Until next time
5 Sept 2009
Movie night.. and day
Since i have been confined to my sick bed, hit by a seriously grave case of Man-Flu... get well soon letters are greatly appreciated... i have een hitting the movies big time. So instead of writing another dull race report commenting on how i didnt do this or didn't win that, i thought i'd give a little report of some cracking films i've caught up on. 
First of all, i watched the new Iraq war film 'The Hurt Locker'. The story follows a small group of US soldiers who form an elite Army bomb squad in Iraq where everyone is a potential enemy and every object could be a deadly bomb. The film is full of suspense from the start right to the very end. It makes you realise what some of the guys out there go through day in day out and what a hostile environment it must be out there. I think i'm safer sticking in the saddle for the time being!
After this i caught up on Transformers 2 which i've been meaning to see since it came out. Following on from the first film which although was proper cheeeeesy, was a good watch nonetheless! It's hard to describe the film without giving too much away but it follows the constant battle between the bad transformers (the decepticons) against the band of good ones (the Autobots) led by Optimus Prime. Cought up in this carnage of metal is the Human Sam Witwicky and his "rather pretty!" girl friend.. the original founders of the transformers in the first film. The basic plot is ... the Good robots fight the Bad robots in an effort to save the bad ones from destroying earth! As i said... cheesy but still definately worth seeing! It's actually quite moving at a couple of moments... then i realised what i was watching and "manned up"!
A couple of other classics i've been working my way through are... The Bourne Identity, the second one and the third one! Probably about the 100th time i've done the trilogy but still awesome.
Next on the list, District 9, Ice-Age 3 (still haven't seen it!)... any other recomendations please post!
Also anyone got any ideas on stuff they want me to blog about outside the cycling scene...? Let me know.
Lunch time.
A+
Felt obliged to put up a photo of Megan Fox... Sam's girl in Transformers... enjoy.
3 Sept 2009
this week
This weekends stage race went off without much of a bang on my part, didn't manage to slip into either of the long breaks neither did i have a blistering TT... finishing in the mid-times where everyone bunches up behind the speed demons. However i wasn't just sitting in the peloton following wheels for two days as Clement was on some hot form and took 7th in the TT with 20seconds defecit going into the last stage so we were riding for him. He got away early on in the last stage but got brought back near the end while one rider, Dimitry Samokhvalov (see pic) clipped off on the final 2km hill finish to just nick enough time to take the Overall. Not a bad ride seeing as he took the first stage after clipping off in similar style too!
My final stage finished when i was in a split in the peloton on the final lap and i finished easy and saved a bit for mondays and tuesdays races too.
Monday went well with 3 of us from Bic getting away in a break of about 20. After about 30odd km's together the race was coming back behind us so we attacked together and took 7 others with us and pulled away again. With 55 seconds going into the final lap we knew it was done and we started to attack the break. In the end Ferjeux clipped off with 2 others and ended up taking 3rd... out of three! Not great but a podium none-the-less. Behind i helped Thibault take the sprint for 5th and i came 7th. With a few primes in the pocket too it wasnt a bad day out.
Tuesday started off with a light 45mins spin before breakfast to turn the legs over... this acts a bit like a massage and before breakfast means that the blood isn't in the stomach digesting food but is in the legs to help flush out the toxins from the day before. (apparently!)
It seemed to do some good as the legs felt pretty good for the first few laps of the race however they soon died and i was hanging on till the end of the race. I finished in the counter attack after the front group split and i could go with. We were racing for 11th and i took 14th. A hard day in the saddle!!
Since then things have gone downhill... i have contracted swine/bird/somekind of killer flu and have been feeling proper shite since yesterday evening. Movies in bed and lots of honey is on the cards... feel sorry for me!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
