Riding in a group, or cycling as the newer golf.

Pondering the group riding phenomenon; The groups I ride in, in order of increasing degree of difficulty (for me!):

• The ICCC (Ideal Conditions Cycling Club) - as the name suggests, don't ride when it is wet, windy, cold or even vaguely unpleasant. A great group to ride with; speed is moderate, competitiveness (other than the Humphray St Sprint and more on that later) does not really register, nobody is thin and nobody seems that keen on getting tired. I will start posting their ride reports (written by Pepe the super sprinter), most of which is based around success in the Humphray St sprint to the old Fish and Chip shop.
• The Ballarat Yabbie Divers - An ecclectic mix of older, younger, fit and unfit, thin and less so who don't take themselves even vaguely seriously but are hardened enough to ride when it is wet (sometimes) and cold! A great group of conversationalists, who's reputation for disorganisation is well-earned. However, they ride safe, look after each other and rarely ride at warp speed, which is nice! 

• The TMB (The Thinking Men's Bunch) - Sundays only and clearly a contradiction in terms, given that it involves men and bicycles. A great post-race group to ride with, enormous diversity in abilities and attitudes but ride very safely and look after group members.

• The Point Lonsdale and Ocean Grove group/s - during the holiday periods, these groups are fast and hard, competitive and ruthless (witness "don't worry about them, they know the way home" when someone gets dropped). Great groups to test yourself with; until you get dropped, at which point it looks a less attractive option. These groups ride hard and are chock full of 4-7 rides/week cyclists who race and take no prisoners in training.

• World Series Cycling - This is my regular training group, rather than a riding group. It rides to a training program and has about 10-12  regulars, I am the oldest, least thin and slowest and as it has a number of A Grade club riders. As a consequence, when we do training sessions, I get absolutely smashed, every session along with two or three others. Good training but depressing! 

I will start posting regular(ish) ride reports for these groups which might give you something to put you to sleep at night.

Day Two - it didn't get easier!

A quick post as I am totalled after today; 155 km and 4300 m of climbing, a really big day!

The scenery was unbelievable as we traversed the Col de Marie Blanque, the Col d'Aubisque, and to finish, the Col du Tourmalet. Hardest day on a bike of my life, if a car had appeared on the Tourmalet, I would have got in, no question! Today we rode about 15 km in total that were 10% gradient or greater, which was very intimidating, not to say very hard too! There were a number of ramps (8 or 10) that went to 16 and 18%, and without a compact crank, there were just weight lifting and not that much fun really.

The descents were fabulous, including one of 20 km and another of about 15! Again, I have never travelled at 60 km/h or over for 15 + mins at a time on twisty, swoopy mountain roads - great fun!

Some photos of great rural village scenes! Video tomorrow with any luck!

Day one of the Raid de Pyrenee!

Today was day one of the Raid ride and began with a gentle ride down to the start point in Hendaye, Spain. We got our 'passports' stamped at the tourist office (a condition of being officially registered for the Raid ride) and we were off on our 160 km first day.

There are some great buildings in Hendaye, here is one! 

The ten of us doing the Raid ride. I continued with my pursuit of the goal of swimming in the Indian and Atlantic oceans, and the Mediterranean sea in my three week journey!

Out guide says today was an easy day - if so, I am a little concerned about tomorrow and the next three days! It was a solid 160 km with 2500 m of climbing, mostly in short power climbs but with a couple of slightly longer cols included. For me, it was punctuated by another unneccessary fall, landing again on the hip I hurt in the fall in Australia - pretty uncomfortable but no real damage done, I don't think. Some amazing scenery, impressive architecture, great roads and several terrific descents!

Village square in one of the many small Spanish and French towns we rode through.

A restored, original 2CV Citroen!

We are currently in a hotel (Au Bon Coin) above the village of St Christo, and reflecting on today while being slightly (!!) concerned about tomorrow. Tomorrow's day is short on kms (only 130) but big on climbing (near 4000 m) with the Col de Marie Blanc, followed by the Col d'Aubisque and then the Tourmalet. There are some other, smaller cols too but not worth listing in comparison to these three!

It will be an interesting day, with the goal of leaving early and just maintaining a steady tempo through the day. It will be about 7 hours in the saddle with a stop for lunch making it an 8 or so hour day.

A day in Spain when it didn't rain (on the plain, or anywhere else!).

A quick entry before the start!

Tomorrow we begin the Raid de Pyrenee sportif ride. This is a ride from the west coast, right on the border of Spain and France, to the east coast in the Southern corner of France (just south of Perpignan),  Atlantic to Mediterranean, right through the Pyrenees mountains. It is an event started in the 1950's by a Basque cycling club and requires participants to complete the 720 kms and 11,000 m of climbing in 100 hours (4 days and 4 hours).

We will be starting at 9 am tomorrow and need to finish by 1 pm on Wednesday to qualify. Along the way we have a number of checkpoints where we need to get a 'passport' stamped to prove we have ridden the route. It is a very testing ride at about 180 km and 2,500 m on average each day. We will be climbing many of the iconic cols of the Pyrenees, and I am sure the scenery will be magnificent - photos to follow.

I promised I would up load some video from around Saint Savin, see below, but it is only a short piece as the upload is very slow. Also below are some photos of various sites and buildings I found interesting.

More tomorrow!

The abbey at Saint Savin dominates the village from every angle!

The Lourdes Town Hall is nearly as impressive.

This is the super fast bike trail from Pierrefittes to Lourdes. Beautiful surface on an old train line, complete with old stations turned into cafe's - 20 km of bike heaven!

The streets in Inrun are traditional Spanish

The Atlantic water is warm and the surf is great (so are the coffee and the beer!).

Day one in the Pyrenees - Saint Savin, now that's my sort of town!

I arrived in Lourdes at 10 pm last night after 34 hours of travelling, sitting in airports . . .... oh, and eating in a restaurant in Paris, which wasn't too hard! I am staying in a cycling lodge in a very small medieval village at the foot of the Tourmalet, called Saint Savin. The lodge is run by Paddy Sweeney and his wife Olive (Google "velopeleton" or "Lanterne Rouge", which is the name of the lodge), and it is terrific! Great food and hospitality and an amazing location! Anyone interested in coming to this area for a cycling holiday (the cols of the Tourmalet, Hautecam, Luz Ardiden, Aubisque, d'Aspin, Peyosorde and many other iconic climbs are all close by) or wanting to do the Raid Pyrenee sportif ride that I am doing, this is the plum location to stay at very good prices - thoroughly recommend it after 24 hours!

A panorama of the view from my bedroom window!

The town square in Saint Savin

Anyway, onto events. I will include some photos and video over the next 10 days, at least when I have decent broadband! Today I rode down to bike shop in the next village as my bike arrived with a broken seat - more expense - and then rode back up to the village to adjust everything, fill bottles and prepare for a hill!

As the photos show, I rode along the valley to Luz, where I had lunch and then rode up Luz Ardiden, a 12 km 8% climb full of the classic switchbacks, that has featured many times in the Tour de France. The sun was out, the temperature was warm but not hot and it was an amazing ride - cue photos!

Link to ride data (for riding nerds!): http://app.strava.com/rides/20177293

How about those switch backs!

At the top, the Danish bloke next to me
looks surprised I made it!

The trip up Luz Ardiden was one of the top half dozen rides ever! Sun, scenery to match the best ever, and the added bonus of cruising past the Danes in the last 2 or 3 kms!

Tomorrow, I am riding down to Lourdes to seek a miracle in the form of some legal outside assistance, before riding back up the valley and riding the Hautecam, which has the reputation of being a very solid ride indeed - I will report back! Also tomorrow I will post some video of the valley road and the descent of the top part of Luz Ardiden, which doesn't really do either justice! However, currently running out of battery!

Race day - the analysis, the strategies and the goals.

So,  after 9 months of training, all those numbers, bike theft, bike breakage and all the rest here it is!

I am lying in bed in PMB with a cup of tea on the morning of the Masters' World Championships Road Race and pondering the journey completed to get to here, and of course the journey to come at 1 pm today as well. I have decided that I will post this before I leave for the race start, so there is no temptation for a revisionist approach to history in the light of the result!

The race will be very hard - that is one of the few things I can be certain of today. Phil Anderson was once quoted as saying that anybody can be a professional cyclist, you just have to be willing to suffer. While I'm not sure about that, I suspect that regardless of the result today, I might well find a new level of suffering! As we are racing with the age group below (45-49 years old), the pace will be very high at some stages at least, if not for it all.

The race course is flat for the first 7 km as we ride out of town until we reach the base of the first climb (about a 7 km, at 4-5% climb with a false flat in the middle). There has been some talk that the commissaires may make this section neutral (not raced) for safety reasons. While I hope so, as the roads out are very bad in this section and the bunch will be 90 riders, starting the race proper at the bottom of the climb will be uncomfortable as there is always someone who wants to race flat out from the gun, and I would rather that was on the flat - but it will be what it will be! After the first climb, there is a long (nearly 10 km) descent followed by a steady up hill drag punctuated by genuine, but shorter hills, to the half way point. There are a couple of descents but if I am off the back, they don't present opportunities to get back on as they are not technical or difficult enough that taking risks to go fast will make much difference to speed.

On the return trip (it is basically an out and back course), it is the reverse of the above; mostly slightly downhill with some short descents (so really fast) and then a nearly 10 km climb, where I think the final selection will take place, before we descend down into town and the finish, which will be a VERY fast descent indeed.

My two general strategies over the race will be to conserve, conserve, conserve energy at all times and to try to stick on the wheel of an Australian bloke called Michael Bonner. He came 12th, and very close behind, last year and is the only guy from the top 25 who is here this year. Both these require a lot of concentration, which is hard to do when breathing out your ears!

So, what are the goals? Well, it is complicated by being with the younger age group, but essentially as follows:

Firstly, to get to the false flat of the first climb 10 km in) with the front of the group (it should not have split too much at this stage, I don't think). If already dropped by the younger guys, get there with the front group of my age group (we wear different colour numbers).
Second, to get to the top of the first climb (14 km) as above
Third, so survive the descent without crashing - this is not an automatic assumption given the road quality, the speed humps and the rumble strips, which are placed at the bottom of the long descent and will cause people to drop drink bottles as we will hit them at 70-80 km/h.
Next, to get to the high point of the course with the group. By this point, there will have been splits in the group as the better guys will have attacked each other, so it is hard to say what "the group" will be. If it has not gone well, it might well be a case of suffering through the next 50 km in a small group off the back - not much fun in that!
For me, from here will be all about conserving to the bottom of the long climb. I have a small Coke to drink 10 mins prior to it as I think I will need to magnesium, to say nothing of the sugars and caffeine! I will need to go pretty deep on that climb, as that is where the fractures that haven't happened already will occur but wil hope to stay on the group I am with to the top.
The race down into town will be fun - super fast at 80+ km/h or so, with some technical stuff which might give opportunities to get back on if I have been dropped on the climb.
Once in town, jostling for position without working too hard in preparation for the finish. There are numerous tight turns and opportunities to make good position it the last 2 or 3 km and I am looking forward to that!

So, there it is, 2 hours 40 mins or so, all analysed and mapped out and with the potential to be turned absolutely upside down in 2 mins flat if something happens that I don't expect! I am certainly looking forward to it but not exactly relaxed, it would be true to say!

Carpe diem

Worlds Individual Time Trial day - or wake up Brad day!

So today was the individual time trial. Although not the event I had set myself for, it's always hard not to hold a bit of optimistic hope for a reasonable result, even when your head says it's not going to happen.

Well, the head was right! While my division ran deeper then the two older and younger ones either side of it, the standard generally was super high and my result reflected that. I was 14th in my age group (out of only 15) and about 2 mins off a top 10. So, on the face of it, absolutely smashed!

Some mitigating factors are that I was the only rider in my division not on a specialist TT bike with deep dish or disc wheels, which on the flat into the strong head wind (conditions for the first 9 km of the 25 km loop), was making a huge difference. On the  uphills and particularly on the descents, I was comparable with guys in the top 5 but on the first 9 km section they were doing 4 or 5 km/h faster than I was. I passed 3 guys who started in front of me, all from the division above (older), two of whom were on TT bikes but was passed by 4 guys in my division who started behind me - a bit demoralising!

Looking at my rides since my crash 10 days ago, it is apparent that I am working harder to put out the same power than I was before it. My HR average for the last 10 days is higher for a lower average speed - not the equation you want to see! Part of it is still likely to be jet lag, part of it the effects of the crash, part of it the kilo I put on last week when I really didn't train much at all and part of it probably the 1000m of altitude at the start line today. However, I'm still hopeful of getting my form back to where it was 10 days ago for the road race on Saturday and I will be working towards that in the intervening 48 hours. I will go out this afternoon and roll over the legs for 10 km or so and then do the same for 20 km or so tomorrow morning.

Over the course of my preparing for this trip, people had reminded me that it was the World Championships - even if the location would tend to exclude some people - and this was certainly evident today. A real wake up call! In the end, I will look back on this with a perspective about the journey and the experience being the thing that matters but it's always a bit harder to see that at the time - right now I just want to be 10% healthier, 3 kgs lighter and on form. If I'm lucky, I might need to settle for the last one!