Finally, the return.........

So after a long 12 week wait I was on the start line of my first race back. The race it self was a 2 hour semi nocture crit. now normally I wouldn’t be so nervous about a 2 hour crit but as I’ve only been on the road for 5days and the longest ride I’ve done is 1.30hrs the crit would be my longest ride since getting back on the bike! All I was hoping for was the crit to be a nice, smooth, fast race with out too much heavy breaking! In the end all I got was a fast race and a shock to the system, and certainly not smooth race as there were speed bumps, drains and mini roundabouts to shake and knock my wrist about and to rub it in a nice fast downhill straight into a very sharp 120 degree corner! So as the race got underway I didn’t know if I would be able to finish, I didn’t know if my wrist could take it, or if I had the fitness, but as there were 1500euros of primes up for grabs I really wanted a piece of that. I managed to get into a couple of moves early on, but nothing stuck and as one of my moves was coming back the main move went! I wasn’t concerned tho as Alastair and team mate Serge got into the move of 10. The peleton decided that was that and the move quickly had a 30sec. I did managed to get in a couple of moves after that and one got away with about 12 of us.. We also quickly opened up a gap on the peleton but didn’t really make any impact on the lead group. We worked well in are group and although we didn’t catch the leaders we did manage to lap the peleton what I enjoyed considering it was my first race back. After 2hours racing I was starting to feel it and was getting a little tired, so as I came to the sprint for 10th all I could manage was 15th, but I was pretty happy with my return to get 15th and a prime but the team got another good result thanks to Alastair again getting a very good 3rd place!The next day we just went out for a nice easy ride on tt bikes as we had a stage race on the weekend with a 11.5km tt in.The stage race then. Its was called Tour du pays de la Roche aux fées and consists of 2 road stages of 135km, 130km and 1 tt stage of 11.5km. The race itself was a good race with some very good riders and teams, including the u23 French champ. The first stage was a typical parcur with it being rolling and fairly twisty roads. Nothing went for the first hour but then the pace started to go up and the splits and move started to go. I was well positioned for the splits and went with a couple of moves but as the main move went I just didn’t have it in the legs to go and I had to watch them go away. So as I fell back into the peleton I quickly realised that would be the end of my stage as the peleton slowed up due 2 every team had a guy up the road (us having 3 up there). As it came to the finish are group did sprint but I didn’t get involved and just rolled in. The next day went much much better! It started of with a alarm call at 5am at the place where all the teams were staying due to the alarm going off to everyone’s joy! It did eventually go off and we had another hour sleep before with did actually have to get up. After enjoying a typical French breakfast of baguette, baguette and more baguettes, we headed towards the morning tt, everything went well for me that morning, I felt pretty good, the warm up went well, the weather was good and the course was my cup of tea, hard, on small rolling roads and windy, but nevertheless it was still fairly quick. I was off about 20 in and came across the line setting the fasted time, but this got even better as I went back to the team car I was told that Alastair was second, so we were sitting 1st and 2nd. And as we got to the last 15riders I was still 1st but unfortunately I was eventually pushed to 4th and Alastair to 12th with me just being 2seconds from 2nd place. The final stage was very similar to the first stage. A group went off very early on during the stage and managed to stay away all day, I got into the second group on the road with team mate Nathan and the group worked well together trying to catch the lead riders but we just ran out of time and we were riding for 19th place on a uphill finish with me coming 19th and Nathan 20th.

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CRAP!

Well the day ive been waiting for for the last 2months has finally arrived, the day when i get my cast off, and what an anitclimbmax! The week before hand I was absolute buzzing about the fact that I should able to get back out on the road bike and start racing again, I even had all the races planned out for the couple of days after. Looking back on this now I suppose I wasn’t being to realistic but I thought I would definitely be able to ride on the road straightaway, but again bad news! Im not allowed to race for another month and it looks like I’ll be on the turbo for another 2weeks. So all that has been achieved today is another battering on my morale and another 100 euros on hospital bills and some wrist brace!

quick update

Well I thought I should write a quick update on what I’ve been up to since my last blog, before I go mentally insane as Im about to start my 5th consecutive week on the turbo! Funnily enough not much has happened since the crash, this is partly because my daily routine consists of waking up, breakfast, turbo, lunch, turbo, dinner, day over and during all this I walk about 10meters from my room to the garage. Its also been an enlightening couple of weeks for our few neighbours, because everyday they have woken up to the sight of me, a typical English teenager making one hell of a noise, dressed in lycra, sweating buckets, in absolute agony and with only 1 working arm, riding my bike on the turbo. Believe you me, its quite a sight. I’ll put a pics up of it, but I warn you its not pretty. Otherwise not much has gone on. After visiting the local hospital to see how the arm was healing and receiving the bad news that it will be a total of 12weeks in cast, so from when I post this it will be another 5-6weeks with a cast on, but the worst news from this is that I was going to be spending a lot more time with my friend the turbo. Crap! After this news I decided I wanted a change of garage to train in, so I nicked a lift home with Nathan’s dad who was visiting. After taking 6hrs to get back to UK then another 2hours drive home I fell asleep in the car, but towards the end of the journey I was woken up by the familiar movement of sudden swing to the left then another swing right, ahhh I remember this fantastic feeling…it’s a roundabout and at the moment I knew I was in MK. (aww good to be home) Saying that, I was looking forward to the change of scenery for my turbo sessions, I know that sounds weird but there is at least a TV in my garage in the UK what makes a change from me staring into an empty driveway hoping Im not making too much noise to annoy my neighbours. Its was also nice to catch up with my mates from MK and adapting back into the MK way. ( this being hanging around the city but not doing naff all) Ok, I think that will do for now, Im heading back to France today and will be out there for the rest of the end now.

breaking post!

This my not be the longest blog ever but I can ensure that it was one of the most time consuming blog as for the next 6 weeks I only have 1 working hand, anyways more about that later. Well since the last time quite a lot has happen. Its yet again been up and down over the last couple of weeks. After Manche Atlantique I caught a pretty manly cold that took me out for a good 6 days!! So I missed out on the 2 weekend races. Alastair yet again managed to get a top 20 result! The week following I was back out on the bike enjoining the incredible weather that we have been blessed with for the past couple of weeks. In fact I managed to get out in shorts one day so it must have been hot as Im normally called the southern pussy for always wearing to way too much clothing. So after a really good week of training with everything going well I was well up for my next race on the weekend. The race itself was called Eumande and it was an 1,2,3 race and was 115km. As we set off attacks went straight away, after trying to get in some for the first 10km and none getting even close to succeeding I thought I sit in for a while and attack on a harder part of the course. But as soon as I decided this the main race break went with none of are 10 man team init. This would of not been so bad if the group that went wasn’t 15riders! But as some other big teams had also missed the break we didn’t chase it straight away, but then again this must have been the same thought that the other couple of teams had coz the breakaway soon had a minute and it kept it getting bigger. Half way through the race my team got to the front to try and bring it back. They eventually got the gap down to 20sec with about 40km to go. I try a few times to bridge the gap but I just didn’t have it in my legs and every time I went the riders who followed just sat on. At this point the team had all worked there arse’s off for me to try and get the win and they were knackered and I couldn’t bridge the gap and its just wasn’t going are way. I eventually managed to get away with 3 others with 10km to go. We slowly brought the group in front back but we were quickly running out of time and found are self sprinting for 12th, but I wasn’t really in the mood for sprinting for 12th so I just kept a really high pace and I eventually finished 13th. The only good thing that came from the race is that I won a peleton prime that pocketed me 60 euros so I took out Nathan and Alastair for a gourmet dinner. Well when I say gourmet I mean I took out them out to subway!!! The week following was a fairly interesting week. Halfway through it we had the front door open to let the toxic gas which Alastair produces by the gallon air out and we could hear shouting through the mega phone. All are first thoughts were that there was a party going on. So me and Nathan both paused are pro cycling manager games and Alastair stopped doing what ever he was and we followed the sound. It led us to the town centre were there were about 1000 people all stood in the road protesting about something. This was my first ever protest and I was starting to get in the protesting mood and I was feeling passionate about what ever they were protesting about so we joined in and followed the march around town! With drums drumming and people in cars shouting in a mega phone and a police escort I thought this was excellent, but it was all an anti climb max as they just went and stood outside some political building quietly doing nothing. With no hint of a riot we headed home.
The next couple of days went past with nothing much interesting happening but just preparing for the race on the weekend. The race was called Fleche D’Armor and was a 2day 3stage race that I was hoping to get a top 5 placing in but it turned out to be the worst race I have ever done!!! Stage 1 looked prefect for me with a good tough parcur and strong crosswind and as I set off it was going really well. I was feeling excellent and as the peleton was about to spilt due to the crosswinds and high pace I was nicely tucked in 5 wheel in the echelon pushing the pace. Then the wind decided it didn’t like me as much, as it blew a mighty gal across the peleton forcing the rider in front to swing across the road with his pedal ending in my front wheel. Lets put it this way he was still cycling with a perfectly good pedal and I was next to the team car with a front wheel that looks more like an egg and 3 broken spokes and one broken hub! After a good change I had a new front wheel and was chasing furiously back through the cars to get on to the peleton. Big thanks to the bic 2000 team car who helped me massively to get back but it was all in vein as after my 40 min chased the peleton had split with front 25 riders going front the front and going the correct way and the rest of the peleton with me in it going the wrong way, after eventually turning around nobody could be bothered to chase as pretty much every team was represented so we rolled in 22mins down on the winner. The next day there was in 8km tt in the morning. I was hoping to do well even through I was on my road bike. In the end I finished 6th and Alastair 8th. But the talking point from the tt was someone called Johan le bon who has yet again got a mention. This time it was because he average 51kmph in 8km tt that was a constant drag up hill. Put it in to context 2-8 places ave speed was 48kmph. In the afternoon there was an 125km road stage. After a delay of 30 mins because le bon’s team decided to drive their team car under a low entrance breaking le bon custom bikes, lucky he had a spare frame in the boot. As we set off attacks went straight away with big break of about of about 15 went with break away specialist Alastair in it. The peleton let it go. But with 50km they started to up the pace then on the first big climb of the day I not really knowing it I started the counter attack after riding up it a tempo I managed to open up a gap then over the top the other big riders including team mate Nathan Edmondson came, we worked well and started to pull the group back. Then over the next couple of climbs the group started to whittled down leaving me, le bon, 3 Lanester team, and an Skoda octiville rider. At this point we were really giving it beans and in fact I was giving it to many, because as we approached a sharp corner on one of the descents I was going too fast, I locked the rear wheel and went straight into a concrete barrier at about 25mph and over the wall and landing about 5ft down in someone nice garden. Then the only best way to describe the next 1hr was just absolute confusion! It was quite a spectacular crash so I had a lot of people trying to help me but there was I sight problem, as I can only say yes and no in French and the people helping can only say yes or no in English but after a lot of confusion I was stretched to hospital. A couple of hours later I appeared with a cast and a sling on and told to rest for a week, leaving me feeling like wimp for going to hospital. After getting home and inspecting the bike I didn’t feel to wimpy as my steerer tube on my forks were snapped and the headset had exploded. The next few day I spent on the turbo hoping my arm would be ready for the weekend race. On Thursday I decided to take the cast off I go out on the bike. All was well till about 40mins where it was to painful to hold the bars. When I got home I just rested it but it slowly kept getting more swollen and more painful but I thought I would go to sleep and see what it like in the morning, but I just couldn’t as it was too painful, then when I started to shake I thought it might be best to go to the hospital. The only problems was it was now 2.30am and I had to get there somehow which meant I would need Alastair to translate for me and one of the coaches to drive us there. After waking up Alastair and maybe the most awkward phone call for Alastair to one of the coaches we were on are way. After lots of pain killings and some x rays it turned out that I had broken my scaffoid (the bone from the thumb to the arm) a common bone to break for a cyclist and has left me in a full length cast for 6 weeks.
Well I think that’s all the interesting info from the last couple of weeks, I don’t think there will be much to report in the coming weeks as Im not racing and will be based on the turbo in front of the TV. Quick well done to Alastair who won the king of the mountains at the tour of levensen. Also a big thanks to Phil Corley’s cycles who have shipped across a band new trek 6.9 so quickly.

a few race pic so far.

first of hopefully many...

Well I said when I got some spare time and got bored of the old pro cycling manger I would start to write a blog to give the few people who are interested in reading it a little bit of info about how things are going.
Well to be honest things have gone pretty well so far. I arrived in France on Saturday the 21st of Feb. and by the end of the weekend I had my first win of the season! The race itself was called prix d’ouveture and it was a local one. It was 88km round a 8km circuit and I must admit the race went pretty much as prefect as a race could go. After just 500m there was a breakaway with 3 of my team in it one being Alastair. This stayed away till the last lap after a couple of the bigger teams eventually decided to pull it back. By the time I caught the break there were only about 15riders left and as soon as I caught the break I attacked with 5km to go. I managed to hold onto the lead till the end to win by about 15sec. Good times!!!
The week following I got to meet the final house mate for the year Nathan Edmondson, a first year senior who rode for Glendene the previous year. The rest of the week was basically getting lost when going out on the bike and then trying to find my way home. Then in the afternoon walking around the town in the afternoon trying to find out where all the café and food shops were. I then had my second race of the year on the weekend. This time its was a much bigger race. It was called plantel-plantel and it was a 135km race with about 160riders in. When the race started I had a sense of deju vu. The reason for this was again the famous Brittany weather was doing its best to annoy me by raining same as last week and also the race started with a very early break and guest who was in it… yep Alastair had managed again to get it the right break! This time tho it was my team making the race hard behind and eventually splitting the peleton into pieces by the 80km mark. Now we had the break in sight we pulled them in easily. Once we caught them counter attacks started going straight away. One of the counter attacks was by a certain Johan le Bon. Now most cyclist in Europe have heard of Johan le Bon and this is because he was Jr World, European and national champion last year. I was one of these people who had heard of Johan, that’s all very well and good but I didn’t have a clue what he looked like, so off he went on his own chasing down the last survivor of the breakaway, with me thinking that guy will never be able to stay away for another 40km but of course he did and he pulled round the last breakaway guy with him. So that left me fighting for the last place on the podium. After many attacks on the finishing circuit it ended up with a group of about 10 of us sprinting for 3rd . Now I still don’t really know how and where I found a sprint like I did but I managed to get on the wheel of Cedric Herve (yes Cedric Herve who was a pro last year with agritubel!) and I flew pasted him to take to the sprint and to get on the podium for the second time in a week. Good times. Again I was joined my Alastair on the podium as he has now become my official translator as my French is still shocking!!!
After what had been a very good first week it got better in the second week. It started off with me cutting another picture out of the newspaper and sticking it to our ever increasing media wall in our house. Then the next day while everyone was in their rooms getting ready for a ride, we came back into the kitchen and there was a huge posh looking cake sitting in the middle of the table! There was no sign of who it was from or where it came from, but that certainly didn’t bother us as we now had 2 days of dessert sorted! We later found out that the owner of our house had given it to us. Not bad really considering that most land lords are normally fairly harsh. Then a couple of days later we were taken around a local bakery where the owner of the house works. After a very interesting tour around the bakery we were all hoping for maybe a free sample or something like that, but we didn’t really think that we would actually get anything, but how wrong were we. We eventually came away with 3 small quiche’s, 3 delicious pizza breads, 2 pizza’s, a massive baguette and to finish it off a very posh looking box of chocolates! Then to top of the week we had an interview with the west of France paper just wanting to know a little bit about us! Another nice bit to add to our media wall.
But as with all good things it didn’t last for ever. I had my 3rd and biggest race yet. The race was called Manche Atlantique and it is the biggest classic race and Brittany. The race was certainly an eventful one, the ridicules crosswinds made some fairly interesting moments as I nearly fell of twice, but it also caused the race to split up everywhere with people just not strong enough to hold onto the wheels in front. I fell victim to this a couple of times. After chasing back on in a group one of the times with 3 Russian national squad riders driving it on on the front they suddenly decided to take us the wrong way and off course down a small road, foolishly I followed for some reason. With everyone a bit confused we eventually turned round and got back into the cars and caught up to the peleton. When the race finally did spilt due to the crosswinds I found my self in the leading group of riders with one of my French team mates and we both stayed with it to the 7 finishing laps. When we got to the finishing laps we were greeted by thousands of fans cheering us on up the steep finishing climb. The only problem was as soon as we got there the pro teams got to the front and split the field to pieces with me near the back. I did myself a nice group to get in tho. (with a few pro riders in and my old friend from last weekend Cedric Herve.) We kept the pace high and I rolled in to finish 36th with Besson Chaussures-Sojasun (Jimmy Casper’s new team) taking the first 3 places.
Since then not much has happened really. I have been the first one to become ill with the flu and had the week off missing the 2 races on the weekend.
So hopefully next time I manage to post something I will have some better or more interesting news!