La Rallye Malmaison

I rode 110km on Saturday with the expats, it was quite hard, as we had some new guys so I was going for it on the hills, but I still wanted to ride this randonnée on Sunday. I couldn’t persuade any of the others to come along. It’s a bit annoying, they consider randos beneath them, just because old guys on bikes with mudguards and (god forbid) women ride them. They don’t seem to get it, that you ride them as fast as you want to. You get the route all mapped out for you, you get a snack on the way and a snack at the finish, and it’s a grand day out.

Anyway, I got up dead early (again), to ride up the hill to the start to meet Neil (who is the best expat rider I know, and thinks randos are great when he isn’t racing, so I know he has the right attitude). He was fairly late, and arrived with a tale of snapping his chain right outside his house and having to nip back for his spare back (as you do). It was a very popular ride, and all the route maps were gone, but no problem we would just follow the arrows.

We set off, saw an arrow and rode through the forest. We had agreed to ride the 75 (km) as I was knackered from the day before and it would be another 100+ day ride for me anyway. I knew the first of 2 stops would be at 25km so I felt good as we belted along, and even got in with a couple of riders from the Croissy club. Then they stopped at a ravataillement, but when we asked, they said it was for the randonnée de Marly (not our rando), not to worry, we pressed on, following the arrows. We were sure to hit Thoiry and our stop in a minute. 30 gone, no stop, 35km no stop, 40km no stop. And Neil says to me, “we are nowhere near Thoiry”. We then realised right from the start we had been following the wrong arrows! Fortunately, Neil knows these very pleasant, green and damn hilly parts and said he would find our way to Thoiry. Which he duly did about another 12km later.

We tucked in to our overdue cake and chocolate! It had been a fine ride to areas I had never seen before, even if it wasn’t the right way. The stop was the same stop for 50km, so we decided to head back from here. We got in a nice group of riders, and went up the stupidly steep climb at Mareil instead of Maule hill. Neil was easily first, I was 3rd up it, not bad on a tired set of legs. I got dropped to 4th a bit later on the second part of the climb, but we all came back together for the ride back to the start.

We had a good chat with these guys we had ridden the last part with, they worked for Citroën (Neil works for Peugeot), and they hoped to see us again on a rando. It would be good for my other expat friends to see that randos are for everyone. I rode home pretty tired to complete an 103km ride and a 215km weekend!

Cyclauto 78 – Gold or……. BUST!!!!

The last words I said to my wife when I left the house were, “it’s going to be a disaster”. And so it proved. I could give you reasons why, but to say it was all because my mother came to stay would sound a bit lame, but then you’ve never had my mother to stay.

I had a goodish start position, and when the flag went down I stayed with everyone in the first 5km to the first climb, and I made a good effort to just about be at the back of the lead group of 100 riders when we crested the hill. But God, the pace was hard, I hung on and hung, down to the back on the climbs, moving up a little when I could. An hour gone, and I was hanging in there, only another 3.5 hours to hang on for a gold. An hour and a half and it’s a real fast section and I am dying, there are two riders behind me, then one, then I am the last, the very last. I claw back up, get in, ride a little, try to eat something. What a mistake, my mouths full of food and I can’t breathe, bang! Shot out the back. 10 metres away from the last wheel. Shit, shit, shit – it’s all over.

100km still to go and now I am on my own.

I rode alone for a good 20 minutes waiting for the next group, and when they caught up I thought well at least they aren’t so fast. Well until we reached the first hill and Bang! Shot out the back, I’m gone. Fucking hell, this is terrible. That’s it.

I climb off after just 75km tear up my number and hide until everyone’s gone past. Then ride home, well at least the GPS is useful now, I can’t get lost. I am so angry, that was it, Gold award or bust, and hey it was bust. I actually found my way back to the route for the closing parts of the race. And I find the last ravataillement, where I sheepishly get out my torn number and ask if I could have a glass of coke and a slice of cake! They are very sympathetic, and I feel a whole lot better. I get to the finish (having ridden 115km instead of 165km) a good half hour before the leaders arrive, by which time it is pelting down with rain, so at least I missed all that. But it sure was embarrassing, I’ve never packed up before. Still I rode with the leaders for 90 minutes didn’t I? That’s got to be worth something.

Croissy rando

The weekend before last was the Croissy Sur Seine randonnée. Admittedly, you might think this a come down after a Cyclosportif like the 1000 Bosses, but randos are just for enjoyment and a generally easy ride. And seeing as the Croissy rando is my local I haven’t got an excuse. I dragged myself out of bed at 6.30am, met Neil at 7 and cycled all of 400m to the Croissy clubs clubhouse and signed on. It was a damn windy day, so even if we had at one time considered riding the 150km rando, we decided it would just be the 100 today.

For a rando it went a damn hilly way at the start, up the Bandido legendary Stray Cat Hill, a short hill the maxs out at 14%. Neil as usual went dancing off, being such a show-off, and this guy we had picked up on the way (in a cycling sense) set off in hot pursuit. He got 3/4 of the way up, then blew up completely, and I eventually caught him just as we crested the hill. He stayed with us for a while longer, until we eventually dropped him on a windy section about a 1/3 of the way round. The route took us into the Vexin, before the half way stop where we scoffed as much cake, chocolate and minty drink as we reasonably could. In fact this far it had been a very familiar route to me as it was one my own club often take.

If I was familiar with the route, the route back was even more so, we actually rode past Neil’s house! And then back the usual way we take to my house, past the radar station across to St.Gemme, through the forest and back through Marly instead of L’etang la Ville. So much for seeing new places on a rando. We got a good soaking on the way back for 15 minutes too.

We got back to the clubhouse and started chatting to a guy in French. At which point he says to us in English, “that’s not a French accent”. To which we admitted we were English as was he. He said where was I from and when I said “Southport”, he said he was as well! Small world. OK, Southport is not the greatest town in the world, but it was nice to meet a fellow Sandgrounder so far from home. He was impressed as we were the first back from the rando, we had done the short route after all, but he still proudly told his fellow clubmates that les Brittaniques sont les premiéres arrivants!

La 77 Part 2

Click on the the map for the Google Earth path of the ride.

The sun really came out for the second part of the ride, and I found myself in quite a good group of about 15-20. Where I could, I avoided doing work on the front, at least during this third quarter of the ride. I felt a bit bad when I easily went up the hills, but not that bad. We were picking off riders all the time, and at one point we managed to take the majority of quite a reasonable peloton. I really thought I might even be on for a gold award (within 10% of the first 3 riders home in your age category) if not to beat 4 hours. The hills meant we only rode about 34km in the third hour, but still it was quick.

I felt I could let it go a little in the last quarter and I started taking my turns on the front as we pushed on, and up and down a few short sharp climbs. Suddenly I reckoned on only about 15km to go, I wasn’t going to beat 4 hours but surely a good placing. We still had a motorcycle outrider in front of us, keeping traffic out of the way and I felt really high, thinking they were closing the roads for me, ordinary me in an ordinary bike race, yet still important enough to shoe the traffic out of my way. It was a great feeling. I felt stronger than ever before at the end of a cyclosportif, usually in the past at some point or other I think why am I doing this? Is it worth the pain? But the pain wasn’t there today, I felt I could even ride another 50km if I had wanted to! Round a corner and one of the traffic monitors shouted to us just 8km to go, and so our group pushed on a bit harder. Soon we were on what turned out to be almost the last straight by the river, 3 guys from our group jumped off the front, and wow, I could follow them. We turned the corner and went up a very short sharp climb from the river. I took them all on that little climb, rounded the corner at the top and into the finishing straight. I changed up a gear for the final sprint and disaster! My chain jumped off the big ring. I was freewheeling with the finish line in sight! I had to stop flick it back on, while 2 of the 3 guys I had just passed roared past. I only lost 20 seconds, but it was a bit annoying. Across the line at 4hrs 6minutes 25seconds.

An average speed of an incredible 35.33km/h for 145.1km. But would it be enough for a gold award?

Well sadly not. Somehow or other I still only finished 457th out of  1069 finishers. And 92nd out of 201 in my class (age 40-45). I was a bit disappointed with that, but I guess there are only so many placings you can gain when you start so far back at the start and don’t go absolutely crazy at the start. I would have had to have finished in 3hrs 57minutes to get gold! Very few people passed me during the day, and I didn’t ever go over the limit effort wise. An average heart rate of 161 for the day, but a maximum of only 184, which is 12 beats below my maximum. Good work and good tactics. The perfect tune-up for the next race, which is one that matters, the Scott 1000 Bosses at the end of the month.

Finally, a word for my expat friend Jochem who was riding with me. I never saw him all day. He finally rolled in at 4hrs 53minutes and looked completely wasted. He told me he had me in sight for the first 30km and then punctured and watched as nearly everyone raced past as he fixed it. He then had to ride the race on his own or in small, slow groups! Poor guy. When you puncture that early in a race this fast, it’s all over, you might as well pack your bags and go home.

La 77 part 1

At last the first event of the season. A cyclosportif in French department 77, Seine et Marne, hence the name La 77. It is about as “easy” as they come, a very flat 145km in and around the French town of Melun. The race has been criticised in the past for having quite poor roads and not really suited to the onslaught of 1300 cyclists belting down them at up to 50kmh, so for this year they had completely revamped the course, of which an amazing 60% was different to last year. I had never ridden it before so it made little difference to me, I just hoped the weather would be kind.

I wasn’t disappointed! It was damn chilly early in the morning, but with temperatures set to rise into the teens during the day I made the decision to go with shorts and long sleeve jersey, whereas Jochem, my German expat friend from the Bandidos went for a more conservative longs and multi layers! We got to the start nice and early, having left Paris at 6.30am, arriving in Melun around 7.45. If we hadn’t messed around for a long time we might have got ourselves a decent spot on the ligne depart, but what with one thing and another, Jochem fiddling with his speedo and me waiting in the long queue for the loos we didn’t line up until 8.35 and ended up at least 2/3rds back by the time everyone was in place for a 9am start.

So we hung around and froze for 25 minutes before it was announced, “C’est partie!!!!”, and then we hung around another couple of minutes waiting for the queue to clear, and then we were off, round the corner and hitting 40km/h. The start wasn’t quite as crazy as others I have been in, mainly due to the straight roads, but the roundabouts are always dangerous and at about the 2nd or 3rd there was mayhem. Fortunately no-one came off, but there was a car stranded just at the exit to the roundabout, somehow the lady had managed to sneak onto the course at the last moment, she sat there in terror as 1265 cyclists  raced past her, some jumping the pavement to get through! Back onto the straight roads and its pedals to the metal as I tried to give as much as could for the first 20 minutes or so to see how many places I could make-up. The front 200 or so are long gone, but you always have a chance of catching up in those first few minutes. I felt good, my heart rate was up to 180 at times, but I was keeping a lid on it and picking off as many places as I could. I saw a couple of crashes, one quite bad when a cyclist went over and another went piling straight into him. That unmistakable noise of bike parts smashing into each other. It’s so dangerous you just have to keep your line and hope no-one clips you.

The first hour continued much the same, rattling along in a huge group led my motorcycle outrides, over 40km/h quite frequently, trying to stay in a good slipstream. I looked at my speedo after an hour and we had ridden 38 kilometres. The scenery was whizzing by, but it was for the most part pleasant woodland, not that I could appreciate it. Our group split at a roundabout and stupidly I was too far back, and so there and then I lost about 100 places, I could have kicked myself but I was supposed to be using this event for training and not getting carried away so tant pis as they say round here.

I felt really good, my heart rate was down to the 150s and 160s for the most part now and I was cruising. I even managed to eat an energy bar after an hour and an hour and a half, I was going to make the mistake I made in the last event when I really hit the bottom through not eating.

The few hills that arrive are only in the second half of the race, and I was quite happy for them to come along. A chance for me to see the big guys struggle a bit. Of course as soon as they did come the peloton completely splintered and got strung out, and somehow I ended up in quite a slow group. I let it go for 10 or 15 minutes, watching 1,2,3 and then a 4th guy fire himself off the front to try and make something of it. When the 4th guy went I went too. And in so doing managed to get another guy to come with us, and before long we had a nice little group of about 8 going at a decent pace again. The second hour passed and we had covered another 36km. Half way already, could I beat 4hours?

to be continued……