Training camp and first few races

After a good first few days in Charvieu, it was time for the 2 week training camp in the south of France near Aix en Province, between Nice and Marseille. I was first introduced to some of the riders, of which some spoke very good English which for me was re-assuring. I only knew was contacted about the team at the airport on my way home from Tenerife in December, so I’ve really only had a month to learn as much French as possible, especially as all I did at school was German and Latin for GCSE. Duolingo has meant I can have basic conversations, but since I’ve been here, I’ve picked up many phrases and French Euphemisms. On the way down France, the temperature warmed up substantially and by the time we were close to Aix it was a nice 13 degrees or so. The plan was to arrive at the massive house (in the middle of a vineyard) and do an easy 1-2 hour spin, but sometimes things don’t always work out the way they were planned. 6km or so from the house, about 1km from the motorway turn off, Kaboom, the tyre shredded and we slowly stopped in a layby beside the motorway. Luckily we were towed to the nearest garage and had our wheel changed and we were on our way. We arrived, went out on the bikes, not realising the sun was setting fairly quickly and that the end of the ride would be pretty dark with only one of us having lights. Good fun.

Day 2 was a 5hrs 20 min endurance ride with 2 tests. A 4 minute after an hour and a 20 minute test after 3. As I was on the Trek and was getting my Willier soon, I didn’t want to put my new stages power meter on, so therefore borrowed one of the team’s powertap rear wheels. However; it couldn’t get it to connect. On my Garmin I connected to everyone’s power meters and spent the first hour going through them all and trying to guess if it was the right one comparing the power on the screen with how many watts I thought my legs were producing. Either way, none of the connected power meters were the right one, so just before my test I changed my wheel, managed to get it connected and bam, straight into a 4 minute test, hitting a new PB. The 20 minute test was just as grim. I went off just below what power I knew I could hold and then started to ramp it up after 5 minutes: however, after 12 minutes I cracked. Heart rate at 192 and legs pedalling squares. From what I’ve heard from other people, the power-tap under reads by around 20-25 watts thus meaning I was way above my threshold for the first 5 minutes and when I ramped it up, I was building up a lot of lactic. Oh well, it the effort that counts, you never do a smooth 20 minute effort in a race anyway unless you are Bradley Wiggins. Most of the time you have to do micro intervals to get onto wheels, kick out of corners or get round riders who are fading and losing the wheel in front. The day after this we did a 6 hour ride (190km) which ended up being a 30 minute race up a Col followed by a bit of chain gang home. And yes, it was a smooth chain gang, unlike the one in Spain I did with my old team which turned into everyone trying to ride as hard as they could on the front.

Day 4 was an efforts day, Team time trial training in the morning followed by 1 vs 1 sprints and lead-outs in the afternoon before an easy café spin. Here is the point where I make my confession that I was not a proper cyclist before now, because I never drank coffee. In British cycling the coffee culture is extreme to put it lightly and not having coffee at the café was “odd” to some. But now ive had a cappuccino, there’s no going back. Still not keen on the taste of coffee, but a cappuccino is alright really. One thing I do miss about Britain is the proper café stops, where you have a scone (cream on the bottom, Jam on top – sorry Cornish viewers), or even just a slice of cake. I was an avid eater of flapjack and chocolate digestives at home but I’ve now managed 2 weeks without them, living off olives, baguettes, pasta, rice and strawberry jam.

Now for the racing. Race 1 – Tour du centre Var, 114km. Category 1,2,3 and J (J being under 21s).  A bit of background first. Category 1 is the highest ranking of amateur in France, so technically these kinds of races are like British Nat B’s, but instead of having 60-100riders, there’s 180-200. Elite nationals are where any category of rider can race, but also pros can race therefore many Pro- continental teams race these.  Arguably, this makes French amateur racing the hardest amateur racing in the world, thus why many brits come here to race. The first hour of the race was full gas, as it was my first race the effort hit me hard, but I hung in. After an hour, a big break got away and we had a team rider in it, who finished 7th. The rest of the team told me to keep safe ready for the coming days, so I rolled in 80th. Day 2 was the start of 4 stages of the Tour de Haut Var. 4 separate races under one overall race name. This day was 128km, and a bit lumpier and I seemed to be climbing well, once again coming in the pack in 50th with a team mate 6th.  I then had an easy day, allowing other riders to race before doing stage 3, which have a couple of 6 minute climbs and some fast descents. I got into some early breaks but nothing stuck, but for me technically that was my team objective, and then I was told to protect 2 riders for the climb with 20km to go. Amazingly I still had to legs to climb very well making the front group before my teammate (we call him PV) got into the break, finishing 8th. I finished 36th, 3rd second cat rider. Being able to have the legs on the climbs fills me with confidence for the coming months and the team was happy with my performance that day. The next day I had no legs. No explanations really, just my legs felt like they’d had enough, so I pulled out after 70km. Team mate 3rd so still a good day. My DS said its nothing to worry about, I’m still young, it’s still only February and after a 505 mile week, there is a lot of fatigue in my legs. I’m now trying to fight off a cold by taking it easy for a few days before my first elite national at the weekend. 120km, with 8 times of a 15km circuit, with a 4km climb every lap. Overall the team has a good week. 1 x 2nd place, 2 x 3rd place, 6th, 7th and an 8th.