No racing tonight as Palace was too wet. I've been down there once (last year) after rainfall and fully appreciated the dangers of riding round the course when the surface was slippery - the blind corner of death was just that! I nearly lost it pootling round at 10mph before going home.
So I jumped on the turbo instead - some long intervals in the mid-L2 zone (intervals done at 250W - not too taxing, but enough to feel like a good workout). Anyhow, this got me to reflect on La Marmotte (you have plenty of time to think during turbo sessions) which I am taking part in for the second time, on July 4th this year. Specifically reflecting on how I need to get some longer rides in over the next two months. I'm stronger than last year, but have done fewer long rides, so really I'm stronger over 2hrs and have no idea how I will feel after 9hrs+ in the mountains. Well, not strictly true, I can remember how I felt last year and assume this year will be similar. Although I will finish this year, even if it means ingesting a kilo of salt to avoid the cramps.
I've pasted my write-up of last year's event below to give anyone doing the event a flavour of my first-time reaction. Enjoy!
Alpe d'Huez 2008
Bang! Another spasm of cramp pulsates through both my legs, bringing tears to my eyes for the umpteenth time today. I am barely able to unclip this time before wobbling to a stop and lurching sideways off the bike. Quick, lay the bike down, grab the metal safety barrier and stretch, stretch, stretch. Slowly the pain subsides again and I have a chance to look around. Next to me a man curled up with his head between his knees is being sick. Just up the road another rider is stretched out, eyes closed, barely breathing, head in the shade, body and legs lying straight out across the road. Ashen faces everywhere, absolute silence, vacant stares and trembling bodies. Welcome to the world of the wounded and cramping, the sick and despondent, the demoralised and the physically exhausted. The final kilometres of La Marmotte.
I'm sitting at hairpin six, 400 metres below the town of Alpe d'Huez and the finish line. There are only 4 kilometres to go. That's it. After 170 kilometres how hard can another 4 kilometres be? I sling my heavy, heavy legs back onto the bike and push on, by now reduced to a crawl. I can walk faster than this. In fact, between hairpins 19 and 18, and again between 13 and 12 I did walk faster than this, raising blisters immediately on both heels in the heat. What a contrast to the start of the day, the glorious screaming descent of the Alpe at 7am down to the start line at Bourg d'Oisans .
Earlier that day...
With high hopes and a fair bit of nervous anticipation my clubmate and I wait to cross the start line at 7:40am. We have agreed to cycle together to the base of the first climb, where we will undoubtedly part company for the rest of the day. My clubmate is lighter, younger, fitter and a far better climber than me - he's aiming for a gold time in his age category. I'm aiming to finish first and foremost - I've trained pretty hard for this and, whilst I have a slight hope of a silver category finish, I'm not a good climber. To get silver means 10hrs 35mins in the saddle, rolling into Alpe d'Huez just after 6:30pm. And of course it may well take a lot longer than that.
By 8 o'clock we finally get moving with a fast-paced bunch towards the first climb of the day, the Col du Glandon. The sun is slowly hitting the valley floor and pulling the temperature up, there is excited chatter from all around and sporadic applause from the sides of the road. In short, everything feels great.
Slowly the gradient starts to ramp up, and we're into the first climb. My legs are feeling good, I'm spinning away, drinking plenty of fluids. My HRM confirms what I can feel - I'm riding well within my limits and I'm making good progress. Some others seem to be suffering already, heads nodding, sweat dripping off noses, mouths hanging open. One rider goes onto completely the wrong side of the road (luckily traffic is virtually non-existent) and very slowly swerves into the rockface, falling sideways off his bike. He's up quickly and says he's OK, but looking at his expression he seems a sure bet to abandon at some stage before the end.
The top of the Glandon seems to arrive quickly - wow, the first climb of La Marmotte and I've actually enjoyed it! A quick refill of the bottles, an energy bar and a couple of orange segments and I'm off down the other side. The first few kilometres are a bit nerve-racking, with a combination of narrow roads, many riders and sharp hairpins meaning there is no opportunity to relax. Whoops, there goes a rider off the hairpin and into the pastures - luckily he's OK and probably just misjudged his speed a little.
The descent ends all too soon, and there's a long and rather boring slog along the valley floor to the base of the next climb, the Col du Telegraphe. Large groups form, giving everyone the chance to draft and take more fluid and food on board. The start of the climb comes as a relief at first - it's nice to get off the main road and away from the traffic. I try not to focus on the marker boards that count down the distance to the summit and instead keep spinning, keep the heart rate steady and stay with riders going a similar pace to me. I stop once on the ascent for a couple of minutes, to slowly sip more fluids and watch some of the riders. After all I'm not racing and it's interesting to see all the bikes, the different club kits, the weird and varied climbing styles and listen to the snatches of conversation as groups go past - the Dutch and Belgians seem to make up at least half the field. Oh well, enough relaxing, onwards and upwards. Towards the top I experience quite a severe cramping in my left hamstring and calf, but 30 seconds out of the saddle seems to alleviate it enough to carry on. It is a little worrying though, as I don't normally cramp much. I hope it holds off for the Galibier, which everyone tells me is a brute of a climb.
The descent off the Telegraphe to the start of the Col du Galibier really is short and is over all too briefly. I know there is a food stop in Valloire where I intend to have a break for at least 10 minutes and take on some more real food. That's only about a kilometre away, but it is all uphill and I suddenly realise how the minimal recovery time between the two climbs is going to make things very difficult. Ever so slowly I roll into the feed station and join the scrum for food and water. I love the food they have on offer - baguettes ripped into chunks with salami and liver sausage, dried fruits, huge quarters of tomato - and have to make a concerted effort not to overeat. The savoury tastes are such a welcome relief after all the sweet energy snacks I've been carrying. Right, a quick sit down, more fluids, shove a few bits of dried fruit into the jersey pocket and I'm off to see what the Galibier has to offer.
Bloody hell! Ten minutes into the climb and I'm suffering. My legs are still quite heavy from the Telegraphe, and I've made the mistake of looking upwards towards the summit. It's endless and there's no perceptible slackening of the gradient - and everyone has told me that the final few kilometres are the real killer at the end of the climb. Right, better get on with it then. Focus on the road ahead - not too far, just the next few hundred metres. Definitely don't look too far up the mountain at the slowly-moving string of riders winding endlessly hundreds of metres above.
Another ten painful minutes go by before the cramp returns with a vengeance. Getting out of the saddle doesn't stop it now, and each time it hits I have to climb off the bike and stretch at the side of the road. It is really frustrating and slows me down terribly (and let's not forget, I was never going to be fast anyway). The pattern seems to be three or four minutes of climbing, attack of cramp, off the bike and stretch, back on the bike, another few minutes of climbing, etc. Oh, this is bad, worse that I ever imagined. After about 45 minutes I do what I vowed I would try to avoid - I start to walk. Now the pattern is three minutes cycling, attack of cramp, off the bike, stretch, walk for two minutes to keep progress up the mountain, back on the bike, climb, cramp, etc. The sun goes behind the clouds and a few spots of rain hit my shades - oh no, I really don't want to do the longest descent in the rain! I'm questioning my staying power now, questioning my will to finish, questioning my motives.
Near the top I stop at a cafe for an Orangina, which must have some sort of magical properties, for I am able to cycle (very slowly) to the summit without cramping again. The final few kilometres are as hard as everyone has said, just solid, hard climbing, very steep, with everyone moving so slowly in absolute silence.
But it is worth the effort just for the descent. It seems endless, swooping down the side of the mountain. I take great comfort in watching the distance clock up with minimal effort, and start to feel a little more optimistic about finishing. One more climb. A killer of a climb, but only one more. One more. Twenty-one hairpins. Even with a rest every hairpin, even with walking, I'm going to get up that climb. I am going to finish.
Of course it's easy to have all these thoughts on the descent. All too soon I'm back at Bourg d'Oisans and, having refilled the bottles, I'm heading along the road towards a solid wall of rock. Accelerate a little, round to the left and boom! The road rears up sharply and I'm back to the suffering again. Push on the pedals. I can't spin now. I can't get my heart rate anywhere near max - my legs are just too heavy. All I can do is grind slowly up the road along with hundreds of others and hope that the cramp doesn't return. But oh, here it comes, as though it's been waiting in my legs until I'm at my weakest. It's stronger than I am now, and hitting me between every hairpin, slowing my overall progress to an absolute crawl. Upwards I go, counting down the turns, the agony getting worse as the numbers on the hairpins descend.
The end...
I'm sitting at hairpin six, 400 metres below the town of Alpe d'Huez and the finish line. There are only 4 kilometres to go. That's it. After 170 kilometres how hard can another 4 kilometres be? But I'm finished. The last few attacks of cramp had me crying out. I can't even lift my leg over the bike without cramping. My feet feel like they're on fire and I can barely hobble along the road. I'm not going to be able to make the final four kilometres. Who am I kidding, I'm not going to be able to make another 40 metres. The slow realisation hits me - my day is over. I call my clubmate, who finished several hours ago, to come and pick me up in the car. My head hangs low as I load my bike in the back of the car...
It has taken me 11hrs 10 minutes to get within 4 kilometres of the end, having done approximately 4,600 metres of climbing. Would I do this again? I'm not sure, but the overwhelming feeling I get in the car on the way up the final five hairpins is that there may be a return trip...
Another race, another Nul Point. Particularly frustrating because I felt strong throughout the Surrey League circuit race at Dunsfold and should have done better. As usual there were several dodgy moments, a fair bit of swearing and shouting and a lot of moaning in the bunch. A standard 3rds race then.
The first lap was notable only for my potential early exit from the race due to asphyxiation. Passing one of the parked lorries, a trailing length of safety tape (about 5 metres long) blew up in the breeze and around my neck, breaking away from the lorry and leaving me wearing a very long, plastic red and white striped scarf! One end was wrapped around my bars, the other dangled dangerously close to my front wheel. I must have looked ridiculous as I flapped around in the wind trying to get the bloody thing unravelled from my neck without letting the loose end get caught in the spinning spokes. Phew, a potential Darwin Award moment avoided!
I spent some time on the front (half-killing myself into the fierce wind), some time near the back, plenty of time in the centre of the pack sheltering from the savage wind on the back straight, bridged across to a small break, practiced moving around in the pack and generally tried to keep my interest up. Dunsfold is a pretty dull circuit - pan-flat, wide, long (3 miles) and exposed. Any breaks are visible a very long way ahead, giving the bunch plenty to aim for. There was no chance of a break working well today - the wind was so strong that, as one rider groaned, it felt like cycling into a wall. Right at the end a break managed to stay away - just, only outdistancing the sprinting bunch by a few metres - and a fellow London Dynamo got his first points at 3rd Cat by coming in second. Great result, he rode well and managed to get the good positions that I should have been aiming for. Yours truly came in about 25th or so, very disappointed (edit: no, I was 32nd - even worse). More training required, combined with more racing 'nouse'. The weather doesn't look great for Palace this Tuesday (drizzle, probably meaning a cancelled race due to slippery conditions on the blind corner) so I really have to re-acquaint myself with the turbo and work on sustainable power...still searching for that elusive classy breakaway!
So, the first Crystal Palace of the season. A useful point at which to reflect on the progress a year makes.
Palace '08 - Last year was my first of racing and, at 38, I came to it fairly late, with moderately good fitness and a fair bit of enthusiasm. Went from 4th Cat to 3rd Cat after I forget how many races, but more than I thought it would take. I remember planning to move to 3rd Cat by the beginning of June, but got there at the beginning of May instead, so it probably took about 10 races. Most of these were at Hillingdon, which on reflection is an easier circuit for a 4th or 3rds race. Anyhow, once I moved up to 3rd I decided to give Palace a go. A clubmate had gone and described it as:
Start, sprint, 180 degree corner, sprint, corner, sprint, scary fast blind bend, sprint, off-camber corner (watch the inside pedal), uphill incline, ow, ow, ow, corner, sprint. Repeat between 25 and 30 times.
Wow what a difference from Hillingdon. Narrow, bendy, swooping, picturesque, bumpy, exhilarating, exhausting, painful. I was dropped in my first race there on Lap 1, struggled around on my own for 3 laps, then started to catch the other riders who were regularly shelled out the back of the bunch, ending up having a decent training ride.
Palace '09 - Lost contact with the bunch on the second lap. I was sitting too far back and could see the gap appearing about 10 riders ahead. The gap stretched a bit and that was it - about 15 of us were out of the main bunch. We carried on at a fair pace, picking up a few other dropped riders, and that was it - end of race, nothing to sprint for. Better than last year I guess, and nice to get back to a circuit where you corner with your head in a bush! I felt the same after lap 2 as I did after lap 15 as well, so my recovery is quickening. It's a funny place, Palace, you never know really how you are doing, how many riders are ahead, how may have dropped off and gone home, how often you have been lapped/lapped others, how long you will have to wait to get your licence back afterwards. Organised chaos really, but good fun. I'll definitely be back this season.
Back to racing after a two week break. Back to Hillingdon, a circuit I have a bit of experience with. I must have raced there about 20 times now, and have never particularly enjoyed it - the races are always twitchy, there is inevitably a strong wind gusting around at least half of the circuit and the ride out there is far from pleasant (busy roads, manic driving around Southall, the smell of chips and kebabs to make you question the sense of racing as opposed to gastromomic pleasures).
Anyhow, a mixture of early season excitement, good weather (doesn't seem to happen often at the moment) and a 3rd/4th Cat mix meant a large field had turned up - I think over 70 riders. There were about 10 Dynamos, so surely we would have some sort of plan? Right, we did, the usual plan of riding for ourselves and seeing what happened!
There were a few unsuccessful breakaway attempts, one of which I participated in (probably the shortest-lived attempt of about three-quarters of a lap). The strong wind down the finishing straight made it tough for everyone, and the constant slowing as the bunch came round the final corner meant there was plenty of brake squeal and commentary. It always makes me laugh - same point on every lap and the bunch slow, but still there are comments along the lines of "Oh come on" and "Keep the speed up". Usually these comments are from riders who don't risk a turn on the front into the wind. About halfway through I had a bit of a wobble whilst trying to put my bottle back in the cage and nearly steered into a Hillingdon rider in yellow. Whoops, very bad riding on my part, for which I apologised. A beginner's mistake that I haven't made for a while - the bottle fumble, that is, not the apology! After all, I'm a polite rider...
Overall the race was pretty well behaved, but the final few laps were the usual nervous bunfight for places, with certain riders taking silly risks to try to get a couple of places up the bunch. I wasn't well positioned with one lap to go - midway back in the bunch and I've learnt before that unless you are in about the top 15 by the final corner there is little point in contesting the sprint, so I sat up and was content to just roll across the line near the back of the bunch. Oh well, a useful training ride, averaging 24.5mph which, considering the strong wind, wasn't too bad. Onwards and upwards (hopefully).
It's the Amstel Gold Race tomorrow - I'll be watching with interest as they sprint up the Cauberg (remembering my struggling up it only a few days ago). I'd love Davide Rebellin to win again and strike a blow for the older riders, but Cunego seems to be the rampant favourite. We'll see tomorrow.
What a great Easter - too much chocolate, too much fried food, plenty of cycling! I went over to Limburg in Holland with the family to visit my mother-in-law in Ulestraten, a small village just outside Maastricht, right in the very south of the country. I've been there many times before but this is the first time I have been organised enough to take the bike with me.
Travelling out there was as hassle-free as usual - a couple of hours to get from London onto the Eurotunnel train at Folkestone, a short ride under The Channel, then just over 3hrs driving to Maastricht. We took a quick stop midway to fuel up on coffee (and the kids on sweets) at the petrol station near Brussels, which had a line of seven coffee vending machines. Coffee is a major part of life in Belgium! I'd borrowed a Thule Outrider 531 roof bike rack from a clubmate - highly recommended so long as you have room in the car for the front wheel (the bike is fork-mounted to the lockable rack and is really secure). We probably could have just crammed the bike in the boot, but we wouldn't have had room for the two boxes of wine that we brought back!
The only tricky part of the journey was dealing with the Belgian motorway loons. They drive about 3ft off your rear bumper when you're in the fast lane, even though you're a) going very fast already, b) passing a line of slow-moving lorries on the inside lane and c) leaving a decent (read: mimimum that feels safe) amount of room to the car in front. I think they might actually be drafting to save fuel. Nothing like flicking on the rear foglights for a second to see the shocked looks in the rear view mirror! I know I shouldn't, but their driving always winds me up. It's really odd that it always seems confined to the Belgian roads too - as soon as you get onto the French, German or Dutch motorway systems the phenomenon disappears.
Enough about the Belgians though. The cycling in Dutch Limburg is just superb and I ended up doing a solid 2hr ride each day, averaging 200-210W per ride. Good base miles stuff, with a few Level 3 hard efforts thrown in to keep things interesting. I covered quite a lot of the Amstel Gold Race route which takes place this weekend. The town of Valkenburg (where the race ends) is something of a mecca for cyclists in the region, featuring the Cauberg climb at a steady 12%. It's only a short climb but puts paid to the general view that Holland is flat. The south in particular has many short, sharpish climbs to test the legs. Nothing like the Surrey Hills that I'm used to, but still handy for training.
It was the holiday weekend, so obviously there were lots of people around, but I never expected to see quite so many cyclists. On Saturday morning there were literally thousands of them, mostly in massive groups of 20-40 riders. Surprisingly miserable buggers too! I only spoke to one other rider, who's English was poor (by Dutch standards - meaning that he wasn't completely fluent - and considerably better than my garbled, gutteral attempts at Dutch). Nearly everyone else ignored me. Now I know that when a big group of club riders go past the other way you are unlikely to get a reaction to a wave (they're concentrating, talking to each other, etc) but usually a single rider on a quiet country road will return a greeting with a brief nod at the least. Not here though, and I went past at least 20 individual riders on quiet roads each morning! It's good to know that English cyclists are comparatively friendly...we'll see how the Dutch do again when I next see them en mass, which will be at La Marmotte in July (seems to be a Belgian/Dutch event rather than a French one). I'll post soon with a few details and a piece describing my first attempt at this ride last year.
And on a final note - Dutch cycle paths. All I can say is WOW! Fantastic - wide, well surfaced, well marked, sensibly planned and they give you priority around roundabouts and junctions. On each 2hr ride I don't think I had to touch my foot to the road more than once. Maybe there's some form of inverse relationship between the quality of cycle paths and rider friendliness, because we have, in the UK, some of the worst bike paths I have ever seen, but some of the friendliest riders.
Ik ben Engels, maar mijn fiets houdt van Holland.
I had an offer of a lift to Hog Hill on Saturday from a fellow Dynamo for the 3rds/4ths Whitewebbs CC circuit race. So I though ... hmmm, why not? I'd never been to the Hill before and knew nothing about it. I did know that I wouldn't have the chance to race for another two weeks, so it seemed too good an opportunity to pass up.
On reflection, I wish I'd stayed at home and gone for a longer ride in the Surrey Hills. The drizzle forecast for most of the day cleared and we were treated to a beautiful day of sunshine, which I would have appreciated if I weren't sweating my way up that bloody hill every lap! What a race! The field was quite strong anyway, with a break of 10 or so riders getting away pretty early, followed by another smaller group of chasers. So early on it was clear that points were unlikely for the bunch - Hog Hill seems to be a great circuit for exciting racing, as the hill tends to help facilitate breaks getting away and staying away. After about lap 5 I noticed that there were a few riders who had gone backwards out of the bunch, and this pattern remained for much of the race - the hill would shell a rider or two most laps. At about lap 11 that rider was me! I knew that bloody hill would do for me - the longish draggy approach was fine, even into the fairly strong wind, but the final ramping up of the last 100m did a - ahem - larger rider no favours at all. I chased for a lap, got back on, went back off again on the hill, and used the remaining laps as training - let's call it a reverse solo breakaway!
Some pertinent facts - average speed up until I bailed was 21.6 mph, car journey time there was 1.5hrs, home was 2hrs. What with getting to my clubmate's house as well (he did OK in the end, coming in at the front of the chasing bunch) the race took up 7 hours of my day for 1.5hrs riding. As much as the circuit is great I think it's unlikely I'll be going again - the logistics are just too tricky from SW London. Seven hours of riding in the sunshine would have given me the opportunity instead to do my first 100-miler of the year (with time for a good lunch thrown in too, rather than a hastily-grabbed Snickers bar at Hog Hill).
Now that I know about it, if the opportunity arises again I think I'll just say no. Roll on Hillingdon, Chertsey and Crystal Palace...
So my wife had a quick read of this blog. Aside from the comments about the boring details and technical aspects that she had no interest in, she did mention my fawning references to my Isaac. "You save your nicest comments for your bike rather than your family".
Oh dear! I have a lovely wife and three great kids - they're great and give me more pleasure than any bicycle.
Despite saying to myself that I'm not going to race for a couple of weeks, I am very tempted to try to get to Hog Hill this Saturday - I've not been yet and have heard good things about the circuit. A shame that the journey out there is a bit of a trek. Next week is planned to be an easy week as we are off to Holland (Maastricht) for a few days. I'm taking the bike and plan to do some gentle rides in an area where cars don't treat you as an irritating annoyance (at best). I've lost count in the past couple of months of the number of times cars have aimed at me down narrow streets, expecting me to stop completely so they can squeeze past without having to even slow down. Total arrogance. I'm looking forwards to a couple of climbs of the Cauberg in Valkenburg to see how it measures up, overdosing on coffee, frites, mayo and bitterballen and trying not to drink too much beer. That last bit will be tougher than any climb!
