We are all Mental

‘True perfection has to be imperfect I know that sounds foolish but it’s true’

(Noel Gallagher, 2007)

Why, you may ask, am I starting my latest blog post with an Oasis lyric? Let me begin…

On a recent training ride with my Aussie teammate, Ben, the conversation, as usual, turned onto the topic of the race at the weekend and how hard it would inevitably turn out to be. After debating how the race was likely to go and such intricate details as to which way the wind would be blowing during the ‘course en ligne’ section and who the likely winner would be and slowly beginning to realise that by about 3:30pm on Sunday afternoon we would be massacring our bodies sat in the gutted at some obscene speed I blurted out ‘we are f**king mental doing this’, the conversation continued further until we both came to the conclusion that all half decent bike riders are ‘mental’, a statement which requires some explanation.

To become a ‘half decent bike rider’ you have to be one of two things, either extremely talented and arguably lazy as if you had this much talent and applied it you would be a ‘good bike rider’ or even a ‘great bike rider’, or a dedicated, hard working, to some extent single minded perfectionist who strives to get the last drop out of everything from their diet to their bike and time available to train, unfortunately yours truly fits, like the majority of the ‘half decent bike riders’ into the latter category.

So as a ‘half decent bike rider’ you are likely to be a perfectionist whether you realise it or not, I mean how many of you out there have bought a set of better wheels as they will make you ‘x percent faster’ on race day, and said ‘I’m sorry I can’t I have to go training/racing/rest up for the weekend’ or invested in the latest in training technology such as powertaps and srm’s? Beginning to get the picture yet?

Ok so you have admitted you are a perfectionist, well you haven’t really I have just told you that you are, and with this level of dedication I would hope, for your sake after investing this much time and energy into yourself and the sport, you start to see an improvement in results, at which point you move up a category whether it be from 4^th cat to 3^rd cat or from a top amateur rider to a continental professional, the effort you have made has paid off…or has it. You now find yourself at a higher level and all of a sudden you have gone from the front in the races to the middle or even worse sat last wheel in the gutter or worse still blown out the back. Never mind surely that extra training session a week, or new set of wheels or dam bloody mindedness will allow you to cope at the new level you reach and the process starts all over again.

One day however disaster will strike when you realise, ‘this is it’, there are no more hours in the week for you to train in, new wheels to buy, fat to loose off your body or new diets out there that claim to improve performance and at this point you have reached ‘your level’, but wait you are only in the middle of the pack, you are not the ‘great climber’ you once were or unbeatable in the sprints you are just mediocre, average a no body. In your aim to reach perfection you have become average, all those hours on the bike, wet winter training rides and new shiny bits for your bike and you will not progress, the only ones who truly ‘make it’ are the household names of the sport how many riders are there in the Tour de France every year and how many can you actually name, how many win a stage or even finish in the top 20 of a stage?

Oh and as if that wasn’t enough, every time we go out training, we end up where we started…As I said, we are all mental.

Just a post for you to ponder on your next training ride with your buddies!

BMC in Gran Canaria

It seems such a long time ago now that I was pedalling in the sunshine on the beautiful, if you avoid the tourist traps of Maspalomas and Puerto Rico, Island of Gran Canaria. As I sit here in our apartment above Macarini Cycles, whom are one of Hennebont Cyclisme’s many sponsors, watching the rain come down, listening to Definitely Maybe (you can’t leave it all behind) and hoping that my riding shoes will dry out for tomorrows undoubtedly wet training ride my mind wanders to that distance Island off the coast of Africa where I got the opportunity to ride some amazing bikes, with equally amazing people under the guise as a ride guide. In fact if the definition of being a professional cyclist is that you get paid to ride your bike, then dam I have already made it, well for a period this February I had, call it a stagiere contract which never got extended if you will.

For those of you who closely follow Pro bike racing the brand BMC has had mixed fortunes having, through the sponsorship of various teams, employed riders such as Tyler Hamilton, Floyd Landis and Vinokurov to ride their steeds. After the success and corresponding failure of sponsoring such riders, I think you all know what I am alluding to, BMC took a back step in the world of bike sponsorship but after last year title sponsoring its own Continental level team, in 2010 it is looking to make a serious impact in all the big races thanks to the signings of riders such as Cadel Evans, George Hincapie and Allessandro Ballan and to coincide with such an increase in sponsorship investment comes a range of new models in both the road and mtb categories, which brings me nicely round to why I was being paid to ride a BMC in Gran Canaria.

The ‘2010 BMC Ride Camp’ was an opportunity for BMC’s top European based dealers and distributors to try out the new range, so that they could get to know the products better and provide feedback on the bikes, useful information for any bike company especially considering the quality of some of the riders present…I won’t boast on the palmares of some of the guys I rode with, but ex Giro, Tour and Vuelta riders were all present along with one of Laurent Fignon’s top equippers. So what was a Master of Engineering graduate who had decided to give it all up to race his bike in France doing here, well I had the not very daunting task of leading group rides, getting the opportunity to try the road range myself all whilst being paid, with the inevitable grin on my face that comes from being in such a situation.

This may sound like an easy deal for all involved, but along with all the fun and games, and believe me there was a lot, a lot of hard work was involved for everyone employed by this operation, from the mechanics who arrived 2 days before the first guests and had the unenviable task of unpacking and building the 90 bikes shipped out for the project in one massive container, which then had to be correspondingly re packed at the end of the project, to myself and my fellow ride guide and teammate Phil Gale who would leave our apartment we were staying in every morning at around 7:30am and not return until 9:30pm having fitted around 5-6hrs riding in between, but boy was it a blast, the bike wasn’t bad either.

The BMC boys having an obligatory Coffee stop-one of the things that really stood out for me during my time with BMC was the fact that the group were more than just colleagues, they were all really good mates, which made my life a whole lot easier, that and the sun!

The centre piece of BMC’s range for anyone with a preference to riding on the road was undoubtedly the new range topping Team Machine, which Team BMC will be rolling out on soon, rumour even has it that if it is dry at Paris Roubaix Ballan will be riding one with a set of deep section carbon wheels surely a testament to its vertical compliancy. I was privileged enough to be able to ride one of these for the duration of the trip and without going into the technical detail as this can all be found on BMC’s own website, I can honestly say it is the best bike I have ever ridden, incredibly stiff whilst maintaining a vertical compliance normally associated with frames made from other materials such as titanium, it was a real drag to have to give it back, but alas I had to, annoyingly the Swiss precision that created this masterpiece of bike engineering also meant all the bikes were counted out and counted in at the end of the project…bugger! The Team Machine really is a quality product that should leave the small Swiss brand punching above its weight in the world market place.

But enough of dreaming about sunnier times and better bikes, it’s still raining and it’s time for me to make some dinner. I would just like to say a big thank you to everyone I met at the BMC camp for such a great couple of weeks and allowing me to try out some amazing products, but particularly and in no particular order, Stephan, Marcus, Steven, Patrick, Mike, Frank, Steven, Manuel, Eric and Alberto.

A Little Trip to France

Well i feel i should apologise somewhat to the avid readers of this blog, all 3 of you that probably is, but after a snowy, sleety unrideable afternoon in the North West of England i logged into my account to see if anyone had messaged me...etc and realised the last time i updated this blog with information regarding what i have actually been doing was quite a long time ago. I could make up a massive list of half decent excuses but the stark reality is that i have been exceptionally lazy.

So without further ado this is what i have been up to over the last couple of weeks. I finally finished work at Waitrose on the 5th Feb and my god what a relief it was no longer will i be rocking up back home at 10:30 at night with a body in ruins, i am sure all of you riders out there will appreciate how painful walking around for 9hrs as a bike rider is...ouchy. Having said that i would like to extend a massive thank-you to almost everyone at Waitrose, i know some of you are reading this, for making the last 6 months of work a complete laugh. After my last shift the members of my Section all headed out into town for a curry as a farewell meal where i preceded to show everyone how much i can eat, which incidentally is a lot.

The weekend after i finished work literally flew by, i managed to ride for just over 4hrs on both the Saturday and the Sunday, with the afternoons taken up organising my life as on Monday myself and Phil Gale, teammate for the season and all round sound geezer, were off to France to drop our gear off, pick our kit up, get our licences sorted and generally get sorted for the season.

Monday morning soon arrived, my car was packed and the sat nav set to my first destination...Phil's house, after the best part of 5hrs i arrived at Phil's and after a quick turn around and way too much coffee in a short space of time we were on the road again heading to Portsmouth ready to get the Ferry to St Malo. Having been on the go for the best part of 10hrs i was glad we had a cabin booked for the overnight crossing and soon the snores of two tired bike riders was drowning out the sound of the diesel engine powering the boat along.

The morning soon arrived...or rather it didn't, forgetting the consequences of the continent being an hour ahead on time, we left the boat at 8:45am still in the dark which was a little disorientating, but we were on the road heading to Hennebont and with Ian Brown on the CD player it was all smiles in the Astra.

After 2.5hrs of driving we reached our destination and headed into town for a coffee, before going to the Presidents house, running errands, going to the doctors...etc all boring things that i do not really need to talk about here. A lovely evening meal with the Presidents family followed however it was soon off to bed ready for the 6am wake up to get the ferry back to the UK. Now 8hrs on a boat during the day didn't appeal to me much before and certainly does not now, fortunately myself and Phil were pretty tired so managed to sleep for most of it but man was it a drag. On our way back into Portsmouth though we did manage to capture some pretty good pictures of the sunsetting, goes to show that there are some decent places in the UK too.

The view from the Ferry entering Portsmouth, nice i think you will agree.

Once we hit the port i dropped Phil off with his Dad, who had rather kindly offered to pick Phil up in Portsmouth thus saving me about 3hrs on my journey back up north, filled up with Petrol and smashed it back up north back in time for tea...well not really.

After missing 3 days of riding during my travels i decided to put a hard block in over the last weekend, doing 3hrs on Thursday, 4.5hrs on Friday, 5hrs on Saturday and 6hrs on Sunday with a 50mile reliability thrown in for the mix, i think my form is about right as i was still feeling pretty strong on the Sunday, having done some efforts in each of the preceding rides also. It is a nice feeling to know now though that when i get back from a ride i do not have to rush round to get ready for work, i can eat and get a quick nap in to aid the recovery.

With me off to Gran Canaria on Saturday to meet up with Phil again i am spending the last few days in the UK relaxing and riding as much as the weather will allow before heading to Gran Canaria for 2.5 weeks and finally to France for the season on 12th March.

You couldn't write this shit!

Well where the hell to start? I suppose rather fittingly i should start with Marco Pantani, the late great 'Il Pirata' was the first cycling superstar i remember, being slightly too young to be aware of Miguel Indurains efforts in the early 90's, in fact it would not be wrong for me to say that if it wasn't for 'Il Pirata' i wouldn't ride a bike at all. Watching his scintillating attacks in the mountains on his way to the 1998 Tour de France as a young boy i was memorised, the speed, the colour the panache the pain etched across the riders faces as this little Italian wiped the floor with them had me hooked, little did i know and the time that this wonderfully colourful and extravagant sport had such a dark underbelly.

Fast forward to 2010 and after watching the Tour de France for numerous years and finally getting my leg over a top tube for the first time 5 years ago i am finally a half decent bike rider myself, with a height of 5ft8 and a racing weight of 57kg comparisons could easily be drawn to the diminutive stature of Il Pirata himself. Unfortunately Marco's future, which must have looked oh so bright in Paris at the end of the 1998 Tour faded away, until on the 14th Feburary 2004 he was found dead in his hotel room alone from a cocaine overdose a victim of the system this beautiful sport of ours produced in which you have to give your all and sometimes end up giving too much...he never failed a dope test.

Now there is a new Pantani in the world of cycling, Ricardo Ricco, unlike his hero Ricco has already failed a drugs test for CERA and almost completed his 20 month suspension which rather fortunately for him finishes the day before this Milan San Remo arguably the greatest one day race in the World which could see him lining up with his new best mate Mark Cavendish who recently described Ricco 'a parasite coming back', now then nobody can deny the damage Ricco has done to the sport but come on Mark describing Ricco as a 'parasite' when your own mentor confessed to using epo before the 1996 claiming to have only used it for a week as the effects were too great for him to handle is a bit rich! It will be interesting to see how this latest spat in the world of pro cycling develops over the coming season, comparisons could be drawn with the relationship between Il Pirata and Armstrong after Pantani put him away up Mont Ventoux in the 2000 Tour...namely they hated each other.

I took this photo after the 2008 Tour stage which finished in St Brieuc Brittany a few weeks later the Tour was blown apart for the second year in a row and not due to what was happening on the road, i've always wondered what was in that bag!

But Ricco's problems do not stop at having the stroppy Manx man first in the queue to give him a kicking, oh no as if Ricco's own doping story could not have been enough on the eve of his comeback to professional racing his long term girlfriend and mother of their child herself tested positive for CERA. Instead of Ricco coming out to defend his partner she is his partner no more unless the doping charges against her are dismissed, a nice touch after she has stood by him for the last 2 years since his positive at the 2008 Tour. Lets just hope we do not have another Pantani on our hands.

If the Ricco merry go round isn't enough, Schumacher is still trying to get his doping charges dropped against him, despite testing positive during both the 2008 Tour and 2008 Olympics, Di Luca has finally been caught and handed a lengthy suspension, Valverde cannot even enter Italy for risk of imprisonment a sanction which still maybe extended to world wide competition but which has not stopped him racing in the early season, Boonen seems to have stopped powdering his nose for now, but the coup de grace has to be the announcement today (15/02/2010) that the French courts have issued an international arrest warrant for Floyd Landis, yeah remember that piss taker, after his coach allegedy hacked the accounts of the anti-doping lab used in his case and changed some of the data stored.

What does the future hold for Valverde? Another period in yellow or a prolongued rest period?

Yet despite all this the sport lives on and it always will, the panache, the verve, the speed and the colour i witnessed during that 1998 Tour will always be there as will the pain etched on the faces of the defeated and in some cases of the victors, no amount of bad press can ruin it for me because this is our sport, it's our passion and our lives and i love it.

Thanks Prendas

I am not going to lie, this post is a blatant plug for one of the ‘unsung heroes’, if a company can be called such a thing of the UK cycling scene. It was a while before Christmas when I decided to see if someone other than my parents could help support me in my up and coming season abroad, many an email was sent, not many were replied to and even fewer offered support. However, Andy Storey of Prendas was one of the few people I managed to get on my side and agreed to help me out.

Fast forward until about half way through last week and I am opening a box of goodies from them, including numerous pairs of their legendary socks, for those in the know Prendas socks are one of the few pairs around that fore fill the official height requirements set out in the Euro code for cyclists, the amount of pairs of these socks I have got through in my riding career is unimaginable. However amongst the arm warmers, socks, oversocks and track mitts I also found 2 items I didn’t order, namely a pair of Prendas ‘Super Roubaix Gloves’ and a pair of Prendas ‘Windtex Gloves’. Why are you telling me this you may ask, well because they are good and I mean really good. I think I have done 4 winters now in the UK, or maybe 5 the years run into each other for me just like the miles god knows what I will be like by 30, and up until last Saturday when I put these on in tandem I have not previously found a glove wearing approach as good as putting the ‘Roubaixs’ on under the ‘Windtex Gloves’.

Previously I have tried everything and I mean everything, one set of DeFeet Dura Gloves, under a pair of ‘Windstoppers’, two pairs of DeFeet gloves under a pair of ‘Windstoppers’, at some points I have even go out with a pair of the rubber gloves doctors use under the DeFeet gloves under the ‘Windstoppers’ and still in the depths of winter my hands would loose feeling. Infact it got to the point this winter, where myself and my riding mates began joking about the fact that these supposed ‘Winderstopper’ materials should really be called ‘Breeze Stoppers’.

So Saturday came around and I thought I’d crack the new toys from Prendas out, after all they couldn’t be any worse than anything else I have worn to try and keep my hands warm. It soon became apparent though that these gloves were good, or as I said before really good imagine my joy as I returned home on Saturday able to change gear and feel my brakes all when the temperature hadn’t risen above 2 degrees all day. I actually could not recommend these gloves enough to anyone other than the fair weather cyclists out there, they are mega.

So thanks Prendas, for the stuff which will keep me looking sweet in the season, and also for the gloves that will keep my hands toasty in the last few weeks in the UK.

For anyone wishing to get some Prendas kit, click on the icon on the page and it should take you straight to the main site.

'I hope you have taken your druggies'

Quite a confusing title for a blog post i think you will agree, but think how confusing it seemed whilst riding up a hill in north Staffordshire this morning with the 'group', 15 had already become 3 by this point, and being shouted this at you by a runner coming the other way. I like the two guys i was with, Mikey C of the new Raleigh Team and Mark Lovatt, ironically in his old GB Kit, were absolutely baffled by the comment. I'd still be intrigued as to know what the guy meant as ironically the 1500m Olympic Champion was stripped of his gold medal after later testing positive for the most famous of all EPO types CERA which following this mans logic i should be painting ever runner with the same brush. More importantly cycling, whilst apparently having a lot of cheats if the recent doping relevations and positives is anything to go by, seems to be one of the few sports out there that seems to be cleaning its act up. Footballers, for example, do not even have to be signed up to the whereabouts system only running the risk of dope tests at games...mental! Anyway before this turns into a total rant which no doubt will appear on one of my blogs as no doubt some other high profile rider with test positive this season i best tell you what i have been up to.

This week i have managed to amass a total of 20hrs on the bike whilst starting to put some efforts into my rides, not bad considering the weather here has ranged from grim to grimer, this wasn't helped by emails from my teammate Phil who is in Gran Canaria at the moment living it up at 25 plus degrees. Although riding in this weather can be depressing as long as it isn't totally chucking it down when i leave the house the hardest yards are always the first and as soon as i have left the town i soon remeber how much i enjoy being out and riding a normal life just isn't for me!

In addition to being able to train on the road again the most significant thing going on this week is the Tour Down Under, after a long winter break bike racing is back on tv, improving motivation immediately and giving me something to slob out to when i get back from training rides. It has been great to see the Sky boys riding and even more impressive to see how well Russel Downing seems to be coping with it all, although his chance in life has come late he seems to be seizing it with both hands, and was showing everyone how to corner at the Cancer Criterium during the early stages of the Sky leadout.

Other than that there is not much to report other than i have another 2 weeks of work to do, totalling 6 shifts after which i will be getting ready for the off in the middle of Feb...can't wait!

Winter Blues

Well it has been a while since my last post and a lot has happened...i think. Firstly i had the madness known as Christmas to get through, and when you are working at a supermarket madness is the only word to describe it, during this period i also had my first experience of working nightshifts which i entered with the very naive view of thinking that this would be a good idea as i would be being paid more and could train a lot, in reality i ended up feeling like a zombie for 2 and a half weeks, slept through most of Christmas day and was in bed by 10:30pm on New Years Eve having felt like i had lost the previous 2.5 weeks of my life! On the plus side i managed to set myself a personal best of hours without sleep of 31 but i would much rather have swapped that for having a life.

I did however manage to ride for an hour everyday on the turbo when i got back in from my night shifts, before collapsing in bed for 7hrs before the next shift, i really do not know how people cope doing nightshifts long term, i guess they don't ride a bike for starters.

Thankfully my last nightshift finished the day before New Years eve and i am now back on to the day shift for a few more weeks. Although the anticipation of being able to ride my bike and get some decent miles in seemed doomed to failure as i only managed 3 days of plus 4hr rides before the most recent spell of bad weather hit and the roads became unridable, including the main roads. Which led to me spending 14hrs on the turbo last week, which if i am honest has done me no good at all, as i am writting this now with a massive headcold and sore throat, which i am pretty sure has been brought about from riding hard on the turbo in my garage, which isn't much warmer than outside. To the point at which if i did more than 2hrs on there, and yes i have done and will do again if i have to, my bottles froze, not cool, i was even forced to wear long fingered gloves one day...madness.

So i am now having a few days off before hitting the training hard as it looks like the temperatures will be up by the weekend, well positive at least!

Take it easy