A Race Diary
David Smith | Sunday 31st August, 2008
David Smith |   |
Helmet Numbers...
From the country that invented the word style comes this heinous fashion crime, helmet numbers. I'll still be peeling the glue residue off my helmet this time next year...
A Bad Picture of Mont Blanc
Mont Blanc as seen (badly, too much light) from the stage 5 start town of Sallanches.
Cat Face
Adam posing next to one bizarre statue in the centre of Ville-la-Grand
Mad Max
Mad Max Pean living up to his nickname
What I look like now the stiches are out
Pont Saint Martin
The Pont, in Pont Saint Martin, the start town of stage 4
Monte Cervinia
Monte Cervinia as seen from Valtournenche, the start town of stage 3.
N.B. As I was writing a little every day for a week this entry is really long but I hope it’s broken up into more or less manageable chunks!
Somehow during this last week I’ve managed to pick myself up, dust myself down, ride the bike a little (slowly) and made it through the Mont Blanc tunnel (slowly, maximum speed 70km/h) to the Giro della Valle d’Aosta. For this entry I’ve decided to do something new, a full-on race diary. Every evening I’m going to try and write a brief synopsis of the stage and anything else interesting or amusing on the go, no editing, no holes barred…
Monday, August 24th
Today was largely uneventful, this morning I had a quick trip to see the nurse to get the stitches removed from the new cosmetic addition to my forehead and then had to rush to finish packing my kit. The journey was boring, the familiar motorway to
Team’s are five man for this race, there is Adam, Jean-Francis Pessy, Maxime Pean and…Nicolas Bonnet. I remembered from last year there was a two man room and a three man room for the riders, Jean-Francis and Max had been with Régis and so had arrived at the hotel first and I feared (rightly so as it turned out) that they would take the two man and Adam and I would be lumped with young Nicolas. Nicolas, without a shade of a doubt is the most annoying rider in the team. His dad, Patrick was some hot shot pro in the 80’s and Nico has clearly lead a sheltered childhood, he is what can only be described as a proper daddies boy. He disproves of any conversation relating to the following subjects, alcohol, drugs, girls, fun…he is also an ardent Jean-Marie le Penn (French National Front) supporter which leaves Adam and I on some pretty thin ice so to speak as we are both foreign (although the least worst kind, white Caucasian) and technically unemployed. If Nicolas had his way we’d be on the first easyjet flight back to Stanstead. Sadly for Nico there are no impending extradition charges filed against either Adam or I that I know of so he’s stuck with us for the time being.
We’ve decided to speak in only in English for the four days we are at this hotel just to wind him up and we’ve already got a nickname for him, ‘cappy’ so he doesn’t realise we’re talking about him. (Bonnet is French for hat, so cap, cappy..anyway..some cryptic logic there.) We’re already in his bad books as we left the room light on when we went down to dinner and neglected to close the window, thus the room had the odd uninvited insect guest or two awaiting us when we came back up. This displeased Nicolas a great deal. Anyway, ridiculously his parents have come all the way from
So tomorrow’s stage takes us from Pollein to Cogne via two cols, the first topping out at 1253meters and the second the summit finish at 1547meters. Only 115km to ease us into things but I’m quite sure I’ll have a good deal less enthusiasm for writing this time tomorrow evening.
Tuesday, August 26th 1st stage, Pollein – Cogne
In distance terms, today’s race was short but in every other sense it seemed to drag on forever. With barely 31km/h average it still meant nearly four hours in the saddle. The weather was good but very hot on the climbs and I was, well, not to put too finer point on it, creeping. I managed to make it into a grupetto that formed near the bottom of the second last climb, the Col de Cerellaz. It was horrifically steep and we were down to 10km/h at times especially round some of hairpins. Once off the top of the Cerellaz we began the long grind up to Cogne. This was less steep but my legs were shot to bits by this point and I couldn’t find much of a rhythm. Our group made it in the time cut okay though so we’ll live to fight another day.
I made a couple of contributions to the team effort today pushing Adam during a ‘natural break’ and then going back for bottles a couple of times. Jean-Francis finished best of the team in 13th place which is no mean feat I can tell you given the level of this race. I was by no means elated with my performance but given that this time last week I felt like I’d been run over by an articulated lorry and could only manage an hour and half’s training on Adam’s wheel I’m not being too hard on myself for once.
Other funny things that happened today included getting scolded by ‘cappy’ at breakfast when I forced too hard spreading my butter on a crisp bread and the thing blew to bits in my hands, ‘non, non, non you mustn’t do it like that (in French), you must go gently and caress the butter,’ was his sage advice. ‘Jesus,’ I thought, ‘this is going to be a long day.’ Fortunately that was the last of his pearls of wisdom for the day.
You can always rely on good old Laurent Gros, our buffoon of a soigneur to come out with some massive ‘faux pas’ at some point and true to form he didn’t disappoint today. He has a habit of making ludicrous promises like ‘I’ll give 150euros to whoever finishes in the top10 of the French Championships.’ This was last year when Rémi finished 10th and of course he’s yet to see a cent. Other classics included in 2006 when
Tomorrow’s stage includes a 20km col double header in the last 50km. The stage isn’t too long again at around 130km but I don’t think there’s any danger it won’t do some serious damage. The third stage is also very hard so I’m thinking if I can just make the time cut over the next two days the legs might come round for the slightly less difficult stages at the end.
Wednesday, August 27th 2nd stage; Arvier – Breuil Cervinia
As a young David Millar once said after a mountain stage of the Tour, ‘that was sadomasochism on a major scale.’ This perfectly sums up today’s spectacularly hard stage between Arvier and Breuil Cervinia. It was one of the toughest days I’ve ever had on a bike, the first 80km or so weren’t overly hard and we arrived more or less a full peleton at the bottom of the Col de St. Pantaléon. What can I say about this climb other than it was horrendous. Encouragingly I managed to hold onto the main group for a good deal longer than yesterday (about 6km instead of 1!) before I finally jammed up and waited for the grupetto. Everything from here on in was utter purgatory, I always find it so hard to push myself hard once I know I’m doing it just to survive, that there is zero reward at the finish. I think it’s one of the most difficult things to do in bike racing because it is essentially just a battle in your head. The remaining 14km of the climb passed very slowly, with sections where the gradient averaged 9-10% and only equipped with a 39 * 23 it was interminable. We are the only team here I think that don’t have 25 sprockets on the back, Michel Gros insists any rider who needs a 25 under any circumstances is not a racer. That’s what happens when you were used to running Festina where no one even needed a little ring never mind a 25.
Once off the descent of the St.Pantaléon we began the second interminable grind of the day up to the finish at Breuil Cervinia. I was in the hurt box the whole way and had very little strength in my legs. I made it though and the group was inside the time cut so that was one positive thing from the day at least! At the finish I noticed my jersey was literally plastered in salt, a lot more so than everybody else’s so I’m not sure what was wrong there. I’ll have to make sure I drink plenty of mineral water tonight that is for certain! The last group on the road came in just a few minutes down on us and I reckon there must have been some serious hanging onto the cars going on there because some of them blew instantly at the bottom of the first climb and it was not have been physically possible to be so close behind us otherwise. Still that is part and parcel of racing in
Jean-Francis was again first of the team in 7th place and Adam wasn’t too far behind in the top 15 which are both fantastic performances.
Tomorrow is the big one, four classified climbs the highest of which tops out at 1647meters and a total of 138km. I have a gut feeling today’s ‘hardest day ever on the bike’ might not hold the top spot for a full 24hours…
Thursday, August 28th Stage 3; Valtournenche – Forte di Bard
There was a good hour’s drive today to get to the start at Valtournenche which was around two thirds way up yesterday’s finish climb. Once there we were treated to Régis’ daily briefing, in the van this time instead of the usual hotel room what with the early transfer and all. It was the usual, the course in the most minute detail, a bit about tactics (hope to god you have the legs) all at a volume better listened to equipped with a pair of industrial ear defenders. He gets so over-excited by the time it’s finished you have no energy for the race!
As the start was up a dead end ski station road there was only one direction to head and that was down into the valley. The start was insane, imagine 120guys with fresh-ish legs all thinking the same thing…that there will be a split and the break will go on the descent. I don’t think the speed dropped much below 80km/h for the whole 20km except for when we came to hairpins. The break did go at this point, twelve guys and we didn’t have anybody in it. This wasn’t overly worrying given what was lying ahead…
First up was the Col du Perloz, a paltry 4km long coming 47km into the race but with a last kilometre that averaged 13%. There were already riders getting spat here and I’m certain there was plenty of hanging onto the cars again for them to get back on. Once off the Perloz there was 20km or so in the valley before hitting the business end of the stage , the
Talking of cheating there are no doping controls at this race which is a little concerning for a UCI 2.2 category race. When you see guys like the rider that won today (he got away in the break on the first descent of the day and then stayed ahead to win by himself with a four minute gap on second place) it definitely makes you wonder just how many are taking risks. Jean-Francis has the best form he’s had all year and is a pure climber but everyday there is someone putting at least three minutes into him, usually by themselves. Anyway that aside he managed 11th again today and is up to 5th on general so we’ll have to look after him well tomorrow as there is 120km in the valley on flat roads where anything could happen!
Friday, August 29th; 4th stage; Pont Saint Martin – Morgex
On paper today didn’t look so bad, 153km of which the majority was on the valley road and just one col, the Col San Carlo coming after 115km. I can’t conjure up the words to describe how hard this stage was, what made so savage was a big tailwind all day and the fact that we started at around 200meters altitude and the bottom of the col was at 1000meters. Effectively it was an endless false flat which meant you had absolutely no respite whatsoever in the wheels. The speed was totally nuts, in the first 2 hours we had over 45km/h average, bearing in mind this was uphill you can imagine how many guys were in the hurt box.
I was sure a move would go early, there was a climb after around 20km and I was going all out to try and get in the split. However with the tailwind whenever there was any kind of a break there was always someone willing to chase it down. It took a further 40km of full-on war (is the only way to describe it) before the break happened. It was big, 27 riders initially where we had no-one and then I got across in a counter of 10. The break already had a thirty second lead when we got clear and with a couple of riders in the move that had team mates up front we were badly organised and there were gaps opening up constantly. Not at all what you need when you are trying to bridge across to another group. We eventually made it and once there got a time check that said the bunch was already 3minutes behind. I suddenly realised why, the Pagnoncelli team had four riders in the move of which one was within striking distance of the yellow jersey who was…trapped in the bunch. I was totally swinging just to hold the wheels and there were still another 40km or so until the bottom of the col. To give you some idea of just how much I was suffering had there been a touch of wheels and if I’d have gone down in a massive crash I wouldn’t have been too bothered! It would have been a welcome relief…
I think the reason I was hurting so much is simply because I don’t really have the form to be in a move like that at the moment, I was there ‘au moral’ as the French would say, 80% of it was mental because physically I was beyond spent. Yesterday I managed to more or less keep it in my comfort zone for most of the stage, today I don’t think I even spent five minutes in the comfort zone. I nearly got spat on several occasions as the gradient became steeper towards the bottom of the climb, incredibly I somehow clung on until we turned left and saw the ‘debut col’ sign which signified the start of the climb proper. I instantly blew, well not so much blew at rode at a tempo I hoped I could sustain. From the race manual I knew this climb was going to be an utter b*s*a*d as it topped out at 2000meters from a start altitude of 1000 in just 10km i.e. 10% average, not what you want in the back of your mind when all you want to do is keel over in a ditch. It wasn’t long before the first riders from the bunch came by and soon almost everybody had gone by. I eventually managed to cling onto what I assume was the last group on the road. My back was already tight before the climb started but grinding along at no more than 10km/h it quickly became badly contracted and soon I had no power in my legs whatsoever. During the last 3km or so a couple of Italian riders in the group gave me some pushes because otherwise I think I’d been facing a very lonely descent to the finish. Thanks to them whoever they were…Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see a ‘GPM’ sign (summit) in my life. The 20km plunge to the finish went in pretty quickly and that was it, the last stage in
Tomorrow we take the tunnel back to
Saturday, August 30th, 5th stage; Sallanches – Ville-la-Grand
Compared to yesterday today seemed like a walk in the park. I think there were a lot of tired legs and nobody seemed up for attacking much. A four man move went just after the first climb, the Côte de Chatillon. It was originally a five man break but Jonny Bellis looked down because he thought something was wrong with his front wheel, accidently touched the wheel in front of him and went somersaulting into the ditch. Fortunately he was fine and quickly rejoined the bunch.
The second climb, named Chez Besson Drevy for some unknown reason (because it was just the first part of the Col de la Ramaz) did the most damage. The tempo was steady but very fast and around 40 odd riders got dropped. My legs were better than yesterday and managed to stay in there fine.
This was followed by another 2 cols, both ridden at more or less the same pace but the bunch remained more or less all together. Both of these climbs were used in the Tour du Chablais back in May so we all knew them well. The difference here was the tempo was so fast it wasn’t worth attacking even if you felt capable of it because the chances of getting very far were almost nil. The break was hauled in on the last of these, the Col de Saxel and after that there was about 25km left to the finish. I moved up with 10km but at the 4km to go sign we hit a 700meter or so climb that was very, very steep and I lost my place. My legs just wouldn’t respond and there wasn’t much I could do. Once over the climb the pace was far too high to move up a second time and the fifty or so riders left finished in a sprint with Ben Swift taking out the win which was good to see.
There is only now a 90km stage left tomorrow morning, the start is at 9am which will mean getting up at some godforsaken hour to eat but at least it will mean we’ll get home a bit earlier. That is providing Régis doesn’t make us stay for the prize presentation in its entirety as he is sometimes inclined to do. It is unlikely the general classification will change much tomorrow as it is a similar stage to today but even shorter so it looks like Jean-Francis will keep his 10th place overall which is a really good result in this race believe me! Even in the Tour de France you don’t do six days straight in the high mountains!
Sunday, August 31st, 6th stage; Ville-la-Grand – Ville-la-Grand
We were up and about early this morning, 6.30am to be precise to have breakfast before the last stage of the race which as I mentioned started at 9. It’s very rare to start a race at this time in the morning but it made a nice change to be honest as it was still fairly fresh instead of crushing heat we’ve had to put up with the last five days. The race was steady to begin with until we hit the first climb of the day after 15km, the Côte d’Hyot where the attacks began. I knew this climb already as it’s the last major climb before the finish of Annemasse-Bellegarde. In that race it’s a serious difficulty but compared with what we had been tackling during the week it didn’t seem bad. Near the top a group got away and I jumped across. We had a good gap and I thought it might be going places until I looked back and saw the whole bunch in a line out with the pace being set by the Zalf team. By the bottom of the descent everything was back together.
It didn’t take long for me to regret my efforts in the break as we began the climb of the Col du Perret almost immediately. Another break had gone but the yellow jersey’s team, UC Bergamasca weren’t letting it get very far. The gradient wasn’t too hard at around 5% but we were at a steady 30km/h and gaps were beginning to open up. By the top (and I was glad to see that I can tell you) the move had been reeled in. A short descent and we were finally onto the very last hill of the race, back to familiar Tour du Chablais territory, the Col du Cou. Again the pace was fast but steady and nothing got away. Just like the previous day Bergamasca we riding such a hard tempo that it was impossible to attack. After a technical drop down to the shores of Lac Léman there were just 35km left to race and still about fifty riders in the peleton. The GB team began to take over here, as Ben had won the previous day they were confident he could repeat his performance as the last 10km we exactly the same. Once we hit the steep short climb with 4km to go I managed this time to more or less hold my place in about the first 20. After this there was no let up before the kamikaze final kilometre. I was just about hanging in there but got caught on a few bad wheels, guys sitting up after finishing their turn in the lead out train. I hit the final left hander with 300meters to go in about 20th which was too far back to be able to do anything and pretty much crossed the line in about that position. This time it was Jonny Bellis that went for the sprint but he was edged out by Simone Ponzi who had finished second to Ben on Saturday.
And that was it…six days of hard racing over. We had a ‘debriefing’ Régis style where he began to drivel on about how he wanted riders in the team like the men that fought in the First World War, ready to fight till the end. It sounded more like something Churchill would have said, no-one really had a clue what he was on about and boy, did he drip on for a long time. It was pretty funny though, nobody could keep a straight face. We were made to go to the prize presentation but on the plus side there was a very decent meal offered by the race organisers so it could have been worse.
I’m pleased I managed to get through the race and even get up there a bit towards the end on the stages that suited me better. I think this race should set me up nicely for the Poly Lyonnaise next Sunday and the Tour du Gévaudan French Cup the following weekend. Thanks to those who sent me messages of support on the Forums the other week, it was really appreciated and helped me get over a really bad patch.
À bientôt.
