At the Eiffel tour watching the premier of Home

Riding down some street they call Champs- Elysees

Taking the car out for the first time I had to

quickly find cover as it started to hail

Paris - Rouen

White Cliffs of Dover

Driving a left hand drive car in England where

they drive on the left hand side can be interesting.

The Past Month and a Bit

Well as you can tell I am very inconsistent with this blog, so sorry for that. The last month has been a bit up and down with me getting sick a few times. But if there was a time for me to get sick and have a bit of down time now is the time as there hasn't been a lot of racing. This is due to the regional and national championships going on throughout June, which I am not able to race in.

Also in the last few weeks I have hired a little Fiat Panda that is great even if butterflies can out strip it. On my first outing with it I drove to Calais and then got the ferry across to Dover, England where I met up with some friends for a few days which was really good fun. The first morning I was there I went and got a nice fully cooked English breakfast, so good.

I have been told just recently that I will be riding the Tour of Guadeloupe that is just of the coast of Venezuela from the 7th - 16th August. We will be flying in on the 6th and out on the 18th which will be really cool as I will have my 21st the day after the finish of the race.

Matt

Paris - Rouen

With a good weeks rest after 3 hard one day races the previous weekend, I was feeling good and looking forward to Paris-Rouen.

Paris-Rouen is a very old race being the first cycling race between two cities. Back in the 1880's it would take the winner around 10hrs to finish and most of the other competitors over 24hrs. I am not sure why but they had two rules then and they were that you weren't allowed to take your dog and that you weren’t allowed to put any form of sail on your bike.

Anyway todays race is raced from just outside Paris, I am not sure of the village so we will just say that I was so focused on the race to notice and it finished with 3 laps of an 8km course in the centre of Rouen. This totalled 155km.

We rolled out at 2pm with a neutral of 5km before we were stopped for the offical start. Where they started the race you could see down the road as it was straight and maybe after a few hundred metres there was a sizeable hill. Sure enough as the gun went off for the start people started to attack and the peleton was in single file in no time at all. Luckily I was at the front of the peleton for the start and was in about 20^th wheel going up the climb. As we crested the hill a break of about 10 skipped away. Not long after that I joined them as some one had attacked and I just jumped onto their wheel. The break now being 12 after only 5km started to work pretty well together as all the main teams were well represented. Within the first 50km we gained an advantage of 3.30min and it was still going out. Then after about 70km the official's car pulled up in front of us and tried to make us stop which really confused me. All the others in the break just rode around the car and continued on so I just followed them and then the car came up beside us and started to argue with a couple of the riders. By now I was totally confused. After a very heated agument the car pulled back in behind us and let us continue on our way. I decided to go back to our car and get a few biddens and ask our director what was happening as he spoke English. They said that the peleton had stopped chasing. This seemed quite wierd to me as there was still 90km to go. It was not til after the race that I found out that the lead motor bikes had taken the peleton the wrong way which cost them maybe a minute or two.

So the break just rode along easily and we continued to get time gaps that went from 5minutes to 13minutes and then 21 minutes. With around 40km to go the first attack from our group was launched but nobody really went after him for about 10km preferring to leave him out there for awhile. It was not until we hit a hill that I attacked the group and rode away quickly catching and riding past the solo rider that had been hovering around 20seconds ahead of our group. I had a nice gap of around 30 sec on about 4 riders one being from my team coming into the start finish line where I was given 3 laps to go. Straight after the start finish line I turned right into a 2km hill which I knew as I had taken the opportunity to ride it a couple of days before. I knew that I just had to keep a nice even pace for the first 80percent of the hill and then really dig deep for the last bit of the hill. After the hill it flattened out for a couple of km before descending and then a slight rise for the last 500m to the finish. Now I had two laps to go and still felt pretty good. The gap now hovered at around 25 – 30 seconds for the second lap. Now on the final lap I just gave it my all up the hill. Getting to the top of the hill I now had a 40sec gap on the chasing group but I did not know who was in it or how many people were chasing. With 2km to go I knew it was my victory as I had 45sec. I ended up crossing the line 53sec ahead of second place which was taken by my team mate. So that capped of a good days race for me.

Strength or Stupidity

Yesterday I competed in the first of three one-day races that I have scheduled for this weekend. The race was called Grand Prix du Muguet, it was 110km road race consisting of 4 small laps each being 12.5km and 3 big laps of 20km with a steep hill of about 1km only 3 km into the lap.  As soon as the race was out of the neutral zone an escape of 5 riders formed gaining an advantage of around 30sec, after 10km I broke away from the peloton with Florent who is a team mate of mine and 3 other riders.  Within five kilometers of our group forming we caught the front, now with 10 riders in the break the time gap went out to and stayed at about 1.20 min. On the first of three big laps going up the climb I found myself with a small gap on the break. I decided to keep going and see what happened, by the time I was at the top of the hill I had taken the KOM points and had about a 20sec gap. I decided to take it one lap at a time as there was still 60km to the finish and I was by myself. For the next 40km I found a pace that I felt comfortable on and thought I would be able to hold for a prolonged period. Now that I had been away for 40km solo I had about a 1min gap on the break behind me. When I started the last lap with a 1 min gap I thought that it would be quite possible to stay away as I felt pretty good considering what I had done already.  With 10km to go the break behind me was caught by the peloton, I still had around 1min so pushing myself through the red zone I rode on, I knew that the peloton could quickly close a 1 min gap in 10km. Fortunately I held the peloton off and went across the finish in first place recording my first win of the season and also taking the KOM jersey. I am still unsure as to how I managed to pull this off as the odds of a single rider holding off a peloton for over 60 percent of the race coupled with the fact that I didn’t drink much throughout the race as I had taken water bottles that had pure cordial in are quite slim, but I will take it none the less.

   

French Cup Time Trial

Until 2 day before the time trial I was to ride a road frame that was converted to a time trial bike, then the team went out and bought me a brand new Pinarello FT1 time trail bike which was a big boost to confidence for the race, even though it shouldn't really have mattered. So I only got to do very minimal kilometres on it before the race and looking back at some of the photos now I can see that my position can be changed alot to get into a more aerodynamic position. It was a French Cup Time Trial which con-sistered of one 24 km lap that was undulating. On the day of the race I felt confidant of a good result as I had been over the course twice the day before and I felt it was a course that suited me well. The plan was to take it out strong but not to hard as I still needed to be strong for the last 8 km as it was a straight highway with a head wind to the finish line. Just before I left a time of 31.01 min had been set by a french rider as the fastest time. With in the first few km of the start my legs had already started to feel quite heavy and I had not even hit the gas hard yet, so this wasn't a good sign to start. When I approached the first of 2 hills I went to change down form the big chain ring to the small one, as I did this the chain was flung straight off which cost me a few seconds as I fixed it. Then at the top of the hill I went to change to the big chain ring but it just didn't want to do it so I had to use my fingers. So the first 10 km didn't go to well but the rest of the course I felt quite strong and even over took the person that went off in front of me after about 15km which was a good sign as we were 2 minutes apart. The final 3km was where I lost a lot of time as I died really quick even after I had been conservative though out the race. I finished in a time of 32.47 minutes, the winner ended up doing a time of 30.22mins.

Here is a link to my profile on the USSAPB web site;

http://www.ussapb.com/STEVE/COUREURS_2009/1ere_2eme_Categorie/KING%20Matt.htm