Nobody Said It Was Easy

Almost at the close of my first 4-week block of training, and it's hardly been all plain sailing. There was of course the knee troubles in the early part, and now since last Sunday, my first cold of the 09/10 winter. I'm hoping it'll be the last too. Sunday's squad ride was never going to be all that enjoyable, after my work at the Chalk Lane Hotel dragged on until the small hours. Not much more that 4 hours is far from ideal when you have a 4 hour ride on the cards. Added to this, as the ride got into it's third hour the weather closed in. Squally (!) showers accompanied by strong winds and a falling temperature left me in a state of mild hypothermia! I was not in a good place. After showering we had our usual post ride workshop on goal setting, I'd warmed up a little, but was far from ok as it later transpired. A rough nights sleep left me feeling really groggy come Monday, which developed into a cold by Tuesday, and it's still hampering me now. Still, who said this life is easy?

More encouragingly, we did meet our new sponsor this last Sunday. Jim Chisman, importer of Flanders Frames from Belgium. Jim has very kindly offered to provide us with frames and clothing for the coming season, for which we are of course, extremely grateful. So the plan is for the three of us moving to Belgium, i.e Josh Cunningham, James Bowtell and myself are to ride for a newly formed team, called Flanders Racing. Our new jerseys should look pretty similar to the picture above, but as soon as I receive it I'll post up some proper pictures that aren't lifted from the Flanders Fietsen website! Essentially for us there is little change, our calendar will be largely unaffected by the change in jersey, and we will be continuing to train with the OneLife Development Squad as usual. Jim is also pledging support to them also, so you will see the Flanders logo on their kit too. Some of you will have known the Pacific Flanders RT of a few seasons past, we are effectively picking up where they left off. So the old website at http://www.pacificracing.co.uk/ will in time be renamed and become our own new website.

So now I have the nice problem of which frame size to choose! As I mentioned before I am somewhat obsessive when it comes to position, so I want to be absolutely sure of the right size! To this end I am currently drawing up each relevant frame size in order to ascertain which size is best for me, geeky, I know! The 'Pro Team', as shown above and what we are hoping to receive has relatively straightforward geometry, the other options though are a little more tricky, if like me you are a freak! By this I mean of course that your body is not exactly proportioned of course! My trouble being I have long legs, but a short body and arms... Anyhow, I'm told the frames are of excellent quality, and I certainly can't wait to get to find out for myself. They are race proven over the years by a string of professional and amateur teams in Belgium. Jim hopes to have the frames to us by the exiting side of Christmas, so fingers crossed you'll see me out on my Flanders frame very soon. As I posted before, check out http://www.flandersfietsen.be/ for more information on the bikes and the shop.

The best part about this latest development is that it gives us another contact to call upon in Belgium. I don't think the enormity of moving to a foreign country has escaped any of us, so to have friendly bike shop with easy reach will be of enormous benefit to us. Flanders Fietsen is the shop that the frames come from, and is situated less than 40km away from our house (pictured above). Jim assures us that they will be able to help us out with any problems with our bikes should there be any, but more likely just give us a hand with some of the mechanical things that often go wrong. Now I'm an ok mechanic, but I cant fix a snapped mech hanger! So things like that will be no problem with this back-up. In addition to this, and most importantly of all. The shop is a key supporter to a top amateur team based in Oudenaarde, just 10km from us, called Asfra RT. So there may be opportunities to ride for them if we progress in the correct manner, which will be an excellent stepping stone in our development. Just being associated with them through the shop may be a benefit in itself. 2010 really is looking full of promise just now. Finally, the three amigo's have finally set a date to go and visit our new landlord and see our house in Belgium, the 12th & 13th of December. So watch this space for further details of the house, and a better picture than the dodgy camera phone variety above!

A New Sponsor?

A week on from my knee falling off, and so far, it seems like its ok. This week I have been able to train as normal, albeit I have been incredibly conscious of my knee. Only just now I ran up the stairs, and at the top, my knee felt like it clicked. So again I'm really paranoid about it! It's probably nothing, and for 3.5 hours in yesterdays gales, it was fine. So hopefully it was just a blip down to a school boy error in positioning!

Anyhow, in more exciting news there are plans afoot for a new sponsor for the team. I probably shouldn't go into too much detail, as to be honest, I don't have many details to tell! The plan is for the new sponsor to meet us after our next team ride this Sunday, so hopefully after that I'll be able to fill you in with the real news... In the meantime, have a look here:

http://www.flandersfietsen.be/

Back on the road this week I discovered another excellent little farm track nearby to keep me entertained this winter, it literally goes on for ages! I am really just a kid sometimes, and there is something quite comical about riding a bike designed to speed along pristine tarmac along gravelly, muddy and potholed lanes that are less than 3 meters wide! For one, there are no cars about. Even better, you traverse across fields and the like without any recognisable feature in sight most of the time, they are in many ways just like being in Belgium. Which is a thought that is never far from my mind. I have been trying to get my two idiosyncratic team mates organised for a trip to our house next year, just for a little recce. That said, getting these two to say yes to being in the same place at the same time is quite a challenge. I'm beginning to think they might not like each other! Of course I jest, though at this rate the first we see of the house will be the day we move in properly!!

In other disappointing news, I found out the address for the house this week, 18 Churchilllaan, Waregem. So I'm going to live in the heartland of cycling, and in effect I'm living on Winston's own lane! An example of what I was hoping for perhaps can be found just at the end of the road, Jan Bouckaertstraat, now that's much more like it! Still, if you have a look, Waregem seems to be a really cool place, I cannot wait to see it for myself.

Last time in my recapping of 2009, I ended on the eve of my trip to Ireland. I could write for hours about this experience, of course no one would actually read it though! So I set of with my 5 companions, Simon McNamara, Steve Saunders, Roger Smith, John Heaton-Armstrong and our team leader the evergreen Gary Dodd. After one of the roughest ferry crossings I hope ever to have to endure, and countless hours in the car, we arrived at our accommodation. A beautiful farmhouse just outside the race town of Killorglin, Kerry. Our generous host, John Magner, a former rider himself with an impressive collection of trophies as well as an incredibly strong accent! This was a Surrey Cycle Racing League composite team, as such we were in the white and grey jerseys as you see above.

There were 4 stages, over 4 days. The first afternoons racing saw my lack of experience at this level cost me over a minute. Coming to the final climb I was too far back, as a result missed the split which both Gary and Steve made, and arrived at the finish 15th of 17 U23 riders. I'd had the idea of being in contention for this classement... haha! The next day saw us cross the epic Connor Pass around halfway through the stage. The whole peloton was nervous, you could sense it, as it was a large group came to the final 20km chasing a rapidly disintegrating break away. Eventually we came to the line to sprint for around 8/9th. The run in was fast, with just one tight right hander, I was positioned well and lined up to seriously contest for a top 1o. Until that is, one of the Irish academy lads decided to cut me up through the corner. I had 3 options, hop a kerb at 55km/h, ride into him and likely bring most of the bunch down, or brake. I chose the later since my bunny hoping just ain't that great! As a result I placed 25th, I was fuming.

The next day was a slightly shorter stage, but the wind was up, big time. This was only really the second time I have been put in the position of having to ride echelons in a race. I learnt the hard way. Essentially, I just about survived the crosswinds, but the damage was done and I ended up getting dropped on the penultimate climb, with about 35km to go. Watching the convoy just slip out of my grasp was one of the more hard hitting learning curves of this year. I eventually made the finish just over 12 minutes down on the winner, and over 10 minutes down on the others. I felt humiliated. From then on, learning how to ride the cross winds became a major part of my development. Later on in the year, in Belgium, I had just about worked it out. The final stage saw any thoughts I had of doing anything special were ruled out by my not being party to the deal that was done that saw a break go that was of no danger to the GC men. I made the finish circuits ideally placed, 6th wheel, just behind the yellow jersey and his team. Ultimately though, I knew there wasn't a great deal of point in working so hard to stay up front and go for 15th place. My legs were already on the way home. I drifted back, got held up briefly by a crash on the last lap, but it mattered little. I remained 54th on GC, moving to 17'59 from the winner, a number not without significance... it was the year Arthur Guinness signed the lease to St. James Gate.

Only now can I begin to appreciate the things I learnt that weekend, and for the experience I must express my gratitude to the Surrey League, in particular Keith Butler for giving me the opportunity. The form this race provided me with did not go unused, the season was about to pick up...

Stalling

12 days, 12 days! Just 12 days in to training and I have a problem. Apparently I'm not all that good at setting up my position on a new bike, well, not this one at least. Last time I was talking about being obsessive about my position, perhaps not enough! I began to get some pain in my left knee towards the end of Sunday's first team ride. I was not too concerned to begin with, and thought it would go away. Then yesterday, after barely and hour of riding I was reduced almost to tears it was so painful, I could barely turn the pedals. Fortunately, my good friend Dave was on hand to give me a lift home. After some fastidious tape measure action, I came to the conclusion that the saddle was both too low, and too far forward. Which fitted in with the location of the pain according to what I have read online. The problem is the saddle can't go any further back on the seatpost I have, hopefully my coach, Alan, has another for me. So I'm back on the Fuga for a bit in the meanwhile, which is much nicer to ride being my race bike, but I had gotten really comfy with the bar set up on my training bike which is different. Alas, it'll do for now. Like I say, I'm obsessive!

In other news, apart from this hopefully brief knee hiccup, training is good. I'm like a kid again each time I go out, finding new lanes and farm tracks to ride down. I love it! The weather hasn't been too unkind just yet either, so it's all good. The team met up for the first time on Sunday too, a good ride was had by all. Obviously I let my team mate Josh have the sprint of course, gotta keep the lad happy, he's a bit fragile you know! Had some new faces out on the ride too, which was cool, overall though a slightly slimmed down squad on last year, which I think will be good in the long run. A more tight nit group can only be a more effective force, right?

Continuing on reminiscing about the season that was, brings us to the Dengie Marshes Tour, Hell of the East. This is an epic tour across the flat lands of Essex, not dissimilar to Belgie. Except for the lack of cobbles, now to make up for this an incredibly muddy section of rutted slightly downhill farm track is included. It was often carnage, luckily I avoided crashing or puncturing, but these were fates that befell my team mates! A crash in front of me effectively ended my race by allowing the front 10 riders to ride away from me. My own fault for not being further forward. I came to the last 10km fighting from the bunch for a top 20 finish, together with a few others I broke away from the bunch on the last crossing of the track, but failed to get the top 20, I finished 21st. An awesome race though, most definitely a love/hate matter for all who ride it!

One more weekend before my trip to Ireland saw a largely uneventful race in Oxfordshire, the Thames Velo Spring RR. I had a really heavy week of training leading into it, yet felt ok. I almost helped force a late break on the last lap, but when it came to a bunch sprint I was nowhere. The important thing was the form was coming, but was it coming soon enough for Ireland? Here's some of the muddy aftermath of Dengie!