Sunday Training Ride & Velo Taupont Road Race

Part I:

Subtitle: Bang! Click, click, click.

Now I don’t normally bother you with descriptions of my Sunday morning club training rides but something happened today that I think was worth a brief mention. Also, as I’m in France, I’ve decide to change tack a little and drop the Imperial measures; it is kilometres and kilograms from now on in.

Anyhoo, the club riders met at the usual 08:00 hrs outside the church at Taupont and the four of us; Daniel, Gerard, Loic, and I, set off at a modest pace aiming to complete about 90 kms. Gerard is the Club’s honorary President, early 60’s and still very strong, especially on the hills. Daniel is a keen hill climber, but works shifts, can’t train as often as he’d like and is therefore is not as cycle fit as he wants to be. Loic is the youngest of us, perhaps late 30s, and quite fast.

Early on, we hooked up with the very strong Yves Oger, still flushed with the success of his first podium finish in a Pass’ Cyclisme race the week before. We mixed it up for a while but he peeled off after about 30 kms saying that he had a lunch appointment. I suspect he was getting a tad bored with our lack of overall pace, but maybe I’m doing him a disservice.

Nothing much happened for the first couple of hours; we gradually built up the speed and took part in the usual hill chases and sprint-to-the-village-signs. You know, it’s the type of thing I have described in the past. I usually fare reasonably well on these training rides and today was no exception – I won a few, lost a few.

At about 40 kms, just before we reached the interestingly named and rather attractive village of Coëtlogon we found ourselves at the foot of a long winding uphill climb. Loic attacked hard trying to drop the rest of us. I tried desperately to stick to his back wheel and was surprised when a fast-spinning Gerard passed us on the inside. I crossed to Gerard’s back wheel and was shocked to drop Loic quite quickly; he was obviously struggling to match our pace on the extended climb; Daniel was nowhere to be seen.

The road we were on was cut through rather fetching woodland and the Oak and Chestnut trees offered dappled shade from the hot summer sun - there I go again being all poetic and soft – back to the cycling (sorry Rory and Matt).

Gerard knew the route better than I did and so I trusted that I could last at least as long as he could ‘on the drive’; I have ridden with him on a number of occasions and so know his strengths. He has experience and knowledge of the local terrain, but I am stupid, like a horse who doesn’t know when he’s had enough until he collapses in a heap. No apologies to any horse-lovers out there, but horses are thick – any animal that permits itself to be run to death by a rider on its back? I rest my case.

Finally, we crested the top of the hill. I expected Gerard to ease up and wait for Loic and Daniel to catch us up, but he just drove right on over the top and down the other side. He even increased his efforts and I realized that he must be going for the sprint ‘points’ into Coëtlogon. I could just catch glimpses of buildings through gaps in the foliage and realised that we were only a few hundred meters away from the village sign. Breathing hard, whooping in great gasps of air we dug deep and drove hard. He beat me by the width of a tyre – excellent effort. I didn’t mind losing to the better man that time, but I would have another go later and this time I’d be ready for him!

We stopped at the top of the village hill, next to the church while the others reattached, had some food and then carried on towards home.

Mechanicals:

At about 80 kms we were motoring along a fast gentle downhiller towards the village of Les Forges, about 15 kms from the gorgeous medieval town of Josselin. I know this stretch of road well as it forms one of my winter circuits. I know, for example, that there was a slight uphill climb before a fast gentle descent into Les Forges. Normally, I am running blind when it comes to the sprints on these Sunday rides so this time I decided to have a real go and jump for the ‘points’ early. I dropped a gear and stood up; Loic and Gerard were ready for me and there was a rare old race up the hill and down the other side. We were really motoring. In my top gear (52/12 for you cyclists) I managed to pass Gerard with about 300 metres to the Les Forges sign and Loic was in my sights.

Quads burning, I started pulling hard on the handlebars as I drove down with the legs to generate that last little bit of extra speed; just like the sprinters do (but without the strong legs, the strong arms or any of the real speed of course). Loic and I were neck and neck as the sign approached. I could tell he was just like me, absolutely flat out, but I was just managing to gain on him. I could tell that I was going to take him well before the line.

We had just about reached levels wheels when: Bang! Click, click, click! Shit!

I’d bust a spoke on the front wheel and the loose end was slapping against the left fork. Cursing vividly in French I pulled over – there’s no point cursing in English in the middle of France now is there? Loic of course, won the sprint and I was passed by both Gerard, very quickly, and Daniel a little while later.

I was distraught, this was the first time Yvette had let me down during an actual ride. Yvette is what I call my bike by the way; I don’t think I’ve told you that before. I call her ‘Yvette’ even though the French, unlike the British and Irish, refer to vehicles in the masculine. Nonetheless, I refuse to mount an Yves, so Yvette she will always be!

Gerard helped me remove the remains of the broken spoke (I’m useless for close-up work without my reading glasses) and I had to limp gingerly home for the last 20 kms. The guys were really generous and kept with me at a much lower speed although I suggested that they continued without me as I was quite close to home. They wouldn’t hear of it and shepherded me safely to within a couple of miles of home, just in case any further damage occurred to the wheel.

For the technical amongst you, my front wheel is a lightweight Mavic (see the Q&A blog just posted). It has only twenty spokes (blades) and losing one of them places a great deal of strain on the remaining nineteen. So downhill I had to keep the speed down and uphill I couldn’t put any added strain on the handlebars or the wobbling unbalanced wheel would catch on the brakes.

I made it home without further incident and swapped the damaged front wheel with my spare 18-year-old hand-built Mavic Open4CD (sorry again to the non-cyclist out there for the technical detail). The wheel is serviceable enough, still runs true-as-a-bell and will suffice until I can take damaged one to the ‘Bicycle Repair Man’ - Is anyone old enough to remember the Bicycle Repair Man sketch in Monty Python? Anyhoo, as this is France, the shops don’t open on Sundays and ‘local’ shops are closed on Mondays too so the wheel will have to wait until Tuesday! What can you do?

Part II: Velo Taupont Road Race

I didn’t realise it until yesterday, but there are actually two cycle clubs in Taupont, which is amazing really when you consider how small the place is. My club, Taupont Cyclisme (T.C.) concentrates on road racing. The other club, Velo Taupont (V.T.) concentrated on VTTs and has a really strong junior section that fosters the future of the sport. I guess there must have been something of a schism in the past to cause a split, but my French does not allow me to interrogate in anything like the subtle manner necessary to fathom the reason for the existence of two separate cycle clubs in such a tiny village.

During the training ride and before the mechanical incident, Daniel had told me about a Categorie bike race at Taupont which was being organised by V.T. that afternoon. Two club-mates were entered: the fast veteran Andy Shaw (back in my good books – see my comments in the Malestroit blog) and promising nineteen-year-old Sylvain Dore. I promised to pop over and lend my support.

Once home I had a shower, a meal and a brief rest, and then donned fresh cycling kit. As my training ride had been cut short by a few miles, I decided to ride to the race and took the scenic route to extend my day’s mileage.

It took me a while to find the race venue; although Taupont is a small village, its boundaries are quite extensive. I found the Start/Finish line in the middle of a large woodland area. The roads, narrow lanes really, were closed to stop traffic. These are just some of the joys of road racing in France; I couldn’t see them closing the roads in England for just a small local road race!

I didn’t have time to cycle the route as the racers were already lined up at the start so I have no real idea how tough the course was. The race distance was over 80 kms; 14 laps of about 6.3kms winding through the woods on a hot, hot day. I didn’t fancy it myself and I wasn’t invited anyway.

This was a category race, meaning you had to have a Pass’ Cyclisme racing license or better. It promised to be tougher and even harder than the Guilliers Pass’ Cyclisme that had I cut my teeth on in April.

I didn’t know it at the time, but Andy had been worried about the race all morning; it was the first serious non-Sportife he’d raced in for years. The riders around him, including Sylvain, looked uncompromisingly young and keen for the off.

After the usual seemingly interminable wait the starter finally sounded his horn and away they went, nineteen to the dozen, pedals driving furiously, up the short hill to the first left-hander and disappearing into the leafy glade.

With nothing left to do but wait for their first return, I had myself a rather appetising sausage in a gallette (a savoury crepe made with rye flour - yummy), and a beer and settled down to wait in the warm sun.

I didn’t have the foresight to take my stopwatch with me, typical, so I have no idea how fast the guys were travelling, but it looked pretty rapid to me as they sped past me at the end of the first lap. Sylvain was in the lead group of three with Andy towards the front of the pack looking somewhat bemused and not a little grim.

There were a few smaller groups and a long gap to the last couple of riders. I couldn’t help thinking how it must have looked to my wife and neighbours when I dragged my sorry arse around the 8 laps of the Guilliers sprint course in April; gutsy but sad. I applauded their efforts, but noticed that the crowd weren’t very vocal so I subdued my supporting calls after that.

Sylvain continued to battle it out at the front until about lap 10 when the leaders flew past again, but this time without Sylvain. Apparently he had been dropped out in the course. He arrived a few moments after the main pack and abandoned the race at the line.

It turns out that he had become dehydrated and had been unable to load up with water. After the event he complained bitterly about the poor organisation and his inability to find water out on the course but I had seen the van that followed the riders fill up with water bottles at the start of the race, so I don’t quite know what went wrong there. By the way, the following van acts as a sort of ‘broom wagon’ sweeping up the abandoned riders or those with mechanical problems; a safety and support vehicle if you will.

The racers continued for the remaining 4 laps with two riders ahead of the first small group of about ten riders. This group was in turn followed by the peloton which included the gallant and hard working Andy Shaw.

On the final lap one of the two leaders had made a successful break and crossed the line about a hundred metres ahead of second place. Then the 10-strong group rounded the final corner at the bottom of the finishing uphill straight. They were jockeying for position when one of the leaders lost traction on his back wheel when he put the power down on some gravel. He came a cropper and came down hard with less than two hundred yards to go; after all that work he’d fallen in the final straight, how gutting. He lay where he fell and attendants soon rushed to administer 1^st Aid. The rest of the mini-group battled it out for the minor places.

The peloton arrived shortly thereafter, with Andy in the mix, looking tired and hot but still determined. He probably finished mid-race; about 25^th place, but unfortunately I don’t have any results of timings to report.

Given that the majority of the competitors were Young Turks, some having pretensions of turning professional, I have to hand it to Andy. He acquitted himself so well. The fact that he didn’t figure highly in the race just goes to show how good the competition actually was. Andy is perhaps the best rider in T.C. and he had to work flat out just to stay mid-pack. I was so impressed; and relieved that I hadn’t tried to compete myself.

Daniel, who’d arrived to support the racers hosted us for post-race aperitifs ’s and to cut a long storey short, by the time I returned home that evening I had actually completed 160 kms (100miles) in the day. And that’s despite the lost spoke – so not a bad day after all.

Well done Andy; commiserations Sylvain!

My next race a 100 kms cyclosportif on Sunday 25^th July at Remungol – “La Ange Roussel”. Another blog will follow!