Bike Racing / Dream Chasing

It doesn’t happen very often in Belgium, but at this time of year one doesn’t need to be on one’s own bicycle to be entertained. For 11 months of the year you could be forgiven for opting for a ‘weekend away in Gravesend’, rather than Flanders (said with the same sort of masked affection you would employ when calling your best mate a pleb), but this Belgium’s moment in the sun – quite literally too, at the moment. There’s so much excitement and buzz revolving around the arrival of the cobbled classics that one weekend flies to the next faster than Tom Boonen ascends the Taaienberg.

The best way, in my opinion, to get any real sense of the races from a spectator’s point of view, is to get out amongst the hubbub of it all and go race-chasing. Similar to the popular hobby, Storm chasing, but with more drama and risk involved.

It’s the done thing to do for a lot of locals at the big races – Het Nieuwsblad, E3 and of course De Ronde. Last year I joined the masses and chased the Tour of Flanders around, testing my local road knowledge and managing to see it 6 times. With so many other people doing the same, the scenes can only be described as resembling the type of frantic mass exoduses you see in films like Independence day or Godzilla. With the berg locations so close both geographically and in time, the lead car is often rolling past while hundreds of people are still arriving, and the last rider in the bunch as barely come into view before everyone is running back to their mode of transport – off road things like quad bikes and motocross bikes are often popular for ‘short cuts’.

Anyhow, as my Mum and Girlfriend were visiting last week, it would have been rude not to join the masses for E3 Prijs. We managed to see the race 5 times, which wasn’t a bad effort. Ok you don’t get to see the race unfold, but there are no lack of crowded bars to watch the finish in once you have seen the gory bits and managed to piece together what’s happened so far.

Crowds gathering on The Muur.

Protestors on The Muur (about it’s absence from The Tour of Flanders).

The bunch rolling over La Houppe.

Crowds massing on the banks of the Oude Kwaremont.

Boonen, Pozzato, VanMarcke and Sagan get the gap on the Oude Kwaremont.

Sagan leads the pursuit of Chavanel, Muravyev and Gatto on Le Cote De Trieu.

Now, by tactfully choosing to race this coming Saturday, I’ll hopefully get out and beat last years effort of 6 viewpoints in ‘Vlaanderens Mooiste’, the Tour of Flanders.

This is a copy of my latest blog from http://www.cyclosport.org/

The last two weeks have gone by pretty quickly when I think about my previous blog entry, but a lot has happened since then, with a last blast of big training miles on the odometer and a formal presentation of my team to those who are interested being the main things on the agenda. There was the added spice of spending a short time being stranded in a foreign country too, but now, for the first time since September last year, the next significant date on my cycling calendar is a race.

I left for Belgium on the 26^th Jan, which felt unseasonably early. I was alone in the house for 5 days, which apart from a great deal of shivering, I spent sorting a few things out with the team, getting set up on my bike (Zannatta Shadow made up with Campag Chorus 11 group and Deda componentry), and getting myself  generally sorted for the training camp, of which 13 of us departed Charleroi for on February 1^st.

I met most of my team mates for the first time at the airport, including the only other English speaker and my obvious room-mate for the week, Alex McGregor, who had arrived from New Zealand the previous night, and was thus dealing with time and temperature changes of equal extremities.

We arrived at Pisa Aeroporto at midday, while the van had most kindly met us there, and we duly got changed into our chamois in the car park out front. As a group of girls also remarked upon seeing us; it was cold.

The ride to the hotel in Montecatini Terme was supposed to be a 60km easy ride, but a snow storm and some confusion in a pitch black mountain tunnel put paid to that, so after 1 broken wheel and 1 hour of standing around, we got on with a good deal of teeth chattering, map finger pointing, direction asking ordeal of a ride. We arrived at the hotel more or less in one piece (the DS taking a ‘HTFU’ approach and barely batting an eyelid), and sat down to dinner on arrival day already feeling like about ready for a recovery day.

The main bulk of the week ran pretty much as you would expect – get up, eat, go training, eat, sleep. The first day was spent getting our bearings of our corner of Tuscany, with a 4 hour steady ride. Day two, Friday, was another 4 hours, but taking in the full force of the Tuscan hills, with the added bonuses of minus temperatures, and doing about 10RPM with a severely over geared 25 sprocket. Saturday was only 3.5 hours, but with the middle hour being a broken up into intervals. The next day was when I started to feel the pinch, doing 4 hours with the team and an hour afterwards with Sean Vanderwaeter…your typical 80kg Belgian beast. Another 5 hours on the last day had me well and truly ‘in the box’, and ready to go home, as we rolled up to the hotel. If only that were the case.

Oh no, my time in Italy was yet to be fulfilled! The fact that we had to put our main bags in the team van to be driven back to Belgium, and keep hold of our hand luggage (inc.passport), was just too much for me to handle, apparently. By the time I realised, the van was too far away to turn around, and so I waved goodbye to the team at Pisa Airport on Tuesday afternoon, and continued on my way to Milano, obviously incredibly frustrated with myself, but also a small part silently revelling in the unknown that lay before me.

The Embassy was closed by the time I got to Milan at 6pm, so I didn’t hesitate to step straight out of the station and straight into the nearest Pizzaria. Delicimo. With the important stuff out of the way, I found an internet cafe, located the Milanese Youth Hostel, and made my way there for a 20 Euro night, with free wifi and breakfast included. The 6 other multicultural, multi-snoretonal room mates of mine seemed well within the realms of normality by this stage.

It would have been rude not to eat 6x my bodyweight at breakfast, so I did so with ever decreasing pleasure, and then pocketed provisions for the day as well. In the daylight I realised the hostel was neighbour to the San Siro stadium, home of both AC and Inter Milan, and I had missed the former’s Champions League game that night by a day! Nevermind; onwards to the British Consulate General, and a relatively smooth 2 hour transaction later I had an emergency passport. So with the whole day to kill until my flight, and with the BCG being southside  and train station being northside, I walked there, trying to take in as many landmarks as possible in the 4 hour meander as I could.

Despite an email during the day saying my flight had been cancelled, I was told otherwise upon arrival, and checked in problem free. A suitably disappointing McDonald’s “salad” later and I was on the plane. The team manager picked me up from the airport and I eventually arrived back home late in the evening.

The temperatures were well below freezing for the following couple of days, and as I have a habit of getting bad chest colds at this time of year, I took no chances and did all my training either on the turbo or doing power tests at the gym.

Friday evening was the official team presentation, and followed suit to most team presentations! We were issued with some casual clothing, with just one rider being told to kit up in race gear for whatever reason, and were presented on stage in 3’s, each answering a few questions along the way. With the host’s English being limited, a fellow team mate was put on the spot to ask myself and Alex, the Kiwi a few pleasantries – expectations for the year, how my training has been and such like.  The sound of my own voice on a PA system never ceases to take me by surprise.

After some photos and a bit of mingling with the sponsors, press and public, it was time to go home and get some sleep for the journey back to the UK. Cue disaster journey number 2!

After a 6am start, and destined for a 10am ferry from Dunkirk, my car drew it’s last breath on the outskirts of the port. Smoke started billowing from under the bonnet, so I stopped for ten minutes, and continued when it subsided. A few minutes later, after it had become more ferocious, and accompanied by some worrying rattling noises and a burning smell, I pulled into a lay-by. The engine stalled before I had stopped, and hasn’t started since.

Halfway through my phone call with the RAC I ran out of credit, so walked to the nearest town to get some credit. It became apparent topping up on a Belgian SIM was impossible, and with a capped contract on my English SIM, I sought help from the local “Discotheque”, which was open?! I managed to get a pick up arranged to take me to the port; arriving at Calais 10 minutes after my scheduled ferry arrived in Dover.

Right now I am half way across the channel, discreetly tucked away at a plug socket on the ferry, hoping to be greeted by an RAC truck on my arrival!

It has been a long two weeks, and quite frustrating, let alone a vastly diminishing one for coffee stop funds if the Post Office and RAC don’t come up trumps! Anyway, hopefully it isn’t an omen for the season ahead, and I can seek some positivity in the fact that ON the bike, I am actually feeling quite good, so roll on the weekend of the 25^th.

“Imagine scoring a goal in the Champions League final; the crowds are similar…but for an hour, continuously.” Said Sven Nys prior to Sunday’s world Cross champs. Some might even say that he is playing them down somewhat, but you can see what he is trying to say; that cycling fans really are an extravagantly loud, frenzied, sometimes uncontrollable bunch. That the spectators can get so intimately close to their heros is all part of what makes cycling such a great sport to watch. To commemorate this I’ve chucked a few photos and videos together that get as close to emulating actually being there as possible.

There’s the endless waiting of course,then the emergence of the convoy, then the anticipation, the scrambling for a good spot, the eerie silence, the surprise of the first rider as the crowd opens up,  the sheer madness of the next 200, and finally, a mere 5 minutes later, the deep breath out, and back to the crate of beer.

And if a picture tells a thousand words, then these two videos should be ample. One is from the ’74 Giro, which I’ve posted on here before but is always worth a re-watch for the legendary Tifosi. The other is from “Hell On Wheels”, and like so many other clips from the film, is an expertly put together bit of footage in a fly on the wall style of a stage of the Tour from the perspective of a Basque fan.

Tifosi

Stage 15 with the Basque

It’s that butterfly time of year again. The Pro Tour is back on TV, the calendar is starting to take shape, and rather than conversations about training programs and base layers, you find that spring, Europe, and bike racing are being bandied about in their place. It’s about time, too!

For me this means starting to think about moving back to Belgium, hence the butterflies. With details coming in about training camps, kit, bike, and calendar, one can’t help but look forward in earnest. The start of the season is always like this; and it’s best to make the most of it as there will sure as hell be more tears than smiles by the time the season is through.

This is the first winter in a couple of years that I have been coached, after being set up with a coach through the team. The fact that he also happens to be our landlord, and run the local gym in Zottegem, all helps in keeping things in close contact. I have noticed that the perceived workload has been less than I would usually do. In previous years I would not think twice about doing  4, 5, or 6 hour rides, day after day, throughout the winter, but the longest I have done so far is 4 hours, and it is only in the last couple of weeks that I have had more than 3 of these in a week.  Up until Christmas there was a lot of core work, turbo sets, and some running – ending in me spontaneously running my first half marathon! Like I said, I perceive it as less, but in reality it’s just a more structured, gradual plan. Hopefully this means that by August, I will still have plenty left in the tank, unlike previous years.

Off the bike, I have had a really enjoyable winter. I decided after 2 years spending my winter days working as a waiter and bartender, I needed something a touch more stimulating. Lawrence at the TriStore in Eastbourne was good enough/pitied me enough to give me a Saturday job, and that’s been something I’ve really enjoyed.  Working with bikes with people who like bikes – what’s not to love? During the week I’ve been working at a local gym/sports event business http://www.tlsportsevents.co.uk/. This has been another extremely rewarding job, helping out at the gym, taking spin classes, and now getting involved with the events company too, particularly with my home town’s very own:  Eastbourne Cycling Festival! We have just got back from a week of promoting the event at the London Bike Show, and it looks to be a very promising weekend. TL have even been generous enough to sponsor me for the coming season as well, so I am very grateful to them and The Tristore for their combined help.

I’m going to carry on working until the end of January to keep my funds topped up for the year, and then start preparing for the season properly. I have been fortunate enough to be granted conditional funding from The Dave Rayner Fund this year, so money worries have been minimal. This has the priceless effect of letting me concentrate on what’s important for now – bike riding!

The first main event of the season will be the ‘Viasport Publi-led Cycling Team’ training camp, which is going to be in Tuscany, Italy, in early February, but I will probably go to Belgium before hand, just to sort out my bike set up, and more importantly to shotgun my room in the house! After that it’s the team presentation on the 11th Feb, after which I’ll come back home for a couple of weeks, before finally moving out for good around the 20th. Racing then kicks off on the weekend of the 26th with the early season classic, Gent-Staden.

Here’s to wishing everyone a good year, on and off the bike.

I lost my London Bike Show virginity this weekend, and now in retrospect I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to do so, because what an event it is.

The reason for my attendance was to promote Eastbourne Cycling Festival, as the event has been taken over by TL Sports Events, http://www.tlsportsevents.co.uk/ who I have been working for over the winter. My other employer, The Tristore, http://www.thetristore.com/are also the lead sponsor for the event, so it was clearly something I was destined to get involved in!

The show ran from Thursday to Sunday, but with all bases covered during the week I showed up for extra help at the weekend, the two busiest days.

And they WERE busy.

As a relatively modest stand and no physical product to sell, I am sure we were comparatively not the busiest, but nonetheless we continued to make valuable contacts for the Festival; and for the multitude of things that are going on it is quite a varied list, I can tell you.  I spoke to clothing companies, cycle touring companies, nutritionists, manufacturers, a bloke who’s attempting the world circumnavigation by bike record, and a man with a penny farthing business to name but a few. So enthused were our networking efforts I am now having to resist the urge to put a # or an @ in every sentence I write.

As well as closed road crit racing, youth races, Rollapaluza, and a sportive, there are also the new additions of a trade marquee, cycle exhibitions, a 5k fun run, and a duathlon – so when you think about that, the diversity involved is understandable (and brilliant).

So, stay in touch, get all the info, and enter all the events here> http://eastbournecyclingfestival.co.uk/#, and follow the necessary twitter profiles, @PaulHoldaway1 @TLSportsEvents @thetristore <there ,and see you on the 19^th + 20^th of May!

A lot of thinking is generally done when I am riding my bicycle. Occasionally they may be meaningful, or even mildly interesting thoughts, but for the most part the hours tend to be whiled away by pointless wanderings of whatever lies between my ears. This is one of them.

Sunglasses are quite a big factor of the appearance of a cyclist, in particular a racing cyclist. The specs of choice can make or break an entire look. Self admittedly, it’s a crime I have committed in the past on many an occasion, but there is no denying the importance of sunglasses when regarding the cool factor of a rider. It’s something that could be deliberated over for hours, but my friend Simon has a done a great overlook in his blog here http://www.saltedmackerel.cc/2011/05/shades/

Today I was not thinking of style though. It was more the mental effects sunglasses have on the model. The effects of sunglasses have often been talked about when concerning other competitors, the main one being the fact that they cannot see your eyes, and therefore your level of physical distress. Or simply “that dude looks cooler than me”.

So finally, to the point in hand. I think that when you wear sunglasses, it helps to separate you from your surroundings. Granted, this is not always a good thing, but at the same time it can also be a very big positive. You often hear phrases such as “in the zone” bandied about, and for good reason when talking about maximum performance, because quite frankly you need to be.  When I ride with glasses, I do honestly feel like I am in my own little world. Turning the pedals becomes thoughtless, breathing becomes constant, and motion becomes fluid (the last point remains unproven). I find that the odd scratch or trickle of sweat on the glass just helps to reiterate the fact that all you can see is separated from what matters, which is what is going on behind the glass, and behind your eyes. If I am to push my glasses on top of my head, it really is like flicking a switch, like re-entering reality after being in a limbo of mindless pedalling.

I have been known to sit on my turbo trainer, after dark, in my garage…wearing sunglasses and sleeping earplugs. Like glasses, the same theory applies with the earplugs. Obviously out on the road it would be suicidal, but on the turbo I find that complete silence helps me to concentrate. I just can’t understand why people like listening to music during efforts, to me it’s like having a little person in your head singing, dancing, and distracting, while you are grimacing in agony. The silence really helps you to disconnect from the situation; you can’t hear the constant whurr of the turbo, nor the intermittent groans that you inevitably make. What you don’t know won’t hurt you, so the more you can hide from your brain, the more you can concentrate on what’s important, and that’s doing the interval.

So next time you don the eyewear, take a look from a different perspective and see if you can see where I’m coming from.

Oh and for the record….I hate time trialling.

As I’ve been without a computer for the past 3 months, updating the blog has been somewhat of an issue. Now that I’m back though, I’ve borrowed one for the time being, and managed to get an update done for www.cyclosport.org…..

The Vuelta has finished, the World Champs is drawing ever closer, leg warmers are the accessory of choice when out training, and the need for sunglasses is becoming increasingly slim. These are just a few things to remind us all that the end of the season is nigh, and I for one am quite relieved that it’s the case.

Even though I’m finishing my season a whole month earlier than last year, I feel more than ready to take my annual leave and start preparing for 2012. My physical condition has been gradually decreasing since a very heavy 2 weeks I had at the end of July and beginning of August, in which I had a 5 day stage race, a Cup of Belgium race, as well as a UCI 1.2. Despite notching a few good results in the closing stages of 2011, a programme like this will, as they say, make or break you, and I think in my case it broke me for the year!

This year has been my first ‘full’ season, racing from start to finish, with no problems mid season like I have had in previous years, which I think have acted as an unplanned mid season break and resulted in good form until the end. Muur to muur racing this year has taken it’s toll, and although my strength has wilted slightly, I’m sure when my body has compensated for the seasons efforts it will set me in good stead for the future. For the sake of multimedia, you can even watch me display my bad form and get dropped from a break in this video from the Tour of Antwerp.

Despite this fairly lacklustre period, though, I have actually come out with some big positives, with the main one being signing on the dotted line for a brand new team in 2012. As more details become public I will be able to ‘reveal’ more (excuse any egotistical vibes, they are unintended!), but as it stands next year and hopefully beyond could both be very exciting and important for me, so watch this space. I think as soon as I knew my plans for next year, my head began to progressively think less and less about the current season, and more and more about the following. It is only a natural response, but was probably a contributing factor in my poor form for the final month.

The end of the season was quite an emotional time for us all in the house, as ‘The Wymerschlaan brothers’ gradually dispersed to their corners of the globe. Spending 6 months of the year living inside each other’s pockets naturally creates strong bonds, and barring the odd bout of rage, we actually got on quite well for the most part. The Australians were first to leave, who were swiftly replaced by some fellow Brits, before an American and an Australian also joined ranks and I departed back to Blighty. The two remaining originals are in it for the long haul, with team duties right up to the last race of the season, a TopComp team time trial in mid October….spare a thought for them! The good news is though come February we could all be reunited under the same roof again, which is reassuring because having a healthy living environment is a key aspect of life abroad.

Now I find myself back in England and relishing the thought of winter training. When I’m getting kitted up at 7am to brave the no doubt arctic conditions, I’m sure I’ll feel differently, but for now I can’t wait to get going. With the direction of a coach, the motivation for the year ahead, and hopefully the good health to go with it, then it will be a good time at home. For now, though, I am in the midst of a furious job hunt, while making the most of my time off the bike annihilating my depleting upper body muscles doing some garden landscaping and searching for more appropriate work!

Unlike my employment prospects, something that is concrete in my diary is the Cyclosport Party on the 15th October. Hopefully I can meet and catch up with plenty of people there, but if not, until the next blog entry!

This is a video from yesterday’s race, which was the 4th round of the “Beker Van Belgie”, the main competition that my team runs in and which for me should probably have been a better result than the placing I walked away with.

The winning break formed, hovered at 10 seconds for a few kilometres for a while, before slipping under a railway crossing and while the bunch stopped proceeded to gain over 2 minutes! (2:20) I managed to get myself into the next move of the day (3:20), but the group was too big and with 2 local laps to go we were brought back. Another move then went clear which I missed, before getting 3rd in the bunch sprint to take a disappointing 27th.

170km in 25 degree heat proved rather dehydrating, as I found out while in doping control as I sat in the changing rooms for 1.5 hours trying to squeeze out the minimum of 90cl!

Anyway, with the lack of posting on here also comes regular(ish) posting elsewhere, at www.cyclosport.org most recently. I’ll be writing another blog for them today at some point so stay tuned in the next few days too.

I have seen on a few cycling blogs recently that a small cult following has developed on the website http://lovingthebike.com/crank-directory/ in aid of small time bloggers, such as yours truly. What’s more, a contest has been initiated and the ballot boxes are open for readers wordwide to pledge their allegiances to their favourite cycling related blog, or blogs (so I can cast a vote for my own, as well as my actual favourite).

There are some mighty good reads out there, so I imagine my position will be fairly unspectacular, but ‘all publicity is good publicity’ and all that, so if I manage to bag a few more readers then success will be achieved, and your help will be greatly appreciated.

Just paste http://joshcunninghamcycling.com/ into the “other” box in the road section.

Bedankt!