Thursday, May 28, 2009

Tour of Belgium UCI 2.HC Stage 1 and 2

Just a quick update of the first couple of stages.

Stage 1, I think it was 190km or something, Tervuren - Tervuren.

So much for a flat stage, there were some steep wee climbs in there.
It was pretty hard for me, I got pretty good at motor pacing. I had more
flat tyres in the stage than i've had all year. I did manage a chat
to Robbie McEwen during lunch though, he was telling me about how he won
the tour of wellington in 1994, I was telling him how I was 6 years old
then. Ended up too far back and missed a split in the last 3km, lost 1 min 24 sec.

I did learn something though, to catch back up in the last 30km you have to be
doing atleast 80km/h behind the car. That was pretty scary, especially on these
roads.

Stage 2, 200km, Buggenhout - Knokke Heist.
No problems for me today. Did it easy. First hour was fast until break was away,
then it was lunch time. Toilet stop, whatever you want to do at 28km/h. After 15min or so Katusha had to set tempo for most of the day as they had the leader in Ivanov.
Then 70km to go the sprinters teams come to the front to bring the break back and it's race on. Silence with Belgian Champion Roelandts, Rabobank with Brown, Katusha with Napolitano, De Haes and McEwen, Vanscansoleil with Bozic, LPR with Ongarato, Quickstep with Weylandt, Skil-Shimano with Van Hummel, the list goes on. So it's pretty much a bloc (full gas) for the rest of the race. One thing I did learn today though is that when you hit the front you do whatever you can to stay there, because there's no coming back from the back if you drift. I rode 53x12 at 100ish rpm for the last 2 hours and we covered over 100km. Crazy stuff!

I have a new respect for those professional sprinters. They have some big balls to ride those sprints. I don't yet have the nerve for that. Well not so much the nerve it would be ok if I had the power to sustain the position.

There was a huge crash that happened on the finish line, it was a crazy circuit, so much road furniture, a crash was going to happen somewhere. 3km earlier I was also following McEwen when he jumped the curb and rode into the stop sign. Yesterday he was telling me about this years Tour de France and today he's lying on the road side, broken knee, career in doubt, thoughts are definately with him tonight.

Other than that not much, i'm about to sleep. Later start tomorrow though which is nice.

Will try and update tomorrow night.

We have another flat stage, only 170km this time. cobble sections though.
Should be cool.

Ryan

Sunday, May 24, 2009

The week that was.

Another week down, another race done and another race to look forward to!

Just got through a big block of training finished off with a weekend of races.

Yesterday I raced in Aartrijk, Elite and U23, 120km with 121 starters.
It was a funny race, a break never went away which made for a lot of attacking and chasing. Although I was able to make all the moves.

We pulled a little group away on the last lap, around 15 riders. 1 guy escaped in the last 800m, we counter attacked at the same time, but we never closed the gap. He held 5 seconds at the finish. I was content with 8th, finished strongly. Also 1st u23.

Finished a big week of training today. Just had word that I will be lining up Wednesday in the Tour of Belgium. This was the biggest race I did last year, 2.1 ranking, but it's been promoted to 2.HC ranking with more protour teams so it's going to be a very hard race, I will target 1 or 2 days to try and slip into the break if I have the legs.

Will try and update throughout the week. I'm sure there will be some stories to be told!

Thanks for reading,
Ryan

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Special Thanks!

I forgot to mention a special thanks.

It goes to the owners of the local bike shop here in Roeselare who came to watch me race on Sunday. Braving the windy conditions!

So just wanted to say thanks as I know they read this :)

It was nice and motivating seeing them out on the course!

Ryan

Monday, May 18, 2009

Weekend Wrap

Pretty amazing what a couple of days or even one night can do to you..

The back pain I was feeling seemed to ease and now completely gone.

I decided I had better get in a couple of races over the weekend as I hadn't raced since Bretagne tour and there were 2 under 23 races on pretty close so I went and pinned on a number.

Saturday - Teilt. Also lining up was Clinton, who is coming into some good form 2 weeks out from his season objective, U23 Paris - Roubaix.. A race with cobbles, made for big monsters like him :) (just joking about the monster part)

Anyway, he attacked in the 1st KM of the race. Took a few guys with him I think, not 100% sure, I followed whatever guys were trying to go across.. Not much happened and I finished 33rd, but more importantly back into racing rhythem. Clinton took the victory which was awesome!

Sunday - Pittem. Most of the guys from Saturday plus some more lined up on Sunday also, as the course for Sunday was 5km from Saturdays course and run by the same organisation.



It was windy as hell, Clinton said, follow me, we are going to break this on the first lap. I didn't quite get his wheel and ended up riding across at the beginning of 2nd lap (of 16 laps). We had maybe 20-30 guys in the front but after 2 laps it was down to 11 riders. Clinton and myself, a rider from beveren 2000, which is quickstep feeder team, 4 guys from Lithuanian national team, and a couple of other random dudes. So obviously with Lithuania having 4 guys out of 11 it was up to them to keep the move away.



About half way through the race it split again and now we were left with 7 in front for the remainder of the race. With 3 laps to go I saw most of the guys in break were pedalling squares and obviously feeling it a bit. Then I heard Clinton say "I don't know if I have another 2 laps in me!" so I thought there must be a few sets of tired legs.



Beginning the 2nd to last lap, around almost a hair pin corner I decided to throw down a test attack, and drove it through the corner, taking 50m straight away, then the gap was growing, 2 guys managed to work their way across to me so we had 3 out front coming into 1 lap to go. They are well known for their sprint ability, I am not known for mine!



I did what I could to get rid of them through the cross wind sections and up the slight incline on the course but together they were able to bring me back. Then out of no where, here comes Clinton, this was good for us as it would be game on again and if I couldn't get away, he could take the sprint. So I sat on the back of the 2 others for a couple of KM while Clinton came across.



He got across, I attacked with 1km to go coming into the main road of the start/finish line, they chased, caught me and Clinton won the sprint. I came in 4th with the next 2 at 1min 40 and the bunch at 4min 50.

So first and fourth for the day was pretty cool. Specially when it's with one of your good mates and training buddy!

As for me, I am pain free for the moment and my condition is obviously still pretty good from Bretagne, so this week will be about building a bit more before the Tour of Belgium starting next Wednesday. My first race with the protour for the year.

Hope everyone is well.

Ryan

Friday, May 15, 2009

Update..

Well I thought i'd better give a short update as I havn't been in touch with the world lately. Not for a lack of trying though, just a lot of things have been happening so my head has been else where.

Havn't been racing since tour of bretagne, even though I should have been.

I've planned to then something will prevent me so it hasn't happened yet.

I was spose to be racing a tour this weekend in the hills but thats been flicked and the show must go on..

I have been having a lot of problems with my back where I compressed the T12 and L1 vertabrae earlier in the year. It's a big fault of my own, I probably shouldn't have ridden track nationals and been in such a rush to get back on my back but it was the start of the season and I didn't want to waste my winters training so now am paying for the impaitence.

Have been having treatment on it, needles and so on and it seems to help a little bit but the big problem I think is it just hasn't had the time to heal itself. They say 12 weeks rest for this injury, it's just under 12 weeks now, I think I had 4 off after track nationals and 1 before.

In saying that the season still has a long way to go as we are only in may so there is still plenty of time left to get back to 100%, although the sooner the better.

I still have to look to Tour of Belgium starting on 27th May, ranking 2.HC, so going to be some big hitter teams there. I will look to target one stage and try for a break or something. The exposure I got after the Tour of Bretagne was really good so i'll look for some more of that.

I will ride some kirmis courses between now and then too to get back into racing rhythem as it's been 2 weeks since Bretagne.

Nothing else has really been happening, found a cool local cafe hangout so been spending some time there, will get some pics of it. It resembles a kiwi style cafe and takes away the home sickness when inside. Also it's giro time so afternoons are always pretty occupied with tv.

Will report back with some news, hopefully good news that i've got a result in a race or even that my backs pain free, that would be nice but until then take care.

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Tour de Bretagne. UCI 2.2

I will keep this one pretty casual, and apologise in advance for any mistakes/grammer errors etc.. I have had 4 hours sleep since the race finished.

Got home at 3am after a 9 odd hour car drive home from france. Then spent most of the morning on phone, didn't sleep till midday.

I did the preview before the tour. Well the profiles couldn't have been more different to what I saw. Well the altitude measurements they posted.

We thought 4 of the 6 road stages would be bunch sprints, but these hills were ensuring there was only going to be one bunch sprint this week.



For me the tour was base building for the season, we set 2 goals before the tour, get in an escape one day and finish the race.

Underestimating the calibre of the feild I jumped across to one guy 5km into the first stage, we were joined by 3 more riders, before the u23 belgian champion dropped off and went back to the peloton.
So 4 of us set out to try and cheat the peloton of victory while picking up intermediate prizes along the way.
I was feeling ok, relaxed, but knowing I had a big week ahead of me I didn't want to push to hard. So I was trying to keep smooth and steady all day. I won an intermediate and mountain prime, 2nd in 2 mountain primes and 4th in another intermediate sprint (didn't know why they were attacking me haha)



I ended up getting caught with about 15km to ride, while the other 3 were still out front until 10km to go. It was successful for me as I was presented with the jersey of the combine classement, intermediate and mountain primes combined. I felt like I took another step in the right direction and things will come together for the rest of the season. Still have a lot of big races to go.



Stage 2 was hard for me as I still had tired legs from day before. I did what I could and fought with everything but got run off the back of a small peloton with 2 finishing circuits to go. Things were bad this stage, I had a news paper go through my rear derailler and went off roading amongst other things. Each stage finished with 5x5km finishing circuits, and each finishing circuit had a climb of 800-1000m at 15%, so much for bunch sprints and easy finishing circuits. I got to the finish 12 minutes down.



Stage 3, the worst day i've faced on a bike, Imagine stage 4 of the tour of southland, and double it in length. It was horrible. I had layers and layers of clothes on, and for the first time in my life, raced in leg warmers.
I was still real tired from first 2 days. I crawled in with a group and lost a lot of time again, but that didn't matter. All I had to do was get through the tour and do what I could. Unfortunately lost 2 team mates on this stage.



Stage 4, Started out as bad as day 3, but cleared pretty well for the start and was drizzle most of day. I had found some legs by now, I was riding in the front, following moves as we headed towards the finishing circuit. It had a 1km climb to the finish. Which was quite difficult. I made it throw to 1 lap to go and couldn't get round a split the 2nd last time up to the finish, and rolled in 1min behind the winner and 45 sec behind peloton. So was a better day for me.



Stage 5, Again had good legs, and for the first time a stage that was easy enough for the sprinters. Unfortunately they were cheated as the last rider of the early break held them off by a matter of metres. So they settled for 2nd, we had Romain, My room mate for the week, up there in 6th. I finished last wheel in the bunch in 60th place after pulling out a 'look ma, no hands' stunt over a bump in the road. Was very lucky not to go down.



Stage 6 was a time trial. I thought I could go ok on this stage. I was coming better everyday, but the course again was very different to the profile. Within metres of coming out of the start house it was 4km up hill and then rolling for the next couple of kilometres before another 2x 2km climbs. Think I would have been faster on my road bike. I was lacking a lot of power on climbs but that will come in next few weeks. I was 41st on stage. Ended up with 3 hours total on bike, so much for easy day.





The last stage. Again like every other day, the team with all the ex-pros from credit agricole made the race hard, pulling moves away. I was good again and was able to follow some, none of them sticking. I rode in the front until the finishing circuits, where I missed split again, not that I could have made it, I was so tired, and got in 6minutes down. Romain was 4th on the stage which was another good result for him.



It was quite seriously the hardest race i've ever done, with most days the first 2 hours in excess of 320watts.

So now I have some power work to do, but I have a good racing base for rest of season. Looking forward to it. Still hoping Soren will be over soon too, refresh my head a bit mid season.



I think the next race for me will be a 3 day, 4 stage tour in 2 weeks time. Le tryptique ardennais.

Now i'm going to catch up on some sleep. Have an easier week of training this week.

Until next time.