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Hi again,

Over the weekend I started in the race "Albi - Albi". It was 120km made up of 4 times around a 30km lap. It wasn't the flattest race I've ever done with some steep little climbs on small roads. To cut a long story short, I started to feel some good sensations and eventually finished in a group of 30 odd behind the 10 man break.

It was a good finish to a week which saw me do intervals out training everyday. I reckon it's the first time since I was a junior that I have taken intervals seriously.

I never really did them in Belgium because if I needed race intensity I would go and ride a couple of kermis races a week and form would come but without them I have found myself beating myself up day in, day out. It has been good though and I am starting to feel some kind of relief in the lactic acid department.



In other news, spring is most definitely on its way as the days get longer but more importantly, warmer! We have been here for 2 months now and the cold weather was really starting to take its toll!

I also just received my vo2 test results back from the Lab in Toulouse. I did the test as part of the process in obtaining a french racing license. I produced the highest number ever recorded at the lab with a vo2 reading of 91 ml/kg/min.



This Sunday will see me lining up in the race "Bordeaux - Saintes" which will be the first French Cup race I do for the year.

Just for a bit of fun I will give you a run down on GSC Blagnac and a bit about it's history and things. The Club is the 2nd oldest club in France founded in 1896 and has seen numerous Tour de France stars and World Champions come from within its ranks.

Riders such as Sylvain Marcaillou who finished 5th in the Tour de France in 1937, Laurent Jalabert who won both the Green and Polka Dot Jersey's at the Tour de France and finished high in the classement gerneral, Frédéric Moncassin who was a classic start but never got to the top step of a monument classic but triumphed in Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne in 1995, David Moncoutié who has won Tour de France stages and the Polka Dot 3 times in the most recent Tour of Spain's.

The most recent generation of pro's to pass through the GSC Blagnac team are Nicolas Portal who most recently was part of Tea Sky, Mathieu Perget who is with Ag2r, Alexandre Geniez of Skil-Shimano and the most recent is 2009 under 23 world champion Romain Sicard who is riding for Euskaltel.

The club has riders from under 11 right through to the DN1 team which competes in the Coupe de France or French Cup.



This year the club is looking to grow and a whole lot of new sponsors came on board to help make this season a success for the club. We are riding LOOK bikes with Sram Red components which are finished up with Fizik Saddles and FSA handlebars, stems and brake calipers. The wheels are also supplied by FSA and their sister company Vision with tyres being supplied by Continental. We have Met helmets and Bont shoes. So as you can see we have some top equipment partners for the season.

I will leave it on that note for today as I have run out of things to say. Unfortunately my digital camera is still in our apartment is Christchurch which for the moment is red stickered after the earthquake so don't expect any pictures of my local training roads anytime soon :) I'll see what I can do to get some colour up though.

Thanks for reading and check back soon.

Ryan

Ps You can thank Soren for all the great action shots! :)