Holland

Its Brad Tilby and I've decided to guest write on Sam's blog and tell you what he has been up to for the week. My blogs tend to be on the longer side so I apologize in advance.

Sam had a few days free in his training so he decided to head up and stay with me to check out life in Holland.
I am living in a small town called Rhenen about 100km south east of Amsterdam and like Sam I am also racing my bike.
With Sam being half dutch on his mums side, it was a great chance for him to come up and experience a little bit of his heritage and see the countryside. With me being here for 2 months already, I still hadn't knocked off all of the tourist attractions so I was keen to also have a big week of seeing what Holland is famous for.

Sam was meant to arrive on Monday afternoon but had a little problem with the trains he got to see a bit more of the countryside than he expected. Luckily he managed to get different connecting trains and finally made it to Holland. We met in Rotterdam because getting from there to my house involved using some of the local trains and after half a day of travelling.... and being in a different country I thought I would cut down the stress for him.

Tuesday we headed to the zoo in Rhenen. It is one of the biggest in the country and has some crazy animals you wouldn't get to see in NZ.
I thought I would give Sam a true taste of Holland in the afternoon by making him bike on a 'town bike' to the swimming pool and back. 7km each way doesn't sound a lot and under normal circumstances we would knock it off in under 15 minutes. The problem is these bikes are not going to win any speed contests..... exhausting ourselves to the max, we were still only getting to 30kmph and the 43 meter high hill to my house soon feels like 400 meters.
We headed into Utrecht city on Tuesday night to meet up with his Aunty and Uncle + kids for dinner. It had been 3 years since they last saw each other so there was a lot of catching up to do.

Wednesday was going to be a big day as we went to Amsterdam. This place truly is the tourist mecca. There is so many things to see and do....(and not do) that it is one great big circus. We headed in with the people I live so they could show us around. We did the city canal cruise to see all the attractions first and then headed out on the streets to see what makes this place famous. All you hear about Amsterdam is the cafes and the red light district and indeed these places are surreal to see. Ofcourse we did the window shop straight past these and went to do the tour of the Heineken factory. We came away from here each with a Heineken bottle with our names on them and mildly drunk. We did a bit more touring of the wider city and then did a bit of shopping. One thing about this city is the souvenir shops could pass as sex shops...crazy..

On Thursday I took Sam out for one of my favourite rides in Holland. It is a loop ride that starts from Rhenen and goes through Apaldoorn to Arnham and back. Sam was a bit worried with the lack of hills here but I promised that I would make him crack on a climb and I think I succeeded...... 10kms at 1% gradient, into a headwind at 36kmph is an artform and takes a bit to get used to.
Thursday night, we headed back in to Utrecht to meet up with my team mate Alex for a beer and the movies....or in Alex's case....beer, then a beer in the movies!!...only in Europe.

Friday was more riding and checking out where my team HQ before he boarded the train back to France

So a very big 5 days here in Holland. It was interesting to hear the contrasts between France to Holland and the different ways of life. Sam will upload some photos in the next few days as he is an asian tourist and carries his camera everywhere.

Brad

How good is your french?

http://www.directvelo.com/actualite/11721-sam-lindsay-souhaite-progresser-a-vaulx-en-velin.html

Circuit de Saône-et-Loire

This was an elite national tour, raced over 3 days, 4 stages on a super hard hilly course, and I'm pleased to say I am starting to come into some good form with some really promising results this weekend.

So Friday morning I headed up north to a place called Creusot only about 2 hours drive away. We were greeted with an amazing lunch put on by the tour organizers and also unloaded our gear into the hotel we were staying in, which was really nice! The first stage of the tour was 140km on a hilly course and with temperatures in the 20's it was going to be a hard day. As always it started with a lot of attacks with nothing getting away until about 50km in. It wasnt until about 85km when the break had a gap of about a minute, I went with an attack of one of the main GC contenders on a climb and we managed to bridge across to the front with 3 other guys. I did a lot of work on the front hoping to stay away but just before the last hard climb 15km from the finish we were caught by about half the peloton, and on the climb I was to stuffed to go with attacks and I didn't make the front group over the top. so in the end I finished 25th and about 40 seconds down on the winner.

Stage 2
The next day had 2 stages, so the first in the morning was 90km and hilly again but with some real steep nasty climbs. The first hard one coming at 35km was where the action started, straight away the steep slopes narrowed the group down to 20 odd riders and then with a second straight after the bunch was whittled down once again, although we were driving it hard in the front group a long flat section after let a lot of riders rejoin us. The Final climb before the finish at 10km to go proved to be the decisive moment of the stage and I made the front group over the top with 20 others. Then at the finish I had a shocking sprint finishing second to last in the group in 20th place. So now I had moved up to 13th on GC(stands General Classification for anyone who isn't up with the cycling lingo) and 3rd Under23 rider.

Stage 3
This stage was in the afternoon after stage 2. The stage was 80km long and had 2 hills right at the start which lead to me being in the front group of 30 and it was only 15kms into the stage. The rest of the way was just undulating and a 4guys got away and finished 50 secs ahead of my group. I also moved up to 12th on GC and 2nd U23 rider.

Stage 4
Last stage was probably the hardest, it was 160 km with just under 2000m elevation gain. After 20km when the breakaway was established the pace settled down and the GC leaders team controlled the peloton keeping the breakaway within 2 minutes. I made sure I saved as much energy as possible for the final climb which was 7km long. with the bunch mostly still together coming into the climb it was a mad fight for position at the front of the peloton for the 10km leading up to it. right at the bottom we had reeled in the breakaway and I was in a good position at the front, the first 4km weren't so bad but the last 3km was just crazy steep and to make it eve worse it started pouring with rain so every time you would stand up the rear wheel would slip. I had a look at my at my speedo after the race and i was going between 7 and 10km/h. Anyway over the top there were 4 in front and was in the second group of 7 with one of my team mates(who i forgot to mention before was a few places ahead of me and leading the young riders jersey for 1st under 23 (i was in 2nd))So after a super slippery decent I managed to avoid all the crashes and also a couple more stragglers from behind joined our group to make 12 of us. I got the call from the team car to work on the front to try bring back the front guys so that was fine as I was feeling strong. In the end we didn't pull them back and I finished 16th on the stage and moved up to 11th on GC and kept 2nd U23 rider and my team mate was 8th on GC and was first U23 rider.
So pretty good weekend for the team and real happy I'm getting some good form and another plus was my legs felt as good on the 4th stage as they did on the 1st.

Triptyque de la Vallée de l'Ance

So had my first tour for the year. It was category 1 race and had 3 stages over 2 days. Team did pretty well overall picking up 2nd on General classification and 2nd in the teams classification. As for me personally I just had an average result but it was good to help out my French team mate finish 2nd.

Stage 1 130km
first stage was really hard, the course was up and down all the time but with no big hills and there were constant attacks throughout the whole stage with no let up. This also made it really hard to read the race to make the right break away. Finally a break got away with 40km to go and I had one team mate in there who ended up finishing second in a group of 10 and then there was my bunch which had 30 or 40 guys left.

Stage 2 67km
This stage was the next day in the morning and it was freezing cold as we were at a pretty high altitude. I think about 1000m. So having a good warm up was important which I did have although it still took me awhile to get in to it. The stage had 2 hard hills in it about 3 or 4 km long. our team plan was to get our guy in 2nd to 1st so we were on the attack to force the yellow jerseys team to chase. It seemed a lot of people were tired from the day before and the stage wasnt to hard and nothing got away and all the team finished in the peloton.

Stage 3 80km
Last stage was on the same day of the 2nd stage but in the afternoon. Again we wanted to be active in all the breakaways and we controlled the race really well, we always had some one up the road and if anything dangerous got away it didn't get far as we were there to chase it down, unfortunately the leader of the race was to strong and we weren't able to move our guy into the yellow jersey. But in the end my room mate Martins got painfully close to winning the stage but ended up 2nd which was still impressive as he had been working his ass off the whole stage.

All in all good tour for the team, and I think I ended up 29th overall on the same time as 10th.

Next weekend I'm looking forward to another tour Circuit de Saône-et-Loir which is elite national and looks super hard and hilly, form is coming along so hopefully some good results coming.

Tour du Charolais

So had another elite national race, was 150km on an undulating circuit, always up and down but no hill longer than a km or 2. Was a pretty large field as well with 190 riders.
I sat in waiting for the last 50km as there were steeper climbs there and i knew it would start splitting there. In the last 50km I was in a lot of attacks and was feeling really good but nothing was staying away for very long. Unfortunately about 20km from the finish the wining break got away and to be honest I didnt even see it go so that was crap.
So the finish was up a short steepish hill that had a nasty narrow road leading into it so with everyone wanting to be at the front at the bottom of the climb it was more than dangerous, I wasnt as crazy as some people so was about mid pack at the bottom and passed as many guys as i could on the way up and finished 29th.
I feel I can do so much better as I was never in any big difficulty in the race, its just a matter of good positioning, smart thinking and a bit of luck and I think I can have a good result.

Transversale des As de l'Ain

Well another weekend, another race.
And today was the first race iv done since i got here that was in some decent heat i think it was about 25degrees, i even got a bit sun burnt! was also real cool to see 6 other New Zealanders there so it was a bit of a social gathering.

Ok the race was real close to my apartment about 30km away, and was raced over 147km wit the first 70 km flat then a big 10km climb and then a couple more hard climbs thrown in for good measure untill the finish.
So i thought great the first 70km will be easy and i can just sit in until the first hill...wrong! there were really strong crosswinds so i was in the box. It also didnt help that i was just chilling at the back at the start and straight away it went single file and with 160 racing its a long way to the front. For the first 10km i was fighting my way to the front and when i was about half way there was a big crash in front of me which i was lucky not to get caught up in but it left a big gap to the riders in front so I had to waste alot of energy just to get back on. After that i just made sure i was at the front in the windy sections and there were no dramas.
We hit the first climb which was 10km long, the bunch took it pretty easy and was cruisy most the way up just a few attacks at the top which came to nothing. It was the next hill that did the damage it was short maybe 2 or 3km but really steep and when we reached it i was a bit far back from the front maybe 15guys from the front (which was a stupid place to be as it cost me the race) and the first 5 or 6 guys attacked and I had to go around all the guys in front of me and i didnt catch the front guys till about a bit less than 1km to go on the climb and just as i reached them they went again and I couldnt attack with them so over the top i was stuck 10m behind and not able to bridge the gap. Basicaly the race for first got away there and if i had been a bit smarter with my positioning i think i could have made it, but yea excuses excuses I just need to ride my races better tactically.
Back to the race, the group that got away on the 2nd climb stayed away and i finished in the 2nd group in 34th place.

ANNEMASSE-BELLEGARDE ET RETOUR

ok well this was the biggest race i have done so far this year both in distance and level. It was an elite national with 180 odd riders and also had few teams from other countries (Russia, Latvia, Swiss) and the course was 180km with a few tough climbs-



So for the first 60km of the race it was mostly flat with 2 easy hills and i just made sure I was saving as much energy as possible, with the first hard climb at 60km i made sure i was at the front and ready and from there the race pretty much started, from about half way up it was pretty hard and the attacks came thick and fast and it seemed is soon as i was putting in some accelerations to go with the attacks i was straight into the red zone so from there i knew i wasnt having the best day. Over the top of the climb the peloton was real spread out, but it all came back together on the decent and before long we were on the next climb, which wasnt so steep so not to much of a problem.


It wasnt until the next decent where a small group got off the front and had about a minute lead by the time we reached the 2nd to last climb which was a real leg breaker. The peloton set a fast pace up it, and when we were in striking range of the group ahead at 1km to the top guys began attaking to bridge accross unfortunatly i couldnt make it, i tried and got super close but not close enough so over the top the group ahead was 23 strong.
I was pretty guttered not to make that group and i was thinking it was race over, but i still had 2 team mates in my group and they smashed themselves on the front to catch the front and did a super job and even set the pace for half of the last climb and then left it to me from there, I managed to catch the convoy of cars behind the lead group and a few guys attacked past the cars and i think some managed to catch the lead group but i wasnt able to go with them so again i was stuck in the 2nd group.
From there it was 40km to the finish and mostly downhill and i finished in the 2nd group unsure of placing...
Was a really aggressive race and im a bit disappointed as i just didnt have that top end for the final selections on the climbs and everytime i seemed to be stuck at the front of the 2nd group so a bit to work on for next time.

Also a bit of an update on what iv been up to during the week, I had 2 days training with the team during the week where we did some time trial training and long kms. We did a small 20 km time trial on a rolling course with some guys on tt bikes and some not( i dint have one as mine isn't ready at the moment) and i was 4th in the team with 2 guys on tt bikes ahead of me and my Latvian team mate, Martins (also on his road bike) 1 second ahead of me. With some time trials coming up im hoping im able to make the team for them but we will see.
Other than that I spend most my spare time relaxing in my room on the computer, sometimes trying to learn French etc. Or Martins and I go catch the train to the center of Lyon which takes about 20minutes and there is heaps to do there with lots of shops, and we even went to watch a movie at the movie theaters that was in english with french subtitles so that was good. And thats about it for now.

Thanks for reading!