Why I must change teams -take 2- or: Being the exception.

Last night we had a dinner as a team. As usual the atmosphere was great on the cyclists table, although we drank far more moderately than usual.

I recognised the scene pretty well and knew that such an event only takes place because they can't pay or they have some demand to make of us.

Anyway, after an excellent grilled chicken and some chat of started the speeches which went something like this:

"Blah blah blah, no money, pay you "amanha", blah, blah, blah."

"doing us proud, fighting spirit, pay you "amanha"

"The first all Portuguese team, well no, nearly, except Tomás, but he's an okay worker."
I am actually the best worker as voted by my colleagues in the peloton. Plus I have never been given an opportunity to race for myself.

"bla, blah, blah, we need a Portuguese winner for the Volta a Portugal, so not Tomás, hahaha!"

One man, sorry about the situation actually came up and apologized, even gave me a hug -I think he was the only person in that room who realized the seriousness of the situation...

I beamed a broad smile throughout the proceedings. It wasn't an ironic smile, it was a victorious smile. Victorious because I've thought not a few moves ahead, I am several games ahead.

They say a captain should go down with the ship, however guess who are the first I have identified scurrying from the sinking ship? Yep, you've got it ;-).

Starring at the obvious I thought I would compile a list of facts on why a British cyclist is an important asset:

• The United Kingdom is the 6th largest economy in the world. 1
• Britain ranks 4st in the world for ease of doing business. 2
• The UK has seen a 25% growth rate in 2010 for bicycle imports.3
• Britain is a market of 62M million people.4
• The UK cycle market is worth 2100000000 £.5
• Britain has a projected growth of 2.3% in 2012. 6
• 16% growth in British Cycling memberships 09-107

1. http://siteresources.worldbank.org/DATASTATISTICS/Resources/GDP.pdf
2. http://www.doingbusiness.org/rankings

1. http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/2010-sees-bicycle-imports-jump-by-almost-25/010861
2. http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language=en&pcode=tps00001&tableSelection=1&footnotes=yes&labeling=labels&plugin=1
3. http://www.bikebiz.com/news/read/uk-bicycle-market-to-smash-2-billion-in-2010/09995
4. http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2011/update/02/pdf/0611.pdf
5. http://www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/media/bc_files/corporate/BC-ANNUAL-REPORT-2010-WEB.pdf

So where is Portugal in these statistics?

Plus I only remember of one company stating an aim to invest in Portugese cycling and guess what, it's British:

http://jornalciclismo.com/novo-patrocinador-da-team-sky-pondera-investir-em-equipa-lusa

So there you have it, just a spinet of what I have to tollerate.

Volta às Terras de Santa Maria (Team Time Trial)

Day One, Stage One:
141km RR

This stage was awful. Some people here felt inconvenienced by the cyclists. I do not like racing when it isn’t appreciated. At the Volta Algarve, in appalling weather we were greeted with heartwarming support. Support is extremely motivating! 


Then there was the hotel. I’ve stayed in this hotel over a period of 6 years and was never treated badly, but now, it seemed snobby. The restaurant was also terrible. The restaurant is a place that is always full, with a car park gleaming with new Porche Panemera’s and BMW X6. The irony was that here too we were well treated in the past. This time they presented us a days old almond cake, while saying they had nothing better… except we checked it out, they had at least twenty other deserts.

In terms of the race, the course was interesting we had 60 k’s that were flat, followed by some interesting climbs. Oh and the roads were shit, full of holes, rocks etc. We had to control the last 40k’s of the race and we did this well. At 20 k’s from the end I punctured in one of the many potholes. I never got back to the front and lost a bit of time. 

Samuel Caldeira did well to get to the end in the bunch, but had an epic crash:

It wasn’t a good stage and our rivals Barbot took another win. Filipe Cardoso won it.

Day Two, Stage One: 
16.8km TTT

We had an early start and a light breakfast before the team time trial. Now people had gone on and on about the hilly, somewhat technical course was. But as it happens the course was straight forward, despite the three round abouts and three hills. The road was wide which proved interesting. As the time trial was out and back, do you cut the corners and how much? There is a lot to gain in cutting corner. Check out a 400m world record and see the "discount" the people in the outer lane are given vs the inside lane.

As it happens, we didn't cut the corners at all.

The team time trial happened to be our first victory of the 2011 season! I was really happy with this, it was a relief after so many second places. It also proved our worth as a team. Not only did we finish in the fastest time (19:00.00) we also finished with all eight riders. We didn't ride perfectly, but we rode extremely well.

Our problem comes in translating work ethic and determination into victories in road races. I wont yet fault our leader, but rather the tactics we use.

We limiting ourselves to riding for one rider. Such a tactic works:

• When others employ the same tactic.
• When you have the strongest rider in the field.
• When you have a pinch of luck to add.

The thing is, this grossly underestimate the opposition and has a huge physical cost. You can ask a rider to do one or two tasks in a race, but not more. 

Day Two, Stage Three:

65km circuit

We had the lead and five cyclists in the top five going into the last stage of this race. But our method to defend this lead was to control the race utterly. And that is what we did.

This race was 10 laps of a 6.5km circuit. The circuit had a hard cobbled climb, a very rough decent, followed by a rough road full of dangerous holes and then more cobbles. The finish line was atop the cobbled climb.

Well, I having lost time on the first stage due to a puncture was put to work, together with Diogo Nunes and Luis Silva to control the first 7.5 laps of the race. Even so I hung on to the second group, just missing the split for the first. The last 2.5 last were in the hands of my team mates. 

They managed the situation so that André Cardoso could keep the yellow jersey that (we) earned in the team time trail.

André won his first pro race and we won the first race of the season. All in all a good weekend.

This weekend the adventures continue with the first round of the Portuguese cup in Albergaria.

Ciao and till next week!

A tough weekend.

I woke late on Friday after a good long sleep in preparation for the stressful weekend ahead. I rained all day and I didn't train. But when I hoped for rain -during a late night track race on an open air track, the weather eased of and of I was sent for a 20k race round the track under floodlights. Because it was dangerous, the track being moist and uneven, I resented doing this at first. But then the adrenaline kicked in and I really enjoyed it. We came away from the race pumping -this would be the best "warm up" party ever before a night out! Alas being the middle of the season such things are out of the question.

The next day after a late night and a lack of dinner we were up at 07:00 for short 86k stage. I felt good to start, but unfortunately for me these feeling were fleeting and I really had to knuckle down to do a half decent job for our sprinter, Samuel Caldeira.

Later that day we had a short hill climb, 3k's long and again I didn't quite deliver. I have a long list of excuses for this, but I imagine that my having the flu last week is the main one. I came in 34th, far bellow my expectations. Sergio Sousa was the winner of the stage in 5:15 m and was 11 seconds faster than my team mate Ricardo Mestre who finished second.

Today we controlled the race for Caldeira, who lay second in GC at 9 seconds as he could potentially win the race if he collected a lot of bonifications by winning the stage and two metas volantes. But we made some errors and it didn't happened. We won the Metas Volantes classification and came in second through intermediate of Caldeira.

I hope to get back tot he form I had before the Volta ao Algarve again rapidly. I though I was well, but I wasn't. But I am motivated to improve.