G.P. Llodio, Vuelta a Rijoca, Subida ao Naranco and Vuelta a Asturias.

Okay,

So for all my complaining this has not been a bad season so far. I've been given a top "international" calendar, racing pretty much every week end and all races of some significance. I After Tro Bro Leon, I raced G.P. Llodio, Vuelta a Rijoca, Subida ao Naranco and Vuelta a Asturias.

This block began well, with me being able to escape with some ease over the first categorised climb in Llodio, but missing the earlier break. Kind of stupid, but it meant we were some how represented in the front. And for me it's either pulling in the break away, pulling on the front of the peleton or puling to arrive within the control time in the Grupetto. It all amounts to the same thing.

I felt good during this whole period, but made one key mistake: Ignoring blatant illness. I had "sinusitis" and in typical fashion thought I'd battle through and get better naturally. I tried this for about a month before speaking with the doctor and taking antibiotics. The antibiotics helped a lot.

Asturias is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. It's locked between the sea and high mountains and is as green as Ireland. Nothing at all like Castile. The approach to the place is incredible. I've seen the "Alps Maritimes", the "Rockies" in California and all the other mountains on the peninsula. Nothing was as spectacular as crossing those via ducts, tunnels, and causeways across mountain reservoirs into Asturias.

On the other hand, mountains on this scale are not that great for riding bikes. It's painful and difficult, and seeing "comienza puerto" every 12km demoralizing. I did find out however, on climbing the Acebo that I am actually quite good at mountain top finishes, if one considers that I was purposefully going slowly to save energy, loosing 5m on a 35m climb and riding a long way bellow threshold is good!

The next day I managed to get disqualified. I was disqualified because the commissar thought it impossible I managed to go from the back group to the Peleton after loosing contact after a puncture. Ironically yes, I and two others did about 95% of the word to close that gap and yes we did take a draft behind a car along one section, so I dully pulled over when asked. Stupid really.

I haven't written anything in a long time, because I have been busy. Every week for the past six weeks I have been racing. Bit by bit I chronicle these races over the next week.

After Klassica Primavera I did another two classics in France. These were in Brittany and we were to go by car. This trip is about 2000km and the car journey is tiresome enough, yet along the 200km long races. As luck would have it, the planes were grounded due to Eyjafjallajökull. That volcano miles away that seemed to affect most of Europe. It made me give credence to the "Butterfly Effect". We were going by car anyway.

The races were Tour du Finistere and Tro Bro Leon. Both races are category 1.1, which means they are of a high standard.

Finistere actually went very well give everything. My team and I aren't used to this sort of racing by any means and the fact we all finished this race well is a big credit. I unfortunately stuttered a bit when the race split after a nasty little climb and didn't go in the final break. Which was a shame because I felt very capable. The door of opportunity in these situations is open only very briefly. The race in itself was hard, but not overly so. The nordic are a bit more aggressive at fighting for position in the peleton and like to attack incessantly, which is good. Far worse is being bored to death by a race controlled ticking a long at an average pace

Tro Bro Leon is an amazing race and it was a huge pleasure to take part.

This race is a little (200km) copy of Paris-Roubaix and takes in several dirt tracks sections totaling 30 odd kilometers. It start and end in the village of Lannilis in Brittany and takes in very beautiful scenery, these dirt tracks intersecting the most rural countryside and even taking in quite a bit of the coast. It was interesting to note all the Gaelic prefixes in the words, and sign posts to hill forts and the like. The place feels most definitely Celtic; cold, windswept and green.

My team coming from the Algarve was woefully unprepared. The equipment needed for this race is a bit different to the standard and we went on standard tires and only had one support vehicle, when we needed two, to have spare wheels at each dirt track section. I punctured about halfway through. I had to wait a long while for a wheel change. As well as this I should have finished the section punctured, but didn't. Anyway. I had to chase for 50 min alone till I reached the peleton. This was a massive effort and pretty much shot the engine. I don't know what speed I was going, but given I had lost minutes and caught a very fast moving race; that was quite some individual TT I did. Needless to say, when I got caught behind a crash 20 more k down the road I called it quits and went on direct to the stage finish at Lanilis by myself. I later found Rob Hayles and a team mate of his for company.

Klasica Primavera

This weekend we raced Klasica Primavera. This was a fantastic race, the Basque people love bike racing and each passage by the finish line or "helmuga" as the Basques call it was filled with a few thousand of people. The moutain tops or "muniketagane" were also full of supportive fans.

The weather also held of and except for the absolutely freezing start was ok. Thankfully it didn't rain. I am not fond of cold an rain.

The race started at 06:00 the day before with a massive car journey or a thousand kilometers or so. We arrived sometime about 17:00 and went out training. I felt good training, although, I was evidently tired after such a huge car journey. Still, I felt that by the next day things would be okay.

The next day, race day, started at 05:00 according to my body clock and 06:00 according to the Spanish clock. I had slept okay and was looking forward to the race. Breakfast was a bit of a chore as the hotel provided us with horrible sticky buns and some re-heated spaghetti complete with dry bits and some omelets.

The race started of badly, as the break went right away and I wasn't in it, although I jumped at each successive opportunity there after, all of which failed. Retrospectively (I didn't appreciate this at the time) I saw some fantastic team work by team Saxo Bank defending their man in the break, Andy Shleck, by closing down each and every attempt made there after. Looking back it was top shelf racing I was witnessing, with all of them mucking in to get the work done.

Anyway, for the first 2 hours I felt like I was a top notch bike racer ticking over nicely at 120 bpm in the peleton rubbing shoulder with many illustrious riders form the Grand Tours. However this view quickly changed when many kilometers later, when I found myself gasping for oxygen on the first mountain of the day and finding that in fact I was a good bit of form. I would normally get criticized for this, but I know I was 6-7% bellow par.

I muddled on anyway, climb after climb, especially enjoying the descents and disliking the run ins which were always done at a sprint. I finally dropped of the pace about half way up the penultimate climb of the day, found myself a couple of russians to ride hope with and then got caught by an "express" grupetto powered by the remnants of the Euskatel-Euskadi team... I quite enjoyed the express ride home, it made a change from the normal given up type grupetto ride.

All in all, although mediocre in many ways I am happy with with how this race went. The next will get better all the way to September.