Currently I have no computer and only sporadic internet access... Hence I probably wont be able to update till I splash out on a new PC. But I will tell all of my French racing experience at the Tour de Gironde and all the other fun and adventures when I can! Next up is Boucles de la Mayenne for me, Abimota and GP CTT for my team.

Something extra:

Cycling has a whole language and manner of comunicating all of it's own. It takes a while and some lucky guess work to tune in. This is an extremelly incomplete "work in progress"


Abastecimento Apiado:

Fomations:

Bordiu, Abanico (Por); Echelon (Fr,Eng): This an aerodynamic formation made by cyclists when there is a cross wind. It means that the rider in this formation are protected and can rest, before taking their turn to drive the whole fomation forward.

Pelotão (Por), Peleton (Fr, Eng): This is the name given to the largest group on course in any race. Some times it becomes hard to distinguish if the race splits into many groups.

Grupetto (Por, Sp, It, Fr, Eng): I think this is pretty much international. When the roulleurs and sprinters get dropped in the mountains by the GC riders and climbers they form a defensive group to try limit their losses and arrive at the finish within a certain pre determind percentage of the arrival time of the winner.

Echapé (Fr), Fugitivos, Fuga(Por), Break Away(Eng): This the name given to any cyclists that escape out the front of the main bunch.

Types of Cyclist:

Gregario (Por,Sp,It); Domestique (Fr,Eng): This a cyclist who work so that another may win, or may win more easilly, or insure a victory, without nessesarilly wining themselves. A good analogy or way to understand this is if you draw a paralel with defenders in football. Famous gregarios:

Roulleur (Fr,Eng); Rolador (Por,Esp): This a cyclist who specializes in roling or flat terrain. They are generally big quite heavy and powerful and can maintain very high speeds for long durrations of time. These cyclist specialize in break aways or controling the front of a race. Famous rouleurs include Jens Voigt, George Hincapie, Andreas Tafi, Vytcheslav Ekimov, etc.

Climber (Eng); Trepador (Por): As the name implies, these a cyclist who specialize in climbing moutains. These cyclists are extremelly light weight. Weighing between 50-65kgs, while generally being quite tall. Famous climbers include Marco Pantani, Ivan Parra, Robert Millar, etc.

Completo (Por,Esp); All Rounder (English): These are the riders that can win stage races, they do everything well, especially climbing and time trialling. They are noted for their recovery from one day to the next. Famous all-rounders include Lance Armstrong, Bernard Hinault, Joaquim Agostinho, etc.

Sprinter (every where): Like in track and field, but imagine someone sprinting at the end of 1500m as they are nothing to do with 100m and 200m runner and are in themselves thoroughbred endurance athletes, merelly carrying a few more fast twitch muscle fibers. Famous sprinters: Mario Cippolini, Eric Zabel, Mark Cavendish, Adjamoulin Abdoujaparov

Director Desportivo (Por,Esp); Directeur Sportiff (Fr, Eng): A sporting direstor in cycling is like a manager in football. It's a hands on job and involves knowing the riders very wel, as to get the best out of them. A team director also must make the team to collude and work together. They are usually the boss in the team and determine tactics to a large extent. Famous Directors: Patric Lefevre, Bijarne Riis,

Classica Vila do Conde and Memorial Bruno Neves

This past weekend I had my first "strech of the legs" since an acute infection. Not sure exactlly what it was, only that it was pretty rough and culminated in a fever.

Classica Vila do Conde:

On Saturday as part of a mixed professional and amateur team, I raced a fantastic little race known as Classica Vila do Conde. The Portuguese calendar is full of these "1.12" ranked races or "clandestinas" as they're called, toungue in cheek by the cyclists. Many complain they are not mediatic or serious enough, to justify their time. I like them a lot, as are a fantastic school of cycling and tremendous fun.

This race was on an easy circuit, with one hard climb. This was a short climb, but steep and on cobble stones. Infact there were cobbled sections through out the circuit, spicing up an otherwise easy event. The climb was too short to cause any real damage with any of the splits that occured quickly being annuled by my team. This meant that entering the finishing 2.5km circuit around the town we were guarunteed a sprint finish. And through Cândido Barbosa we won the race.

http://www.ciclismodigital.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1841&Itemid=26

Memorial Bruno Neves:

This race was a memorial, to a cyclist who died during "Classica Amarante" just under a year ago. I was perhaps two wheels away when I saw Bruno Neves fall. It was something so inocuous, I presumed it was just a silly clipping of wheels with a nervous under-23. As it happened, it was a sudden cardiac arrest something which some young people are lyable to suffer and athletes more so, due to "myocardial hypertrophy" (if my memory serves me right); abnormal growth of the heart muscle.

The race was 155km on a very hilly ~30km cicuit with an abundance of pot holes, round abouts and tricky corners. Not my kind of race being hilly and technical.


Early in the race the pack was split with a massive group going of the front. I was one of the last to bridge across. Four of my team mates unfortunatly found themselves on the wrong side of the divide, but we were reasonably well represented in this numerous group of about 25, with three.

Liberty Seguros quickly siezed control of this group and promptly put the "peleton" chasing behind out of the race. And then began what for me was a slow death, kilometer after kilometer in the heat on these infernal roads, with well trained climbers making me and my new motor pay for over 3 weeks of not training properly.

There was another split forced by Liberty, 60 km from the end, 9 riders of the front. I probably had the legs to go with them, in terms of speed. But I bonked (bonking in cycling refers running out of glycogen; fuel) so it would have done little good to be up the front.

However my team mate Henrique Casimiro was up there and nearly won the race against the formidable Liberty squad. He came in 2nd, all of his own doing as there was no one there to lend him a hand in the last 45km.

http://www.ciclismodigital.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1842&Itemid=26