VC Etoile

There is a moment on your bike sometimes when everything feels so good that you realise that all the slog of training was worth it. Mine came after a right & left swoosh onto the bleached Roubaix track, cheesy French pop music on the P.A, and ‘bravo’ ringing in my ears.

255km (158miles) earlier, around 4.30am, I was still pretty apprehensive. I had signed up for Scott Bugdens Paris-Roubaix trip after an end of season ‘discussion’ with some London League cyclocross mates. The mid distance, at 173km looked inviting - all the cobbled bits of the race, but without the 50 mile or so, wearing down bit, but, in moment of madness I signed the dotted line for the ‘full Monty’. (more…)

Just thought i would do a few posts to let people know what ive been riding.

Simon and I rode the Cycle Kingdom classic on Sunday June 29th.   The break went really early and after 10 miles there was a group of 15 of us away with a gap getting bigger all the time. This race was super hilly using 3 cicrcuits around the Milland area.  On the finishing circuits i got away with 2 others and dropped them on the hill to the finish for the win.  Simon (Mac) had a bit of a off day and came in around 25th, but was back on form tuesday night at Dunsfold getting 5th after doing loads in the race!

Paris Roubaix, the ‘Queen of the Classics’, is a road race that’s been run since 1896. The race today follows much the same route and uses many of the ancient pave roads as in those early days and it is because of this that it has such a unique status in cycling legend.

Perhaps this is best summed up by a quote about the race…’thousands line the route in this rite of spring, cheering their larger than life heroes and helping to will them on to victory. They ride in the tracks of bygone legends and dream of glory. But this glory is not without a price… These muddied, bloody and battered warriors, struggle thro the rain and cold, or if it is a dry spring, the dust clouds thrown up by the race cavalcade, on roads better suited to oxen carts than bikes. For the winner there is immortality and a place amongst the giants of the road, where since 1896 the greatest bike racers on earth have come to test their very soul in this brutal and beautiful spectacle’.

The Paris Roubaix Cyclo is a randonne, run every other year, that follows vitually the same route as the race. (more…)