English
I’m currently in France having had the good fortune to have 6 weeks off between jobs so spending a few weeks in Nice training. I came out here last week and then drove over to Italy for the Fausto Coppi sportive which was on Sunday. To say it was gruelling is an understatement.
The Dutchman, Toby, Ian, Martine and I drove over to Cuneo from Nice on Saturday morning in order to register and check in. The race HQ was in the main square with lots of different tents and displays as well as the local pizza festival. There was also a Michelin support truck doing last minute repairs which saved my relationship with the Dutchman after I broke his gear lever at 7:00pm on Saturday evening.
I was very lucky that one of the guys hanging out at the Michelin van got on the phone to a bike shop in the neighbouring town and tracked down a replacement. I have driven with Italians before but had actually forgotten how road rules and speed limits are used more like a guide. I jumped in his rather nice Mercedes and we set off at 130km hour through the 50km zone swerving around anything in the way, steering with his knees, lighting a cigarette whilst holding his phone between shoulder and ear. Scary.
On Sunday we got up at 5:30 to get ready for the race (new gear lever in place) to have breakfast. We had declined the pasta course that the hotel was kindly offering, and we were in the minority having made that decision. The race sounded OK on paper, certainly not easy, but manageable. 198km’s with 4500m of climbing. What they don’t mention in the brochure is that you have to contend with 39 degree heat, road surfaces more suited to a mountain bike and some of the toughest climbs in the Alps.
There are 2800 people who take part in the race and everyone is supposed to wear the jersey supplied. I was threatened with disqualification for wearing my Wiggle jersey (theirs didn’t fit me) and it was actually lucky I had it on as the guys I was racing with could find me amongst the crowd!
The gun went at 7am and 2800, mostly Italian, riders all went like crazy. I thought I had been caught up in a Pinarello advertisement with so much pimped up Pinarello carbon around me! The roads were closed so we didn’t have to watch out for the cars but you had to contend with riders swerving all over the place, avoiding crashes which were frequently happening and roundabouts that seemed to pop up out of nowhere. It was a lot of fun but I certainly had my wits about me.
The first 30 minutes I didn’t take my hands off the bars and my knuckles were white from holding on so tight. You roadies may be used to those conditions but us triathletes like some space around us! There were massive groups of people flying past so we were jumping between groups trying to stay together. We hit the first climb and then got to see some pretty dangerous descending with people riding all over the road and randomly braking. I think we had all decided that the best way to deal with it was to just get down as quickly as possible.
We were in a group of about 75 riders being pulled across the valley floor doing between 50 – 55km hour. The scary thing was there were groups overtaking us and making us look like we were standing still. It was a great group to be in but we had to watch them pull away after The Dutchman got a puncture.
During the valley crossing we had also lost Toby and we thought he was ahead of us, as it turned out he had also flatted but had caught up just as we were getting back on the road. He had received some assistance to get back on the road, unfortunately it was from the broom wagon!
We started reeling in some people and were doing OK, however a stomach virus that The Dutchman had leading into the race came back to haunt him. I made the decision to stay with him and let Toby and Ian go. We hit the first big climb of the day, colle di Sampeyre It is 16km and an average of 8.5%. We made it up with a few stops along the way. The roads were in pretty bad shape which made the descent pretty tricky. There were so many holes and places where the patchy tarmac ended and you were on dirt you had to take it so slowly to get down. The army had been roped in to help marshal so there were guys in each corner with red flags slowing everyone down to keep it safe.
The next climb was the real killer, Colle dei Morti. 22.5km and by this stage the temperature was at 39 degrees. We had 1400m of vertical ahead of us and The Dutchman was in bad shape but adamant that he wanted to continue, so up we went. We took our time doing the climb and obviously the higher we got the lower the temperature. We had the Marco Pantani monument waiting for us at the top marking the summit at 2481m. It was hard to believe the heat at the base of the mountain now that we were up in the snow! Extreme conditions made all the more challenging by the torrential rain that started to fall as we began the descent.
The descent was a spectacular mix of windy and sweeping corners and you could have really hammered it but the rain got so heavy that we had to get off the road and take shelter in a mountain refuge for 10 minutes whilst the storm passed. Luckily this was almost the end of the day and an hour and half later I crossed the line holding hands with the Dutchman. It was a hard day in the saddle just shy of 11 hours. I was very happy to have a cold beer at the end of it!
We have decided to go back next year and give it another go, but right now I am doing short sharp sessions to get ready for the Dextro in Hyde Park at the end of the month. The weather here in Nice is scorching so run sessions conclude with me diving into the sea, but it certainly beats being in the office!
Happy training!
Cx
