English
It’s a little over a month since my last blog and the season is well and truly underway. I must say I am more than a little envious of stories/blogs tweets and facebook comments providing details of various trips and training camps to sunnier climates. With the restrictions of my day job and other commitments, I shall be mainly focusing on preparation for my season in good old “blighty”. This means that I shall be getting wet, cold and blown about quite a bit, but at the same time building “character”. It does, however, give me opportunity to use some fantastic DHB windproof and waterproof products.
One example how excellent the 2010 dhb windproof jacket is presented itself in an amusing way last week. I’m not normally in the habit of riding my bike whilst listening to an mp3 player, but I’m getting a little lonely out there lately as I’m mainly training during the week. So on this particular day I decided to pop my earphones in with the radio playing on a low volume. Upon my return I de-robed and popped my jacket in the washing machine following Mrs Carter’s instructions like a good husband. Half an hour later I realised that my mp3 player was missing. There was only one place it could be, that’s right, still in the pocket of the jacket. Mrs Carter helpfully reminded me that this particular brand of music player doesn’t need much contact with the wet stuff to stop working and once retrieved she dutifully popped it in the airing cupboard to dry out. She did mention that it didn’t appear that wet when removing it from the pocket and that the inside of the little front pocket was pretty dry. To my complete surprise the player works fine and I’m thankful to the jacket for saving me £150 for a replacement!
Anyway, back to the training. It’s mainly been plenty of base mileage in the wonderful backdrop of the New Forest for me during the last 6 weeks. I appear to be regaining some of the base fitness that I lost in the last quarter of 2010 and I’m hopeful that things continue to improve as the start of the sportive season approaches. My Verenti Rhigos 3 needed a quick trip back to Wiggle HQ to have a well earned service from the guys. It’s back now and is as fantastic as ever, so comfortable for long winter miles. I’m starting to finalise my event plans for the first half of the Sportive season. Highlights include New Forest Sportive, and the Bournemouth Sportive from the Wiggle Super series, the Wiggle Dragon Ride and Wiggle Magnificat which will prepare me nicely for the Maratona Dles Dolimites in Italy in early July. Last year I learnt some valuable lessons. I tried a bit too hard too early. This year, I’m definitely going to build into the season and try to peak for the right times.
It’s been good to watch some live cycling on TV during January and February. First up was the Tour Down Under, the now traditional, curtain raiser to the season. Much fuss was made in the media during the build up to the race about an expected Andre Greipel vs Mark Cavendish sprint showdown, but in the end neither rider was able to feature in the mix. Cavendish looked like he was having trouble staying on his bike and was involved in a number of crashes. It was also Lance Armstrong’s last race as a professional and even that seemed to play out without too much of a fanfare either. In the end the big story from Adelaide was the emergence of some of the younger stars of the Peloton.
Cameron Meyer took the overall win and there were also great performances from Sky’s Ben Swift and and Garmin Cervelo’s Jack Bobridge. The Australian hit the headlines a week or so later when he broke Chris Boardman’s long standing 4km individual pursuit record. Both Meyer and Bobridge are extremely accomplished track riders with their sights firmly set on medals at 2012 London Olympics. They are wonderfully talented and have made a seamless transition to the road. Their presence along with team mates such as Rohan Dennis will provide much tougher opposition to the GB squad than they have been used to recently. Hopefully this will push the Brits to respond and we could see records tumbling like cards. It all looks set for a very exciting 18 months or so.
Cavenedish’s balance issues didn’t appear to be going away as he managed to fall of his bike in the short prologue stage of the Tour of Qatar. To be honest, the bike just didn’t look set up correctly from the start and he wasn’t the only HTC highroad rider to have problems. The Tour of Qatar looked dominated by crosswinds and heat. It wasn’t a TV spectacular, but it did give a good indication of which “classics” specialist riders were beginning to find form as we approach spring. I think that the Classics are wide open this year. Many riders have switched teams and have new team mates and we look set for some fabulous racing.
I’ve got to go now. I hope everyone’s pre season is progressing nicely. Ride safe!
Rich
