In the end the promised finale fireworks never came. Not from the top of the Arc de Triomphe after the evening stage on Sunday, where we given a projected feu artifice lightshow instead of some actual gunpowder explosions (the whole show was greeted with polite bemusement rather than rapture in our house), and not from the last few days of racing either where the assumption has been that the riders simply didn’t have enough left in the legs to seriously attack the yellow jersey and so saved what they did have for the scrap for podium and best team places. Another sign of a clean Tour? Maybe..
Tour de France – Stage 15 Roundup – Bang, Froome, straight to the Moon.
The second rest day of the Tour de France marks, for us armchair followers at least, the beginning of the end. Sure, those guys on the bikes still have a mind-bending amount of cycling to do, but if the 3 weeks of the Tour was condensed into just one stage (like when TV scientists cram the whole of Earth’s existence into just one year and we learn that humans popped up at about 3 minutes to midnight on New Years Eve) then we are long past the feed zone and the intermediate sprint. We have already shed three-quarters of the Sky domestiques and we are either hungrily eyeing up the remnants of the breakaway, or wondering if this is the moment when Cadel will start going backwards quickly. Yes, my friends, we are now a ‘select group’ as Phil Liggett would say; we are at the ‘head of affairs’ and, just as someone pops off the front and is ‘free to fly’, the ITV4 cycling coverage will be going into its final, 7 minute long, ad break.
Back to Black – another London cycling death
“The first thing I noticed today was that the LFGSS logo was black instead of the usual light blue. The black logo means that a cyclist has been killed on London’s roads. Lately it seems to have been black almost as much as it has been blue.”
Tour de France – Stage 9 roundup – “Cycling, Bloody Hell!”
As Alex Ferguson sort of once said: “Cycling, Bloody Hell!”
Or as Johnny Rotten didn’t quite say once either: “Ever get the feeling you’ve been treated?”
What an epic weekend! The Pyrenees were meant to play second fiddle to the Alps this year; only two stages and none of the hoo-ha of Mt Ventoux or Alpe d’Huez. I’ll tell you what though – if this is second fiddle then we are in for some virtuoso stuff come next weekend.
The late part of last week played out more to the expected plan. Cav gets his win on Stage 5. Greipel hits home first for Stage 6 and then Cannondale and Sagan beast Stage 7 and he looks to have green pretty much wrapped up within the first week.
Ride Report – The Sweet Smell of Success
It was the pre-ride cup of tea that set off my reveries this morning. Or rather, more specifically, it was the lack of a readily available teabag that got me thinking about childhood smells just before I left the house and which gave a theme for my ride today. I’m not really one for coffee so I always have a cup of tea before I cycle, except that this morning the teabag tin was empty. No worries; there was a new box on the shelf and as I took off the cellophane wrapper and transferred the contents I was greeted by one of my favourite smells in the world. Fresh, loose tea. Even in a box of teabags you get a small amount of loose stuff which sits in the corners. That’s the bit I love. It reminds me of my grandmother’s kitchen and of the tea chests we used to move house when we were young. So my head was full of olfactory thoughts as I set out on my usual Saturday morning ride.
Yorkshire’s Grand Depart – Countdown commencement
A year from today, July 5th 2014, the Tour de France will roll out from Leeds – it’s most Northerly, and perhaps least likely starting point ever. Last December Yorkshire won the bid to host the 2014 Grand Depart, beating competition from much more apparently obvious choices such as Florence, Berlin and Barcelona (as well as the less immediately obvious choice of Venice…. Hello? Canals?). Succesfully riding the tide of the success of Cav & Brad, and by skilfully tapping the burgeoning public enthusiasm for road cycling that bloomed during the London Grand Depart in 2007 and then again for the 2012 Olympics, Yorkshire played their bid to their particular strengths and are now beginning the execution of a critical 12 months worth of awareness and opportunity building in order to make the very most of the Tour’s short time in their hands.
The Route
Yorkshire’s initial bid had suggested that the Tour would spend three full days in England’s largest county. However, once the route (decided by the Tours French owners ASO) was confirmed a couple of months after the bid win, Yorkshire was left with Stages 1 and 2, with Stage 3 located in the South, running from Cambridge to a central London finish. I was personally disappointed that the mooted third day was dropped in favour of London. There were suggestions that the route would include my home town of Hull and would cross the Humber Bridge – which I think would have been a great Tour image – but the two Stages they do have look to be absolute crackers.
Stage 1. Leeds to Harrogate.
Leeds – Harewood – Otley – Ilkley – Skipton – Kettlewell – Aysgarth – Hawes – Reeth – Leyburn – Ripon – Harrogate
No prologue again next year and the first stage looks to be similar to this years in trying to set up a sprinter for the first Maillot Jaune. It’s a 190km looping course, initially striking out North-West from Leeds, taking in the open country of the Yorkshire Dales National Park before heading back close to the starting point in Harrogate. Cav’s mum lives around the corner to finish and he will be especially fired up after missing out on his chance to wear yellow this year.
Stage 2. York to Sheffield.
York – Knaresborough – Silsden – Keighley – Haworth – Hebden Bridge – Elland – Huddersfield – Holmfirth – Sheffield
The second stage has been described by Christian Prudhomme as being more like a Spring Classic and whilst a pure sprinter may be in yellow as they roll out of York to start the 200km anti-clockwise loop it’s unlikely he would be atop the podium come the days end. If Cav did grab the leader’s jersey on Day 1 there will be some memorable scenes as the route returns through Harrogate. Lingering shots of Cav’s mum waving out of her window as her yellow-clad son is allowed to lead the peloton through town perhaps.. The route then winds down through West Yorkshire across a sawtooth profile (including the brilliantly named Blubberhouses where my mother’s family trace their roots back to, and then Hebden Bridge where I lived out a memorably up-and-down year after university) before finishing in Sheffield on a small repeating circuit. Prudhomme has made comparisons between the Stage 2 route and Liege-Bastogne-Liege and he obviously feels that the puncheurs will be at the head of affairs through the last few kilometres.
The direction is clear. ASO want more, and more different, yellow jersey wearers in the first days of the race. They want to open out the leader’s spot to all rider styles and create greater spectacle from the off. In choosing challenging routes over more glamorous backdrops they seem keen to put the cycling, and not the spectacle, first. They believe, as should we all, that, given the right terrain and passionate hosts, that the spectacle will come naturally.
You can see maps and more info on the routes at Yorkshire’s website here.
I’ll be returning to the Grand Depart regularly over the next year and looking a number of different aspects. Suggestions welcome.
Tour de France – Day 4 roundup – Full Banana and Peas
So Corsica is done and La Grande Boucle is back on the mainland. Not that anyone should have cause to regret the three days offshore. We have been treated to sumptuous scenery, occaisonal high farce, and none too shabby racing.. Plus all the press pundits’ expectations and predictions have had to be tossed overboard on the ferry journey to Nice.. Nice.
No wins for CVNDSH or Sagan. Kittel comes through the confusion and carnage to claim Stage 1. The breakaway’s breakaway Bakelants holds off the raging horde for Stage 2. Orica Greenedge, having got all the headlines for all the wrong reasons on the opening day, come out of the shadows to sneak Stage 3 by the narrowest of margins. And then come out of even greater shadows to take the Stage 4 TTT and the Maillot Jaune. I’m not sure what the Aussie for ‘Chapeau’ is but they deserve it. With corks on. Meanwhile, Geraint Thomas, Tony Martin and Ted King keep the ‘Toughest Sport on the Planet’ flame alive whilst the whole peloton dodges loose dogs, dropped caps and very flimsy-looking final kilometres barriers. Even Chris Froome chucks out the pre-programming and has a quick pop off the front to show that improvisation is alive and well at Team Sky. Heady Days, my friends, Heady Days.
On the downside, we have been subjected to some of the most horrendous full kit abominations seen since Cipollini last hung up his zebra-hide skinsuit. I’m not just talking about the ongoing, season long horror shows that are the AG2R and Lampre kits – we have almost become inured to their awfulness – no, I’m talking about the modern penchant for leader’s jerseys to spread beyond the confines of the jersey itself onto the shorts, onto the helmet, onto the gloves, glasses, socks and even onto the fricking bikes themselves. The sight of Pierre Rolland yesterday, turning what was undeniably (according to me and my brother in the late 80’s anyway) the coolest looking jersey of all into what one enlightened viewer termed ‘an anorexic Mr Blobby’ definately took some stomaching. He did tone it down a little today but probably more through a lack of the requisite patterned aerosuit than through overnight aesthetic enlightenment. No so Jan Bakelants, who unashamedly went Full Banana today.
Last year I was initially quite supportive of Wiggins’ relatively restrained co-opting of yellowness ‘beyond the jersey’ (for a long while just the glasses, then glimpses on the saddle, the internals of the forks and the belly of the downtube) but felt that even he was overdoing it come the final time trial at Chartres with the full fruity skinsuit. But no! Bakelants and Radioshack Trek have shown us that you can go one better than Wiggo, that you can go much deeper into the yellow – even if its only Day 4, you’ve never won a senior Pro race before and you are 98.54% certain not to be holding the jersey after the 26 minutes racing you will do today. Yes, go on Trek, crack out those yellow overshoes and really go to town.
Maillot Jaune. Maillot Pois. Maillot Vert.
The clue is in the title, lads. Calm down, eh?
Howies Slipstream Longsleeve Jersey
The marketing blurb describing the new Slipstream jerseys from Howies say that they have differing knit patterns across the seamless panels which make up the form-fitting torso and sleeves, giving invisible ventilation where it’s most needed. I put the theory to the test by taking the long sleeve version out on a really hot summer day…
‘Seamless circular knit technology.’ ‘Contoured panelling.’ ‘Second skin fit.’ For a company like Howies, who have built their business on a simple but informed style of product communication, this seems a little jarring at first. Here the technical information part is laid on pretty thickly. It’s as if they feel that this first foray into cycle wear needs a new, serious voice. Certainly they have decided that cycle wear needs a more serious visual direction too, and have chosen a manifestly minimalist approach to colour, pattern and graphics for the Slipstream jerseys. For me, that is a big plus point, and it was the look of the jersey rather than the science behind its construction which first grabbed my attention. That and the fact it has my name written on it.. I’ve always had an affection for Howies because of this but must admit I have have lost some interest in the brand of late. Too much similar product. Too much reliance on email marketing. This however caught my eye and, after checking around for some sizing information, I bought a long-sleeved version in Medium.
Fit-wise, they are dead right when they say it’s ‘form-fitting’. I’m 6′ tall and 62kg so I’m no heavyweight but when I first unwrapped the jersey I thought there was no way it would be big enough to get round my skinny frame. Off the bike the jersey feels tight everywhere – like how I imagine a skinsuit would feel – and is pretty constricting, but once underway it was hard to feel the jersey at all and I would rate it as one of the most comfortable I’ve ever worn on that basis alone. I personally would benefit from an extra half inch of length in the sleeves and most people would probably want a slightly longer back panel but at least the inherent clinginess of the material meant that the jersey didn’t ride up too much.
And so out to Kent, the sunshine and some hills. I did have some concerns about wearing an all black, long-sleeve top on what was shaping up to be a hot summer day. Even on cooler early starts I’m often rolling up sleeves or whipping off arm-warmers within a couple of miles so I knew I’d be giving the much vaunted ventilation areas a big test. There are five of these areas; a long stripe down the leading edge of each arm, one under each armpit, and a larger area on the reverse tapering down from the shoulders. These are nigh-on invisible to the eye but which reveal a more open weave when stretched over the body. And they are very effective – my arms and back could feel them working as the day worn on and the temperatures inside and out rose rapidly. The sleeves stayed firmly unrolled all day. Chest cooling is handled with the less technical solution of a full length zip but they’ve thought about this enough to give it a short cord to make usage a whole lot less fiddly than some of my other jerseys (Rapha, take note please). The stretchiness of the material prevents the zip getting started when fully done up – I needed both hands to do this – but whipping it up and down from collarbone to diaphragm and back again as the inclines and declines required was brilliantly easy.
And what of the jersey pockets? The two open pockets either side and the zipped one in the middle are all as tight and fitted as the rest of the jersey so you need to travel light. I could fit a gilet into one of the side pockets fairly easily but would have to spend quite some time by the roadside scrunching a more robust rain jacket into a suitable size to get it to fit. Fine for the short sleeve version maybe but not ideal for a long sleeve which is likely to be used in all conditions. Making the two side pockets a bit wider and the middle one narrower could solve the problem as the ratio seemed a little off given that the centre pocket is designated as the phone, keys and cash pocket but swallows these with loads of room to spare whilst not being able to be easily used for much else because of the zip.
I got through my 60 miles without boiling from the inside and was really happy with the £59 (£49 for short sleeve) spent. Currently Howies’ cycle specific range is limited to just a few pieces (long and short sleeve jerseys, men’s and women’s bib-shorts and MTB shorts) and just the one colour option. Surely based on this more is coming. Just please not too much Howies. Keep on keeping it simple..
-will do a wet weather update in due course-
It Begins.. Tour de France 2013 Preview
They say that “Good things come to those who wait.”
And we have waited. Oh yes, we’ve waited. We’ve waited through the Olympics, through the Vuelta, through the off season and then we’ve waited some more through the Tours of Down Under, Qatar and Oman. We’ve waited through the Classics and the Giro – though they were much more diverting than the previous waiting – and through the build-up skirmishes of Trentino, Romandie and the Dauphine.. And now it’s here. The Tour de France starts this weekend.
If you are going to have to ‘wait’ for a major sporting event, then the Tour is actually pretty accommodating. Unlike the aforementioned Olympics or most of the sporting World Cups it’s annual instead of being as regular as a Leap Year or a Presidential Election. Add to this the fact that, with its three week duration, it’s really only 49 weeks since we last stood shouting ourselves hoarse on the Champs Élysées, and that from now we will be fully occupied with it for the better part of a month, and suddenly it becomes a very generous sport for its followers. It’s free to watch from the roadside if you are in the vicinity of the parcours, or there is extensive live and recorded coverage for those who are not. The individual daily dramas for sprint and stage played out in balance against the long term struggles for overall victory. The never-ending sideshow politics of ethical, technical and moral debate raging in the vast press rooms set up just yards from the finish line. To call it a sport worthy of Shakespeare would not be too far out of line.
—–Act I.
Our scene opens in a Corsican port. The young prince Froome watches as the fleet of the old King, Sir Lord Wiggins of Kilburn, Lancashire & Tenerife, is lost in a series of Italian storms, and he laments to his trusted lieutenants the burden which now falls to him.
“By all that we hold good and true, – yes, Lord Porte, by my very power-meter – I shall don the yellow cloth come three weeks hence. Come now though, let us adjourn and keep our purpose hid until the road doth ascend to the very Gods.” He and his lieutenants form a long single-file line and they exit stage right (at race tempo).
The Counts of Sagan and CVNDSH enter. Sagan is flanked by the Merry Podium Girls and wheelie’ing. CVNDSH is alone, though he carries engravings of Lord Eisel and Lord Renshaw. They spend the next 5 scenes squabbling over who should be wearing yellow and green. Sagan flees to France winning both but lets CVNDSH wear green so that he looks even more jealous. They fight until they reach the mountains at which point Sagan exits, stage left, wheelie’ing, pursued by a bear. And the Podium girls. CVNDSH remains, wearing his reading glasses, giving gravely serious interviews to the Gentlemen of the Press, who risk his ire by only asking him questions about what has he done with his vowels.
Act II & Act III to follow as the Tour progresses.—–
Yes, we have waited. And yes, it will be good. It’s a shame that Wiggins won’t be there. I think the Century edition of the Tour will be poorer for not having the defending champion on the start line, and that Sky and Froome will be worse off for not having his engine in the team. I’m not surprised though – the tension between the pair looked to have become unmanageable and was clearly in danger of splitting the team cohesion that Sky are so reliant on. It will be very interesting to read David Walsh’s take on all this in due course. He has been embedded with the team for a couple of months and must be best placed to tell the real story.
I’m really looking forward to the Ventoux stage on Bastille Day and also the double ascent of Alpe d’Huez four days later. I think we will see a lot more chaotic race for GC this year than the semi-processional run of last year and I don’t quite see Froome as the clear favourite that the bookies make him. It’s not that I doubt his ability to win it, I just think that there will be more twists and turns this year and that it will be a titanic to and fro struggle between him and whoever emerges as his his closest rival. Which, in spite of Wiggins’ absence, could conceivably still be his own teammate. I definitely think we are in for a classic… Something much more than worthy of the wait.
When In Rain
I really enjoyed cycling in the rain that shrouded our morning route out into Kent yesterday. It was a light, misty rain; the sort where the smell of the wet leaves hits you harder than the raindrops themselves.
I get a completely different feeling about being part of the landscape when it’s raining. Whether cycling through country lanes or just walking in the park, the wet world draws you further into itself and fully envelops you, physically connecting you in ways that it doesn’t when the weather is bright and dry. The extra noises, smells and touches that rain brings makes me feel more aware of the space I’m moving through, even if vision is reduced. A touch of rain gives an extra dimension to cycle rides, even those on familiar routes, that is generally worth the mental strength needed to get yourself out of bed and into it.
As we approached the beginning of the climb up Beddlestead, the crest of ridge was completely closed-in by low cloud and the ascent should have been grim, unrewarding work. But when the radio mast finally loomed out of the grey veil and the climbing was almost done, I found myself thinking I’d never enjoyed that stretch more. This time I hadn’t conquered the climb; I’d been a part of it.
Over the top the dark edge of the weather front was more apparent and promised that we would have better weather for our return but for now the dripping trees kept the roads slick and we descended in cautious silence. On the exposed side of the hill the wind was more apparent and soon we saw evidence that it had obviously been much stronger in the night. Just off Pilgrims Way, not far from a section flooded by a burst water pipe, we saw blue flashing lights further up the lane. Our first thought was of a car accident in the twisty road, or that someone might have come off on the gravel patches which litter that descent, but when we arrived we found two fairly sodden policeman looking blankly at a tree that had shed a huge bough right across the road. We were able to squeeze past by the hedge on the far side and as we did the sun came out fully and quickly warmed what the wind had begun to dry. It was as if we were passing through a gate out of the watercolour-like lands back into the dry. By the top of the next short climb the earlier feelings of connection with the landscape had passed too and we rolled the rest of the way back to town as passengers on the landscape rather than parts in it.
The Massif Studio Blog 