Knees and Elbows - Day 3 - Monday 22nd June

The Ironman France bike course is reckoned to be one of the toughest. Lots of climbing and lots of technical descending. I was keen to reccee the route ahead of the race but didn’t fancy riding the whole 112mile single loop course:




There did look like a simple way of shortening the course to make a 60 mile version that went out the same way as the race course and came back with the race course but cut 50 miles out of the middle. Though in doing so did add a steeper climb.


Getting through Nice to the course was again a little uncertain. I followed the cycle path as that seemed the easiest way to get past the town, the airport and over the river Var. Having consulted the map I was sure of where the route was to follow up the Var valley. Fortunately I found road markings indicating the course. A sign that there is a race coming, or is it a sign that the race has been?




The road markings helped with the first few bends following the Var, then came a left turn off the main road. I was conscious of a following car so was keen to take the corner quickly. There was a stream of cars waiting to come out of the side junction I was turning left into and due to my haste I didn’t spot the gravel across the junction until my wheels started sliding out on it. I tried to counteract the slide. I guess I must have over corrected. You’d think that if you’re turning left and leaning left then you’d lend on your left. My grazed right elbow, right knee and right hip provide the evidence. Pride was more injured than bike or me. I was then taken aback by the consideration of the spectating drivers and the cyclist who was following me. They stopped, showed concern, warned me of further gravel and generally ensured I was okay to continue before resuming their own journeys.

The route is pretty flat for the first 15km or so but with this left turn comes the first proper bit of climbing and it’s really quite sharp. You are then generally twisting and climbing from the industrial outskirts of Nice as it transitions to rural outskirts. Before long. After several switch backs are following a hill side road heading west parallel to the coast.

I was wanting to turn off this road to cut across to the other side of the bike course. The returning stage of the route. I managed to take a turn to early and found myself climbing into the village of St. Jeanet. On the approach to the village I over took a couple of cyclists they responded to my ‘Bonjour’ with very French sounding ones of their own.

The main road into St. Jeanet narrowed into rustic cobbled streets in what was a truly picturesque French mountain side village with no obvious route out the other side of the village. Certainly their were no signs pointing to a col to get over the mountain behind the village. The cyclists who’d I’d overtaken earlier caught me whilst I consulted my map. I flagged them down and in my best pigeon French asked “Excusa moi monsieur, o’est ici” pointing at my map.

“Can you speak English” was the American accented reply. I should have realised that the Alpe d’Heuz cycle jersey’s were just too touristy to belong to a local. We had a good little natter. Found out where we were, where we each heading, where we were staying, where we hailed from and what we were doing in the area. My French accent and Ironman Switzerland cycle kit made him and his wife think I was from Switzerland. I’ll take that as a compliment particularly the day after the Swiss two times World Time Trial Champion Fabian Cancellara won the Tour of Switzerland.



With his directions and the course markings I really had very little difficulty following the rest of my ride. The Col de Vence provided stunning scenic views over Nice and out towards Corsica. On a clear day I’m sure it would be visible. There was an area of sea that looked to rise so guessing that was the island. The climb rose to over 1,000m over 9km with a count down marker each km telling you distance to the summit in both vertical height and ground to cover. They also indicated what the average gradient of the next km was to be. For the first two that was 4% then 7% for the next six and then 6% for the last one as per the photo below. Afraid I didn’t stop to take photos of them all. In fact I was too taken in by the views to notice 5km and 2km.

The views on the way up where nothing compared to the views on the other side.

I was now to enjoy some entertaining descending. I’d been warned that this was technical and not a route for time-trial bikes. So far I’ve only seen one tt bike out of the hundred that I’ve seen. The road is constantly turning and twisting. There is rarely a stretch of 100m without a turn in it and for a bend to have warning chevrons it needs to be equivalent to a 360 turn around a mini roundabout. I’ve taken some photos of bends that didn’t warrant warning signs. I felt my decision to head advice and go for a sportive bike with compact groupset, drop handle bars, no bar extensions and light weight climbing wheels was completely the right choice of weaponry.

There were several scenic cafés and restaurants where I was tempted to stop but figured it best to head back to the hotel to clean up my wounds. I then wandered round the corner to settle down for a spot of lunch and was soon joined by Matt Spillman and Katie. One is now three. Seven more to arrive.

For those of you interested in numbers and stats. Here is a profile of the ride, and also mapped against, speed, heart rate and cadence:

Nice - Day2, Sunday June 21st

There’s really very little indication that an Ironman is about to hit Nice. In fact none. Well none that I could spot. The local paper barely mentions le Tour de France starting the week after in Monaco. Woke this morning feeling rather stiff. Suspect it was the weight of my luggage yesterday. Mr Backbreaker was right. Had a lie in. Wandered down the Promenade de Anglais past were the beach start and transition will be. Really no indication that it’s coming. Nothing laid out. No signs of warning. Read my book on the prom. Had lunch outside a café. Wandered back to the hotel over the remnants of Ville de Nice. That’s now my favourite part of the city. Forget chilling out on the beach, which is far too crowded. Up amongst the gods looking down on the city is the place to be in a lovely park with grass areas. Got some photos showing Nice, the swim area, the mountains in the background where the bike course goes and the run up and down the Promenade des Anglais. Easy spin on the bike this evening with a t-run to follow. There are a lot of cars and a lot of traffic lights on the main roads along the coast. There is a cycle way along the prom and you just have to love the way other users be they cyclists, runners, roller-bladers or pedestrians just don’t see you coming at them even when it’s a heads on. I’m sure my new found talent of invisibility would soon wear off if I was to walk into the ladies beach volleyball changing room. The drivers seem pretty considerate though – think I’ll stick to the roads particularly at busy times. It is nicely warm here. Warm enough to feel hot the whole time and make you sweat loads, but not warm enough it seems to make you want to stop. Think the plan needs to be drink loads. Plan tomorrow is to ride a shortened version of the bike course – just need to work out how to get onto the route, it wasn’t obvious this afternoon. Watching Eurosport with French commentary, you try and fill the gap in yourself. Now wondering if any team playing the All Blacks has pulled a mass team moonie in response to their hacker. Think that’ll ruin my chances of ever being selected as England captain.

Nice - Day 1, 20th June

Each new adventure starts the moment you step outside your front door. Today that was 6:15 am to an awaiting taxi to take me, a rucksack, a day bag and my suitably bagged bike to Norwich Railway Station on the first part of my journey to Nice for Ironman France. The planning and preparation had started months ago and this trip has been one thing that’s been static in my year against a backdrop of global financial crisis, company name changes, even employer changes and office changes.
Locomotion is a fairly relaxed way to travel. It’s a relatively environmentally friendly way to travel. It’s a very scenic and social way to travel. It also made a really nice change to flying. Would be great if it was a little cheaper, but it added to the adventure and as I feel remarkably relaxed at the end of the day was probably worthwhile.
I was at Norwich station by 6:30am and suitably early for the 7am train to London Liverpool St. I’d received some teasing for travelling first class. I think Snobman was wise in paying an extra £4 each way to upgrade when he booked his train 8 weeks ago on trainline.net. Didn’t quite get a carriage to myself but I certainly had plenty of room for my bike, bags and me.
Not fancying the tube having known that there had been recent tube strikes I opted for a London black cab. £12 for the priviledge there with a driver who thought his surname, Backbreaker, was more appropriate to me with my luggage was happy to tell me of his actress sister who played George Michael’s girlfriend in the video to ‘Last Christmas’.
At St. Pancras whilst I was collecting my pre booked ticket from the machine I was greeted by Veronica a wanna be triathlete and recent marathon virgin at Edinburgh. She hails from South Africa but lives now in Cambridge and was passing through London at the same time. We’ve been in contact via www.iamtri.com and asked me for some advice when she was having pre- first marathon nerves. I enjoyed her questions about Ironman whilst we had a hot chocolate whilst awaiting my 10:25 Eurostar to Paris.
I’ve used the Eurostar from Paris to London four times, but this was the first from London to Paris. Previous journey’s have taken a while. Today’s seemed to fairly fly by. Perhaps it was the company of a good book, “The Shack” by William Paul Young, some MP3 music, the excitement of heading out on an adventure rather then heading home, perhaps it was that I hadn’t cycled to Paris and possibly because I hadn’t spent the day ahead of the journey stood on the champs elysees watching le tour. I did have some guy decide to plonk his bag onto of my bike that was squeezed into a luggage compartment that really wasn’t big enough. Needless to say I found an alternative place for his bag.
Paris greeted me with rain and fellow travellers that had little consideration for others. I don’t quite understand how with bike bag and rucksack I can be invisible. And why when someone is leading a group of people and causing a congestion to they suddenly stop and then try to walk backwards. Wasn’t going to upset me. The queue for taxi’s could have done. It wasn’t that there was a queue, or the size of the queue, but the lack of taxi’s. There were plenty of limo’s but no taxi’s. Gare du Nord to Gare de Lyon is a 3 mile walk. Which I didn’t fancy. I could have taken the Paris Metro, though didn’t relish it with luggage especially not the very fierce narrow ticket turnstyles. I similarly didn’t fancy standing in a stressed Parisian taxi queue being jostled and missing my TGV. So when someone else in the queue announced “Limo Gare de Lyon” I moved very quickly using my best pigeon French.
The couple who I shared the limo with were very English and terribly nice. They had an hour to get to Gare de Lyon for a train to Geneva, which made my 2 hour connection look very relaxed. I offered to pay half the fair, but he refused to take more than 20Euro off me before passing what looked like 100+ to the driver. Would certainly be accusing myself of being Snobman if I’d paid that myself. It wasn’t even a stretched a limo, but fourth part of my journey over and I now had plenty of time to sit, eat my packed lunch, read and wait for the display board to tell me which of the 8 platforms labelled D-M in front of me would have the TGV to Gare Nice Ville. With 20 minutes to go the platform number of 17 flashed up next to the name of my train. Gare de Lyon has two terminals and I was in the wrong one.
I wasn’t the first passenger to get to my carriage and as I considered myself to probably have the most luggage on what appeared to be a fully booked train did cause a little concern. But that was short lived. Some friendly fellow passengers aided in the luggage stacking and my bike was soon secured nicely away in a compartment on top of everything else. Result.
Whilst every seat was taken on this double decker train, there was an adequate amount of space with wide seats and sufficient leg room. And no, I hadn’t upgraded on this part of the journey. The weather had cleared up and a good portion of the journey was spent looking out the window wishing I was riding through the countryside outside. Mount Ventoux eventually appeared on the horizon and with it a smile appeared on my face because in four weeks time I will be cycling that beauty at the climax of l’Etape du Tour.
By 21:40 I was safely into my hotel room in Nice. Barely 25 minutes between train pulling up, finding another 20euro taxi journey, this time on my own and registering with a receptionist who tried his best to act as though he didn’t have a record of my pre-paid reservation. I must have just looked too relaxed to bite as very quickly he was giving me room key and telling me to enjoy my stay.
Bike is now built, bags unpacked, room converted to base camp for next fortnight, second half of my packed lunch consumed and this blog entry drafted.

6th Lotus of 2009

Attended the 6th Lotus Cars Cycle Race League of 2009 last night. Yes I know I'm tapering, but figured a bit of speed would be a nice little sharpener. Strong wind last night - going down the main straight was lovely 24mph at 55% HRM on my tod in the warm up. Into the headwind was a different matter.
Despite my best intentions I kept finding myself at the front. There seemed a real reluctance from anyone to take it up into the wind - so pulled my weight so to speak. Seemed that if I didn't push it at 21mph the pack were happy to sit at 17mph - that was until the lap where I'd drifted to the back with the tail wind. Caught the back of the group in the headwind only to find that the 4 riders I'd caught (including Alfie Chapman) were themselves detached. Oh well, 40 mins was probably enough for a taper. Average 24mph max 36mph.
Chris Guy, Phil Hargreaves and one other had a 3 man break for several laps but got caught 2 laps from the finish. Sean of 'Sports Therapy/Streetlife/City College' got the win. Liam Gentry and Simon Asher were 6th and 5th with Chris Guy 4th.

Thunderstorm Swim

Missed my morning swim yesterday so arranged to swim with JT at 7.30pm as a second chance Monday. Rushed home from work at 5pm to avoid a thunderstom that proved to be a real hum-dinger. Very nearly cried off the swim. In fact I was hoping JT would so that I could also get away with being slack. So a big thank you for JT for provoking me to get my apathetic arse up to the UEA pool. I was flying once there. Doing 4x200m in 2:40 repping them on 3:15. Repping 100m on 90 seconds. That's got to be my best swim in years. Thanks JT.
Figured I'd earned myself a take away curry with that, but the number was engaged when I tried to place the order - settled for pasta and pork in a tomato and chilli sauce that I cooked myself.

GB call up for Iain

Following the National Disabled Triathlon Championships at the Rother Valley mentioned in a previous post Iain Dawson has been invited to represent GB at an Invitational International Super Sprint Paratriathlon event in Hyde Park 15th August supporting the ITU World Championships.
I'm available that day, so looks like I'll get to guide Iain around that course as well. :-)

Week 21

Oh dear. Seven weeks since I last updated my blog. It's been rather manic with work, training, club and life.
Now just 3 weeks away from Ironman France. All the long training rides are done, and as of 90 minutes along all my long runs are also now done. Today's 22 mile run was an out and make from a mates house (who i'm visiting this weekend) through Sheffield and out through Rotherham and back along the Sheffield and South Yorkshire navigation. Nice little run.
Was up here yesterday to help guide Iain Dawson around that National Disabled Triathlon course. We finished 5th overall and 4th in his category.