Hello from a cramped little motel room in the sunny Oise departement of France.
We are here for a really damn tough 4 day 2.2 UCI stage race. Everything got underway yesterday with a rough little 125k stage that was over before it began it felt that fast! We have 3 more stages all around the 180-190k distance to go so I am looking forward to getting on with it.
First impressions of yesterdays stage were
1) Holy crap this is fast,
2) Holy crap this is fast, and,
3) Holy crap this is fast.
We went straight out of town, round a small 5k loop then through the town and out a steep as all hell 2k climb with two switchbacks. We all know the rule stay at the front, yes? Well yesterday was another perfect justification for why we hear this over and over. The road was so narrow up the hill that we were coming to a complete stop mid hairpin down the back of the bunch.
Although I really suffered yesterday, I have to say it was so much fun! The speed and intensity of the race was exilirating, a big change from Australia no doubt.
After some tasty baguettes and a couple of bowls of plain pasta (Ketchup being the only condiment offered...) this morning I am fuelled and ready to take on stage 2.
Au revoir
Friday, June 11, 2010
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
"How close did we get to Germany?"
"Pretty close, actually about as close as I think you can get."- Spraggy
"Oh really?"- Me
"Uh yeh, we're in Germany"- Spraggy
"Oh..."- Me
And what a ride it was. Wind, bergs, coke, strudel, honey cake and the warm smell of fermenting cow shit all day long. Yesterday was a big bunch ride led by hard man and GPS equipped local legend Leon Van Bon.
We went south through Valkenburg and the Amstel Gold race area, then kept heading to the south east, entered Germany, did some rolling climbs, ended up in this amazing olden style German village complete with a castle, church, cobbles, coffee, coke and cake. Then it was onwards and upwards into Belgium and slowly getting up to the highest point in the country, which was actually 694m I'll have you know! Then we continued along a bunch of narrow rolling roads all the way back to our front door. A good 6 hour ride followed by an even better dinner at a newly opened "Wok Always" takeaway shop in town; things just keep improving
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And with that it's time to find a less creative way to whittle away some hours online, bye!
Jono
"Oh really?"- Me
"Uh yeh, we're in Germany"- Spraggy
"Oh..."- Me
And what a ride it was. Wind, bergs, coke, strudel, honey cake and the warm smell of fermenting cow shit all day long. Yesterday was a big bunch ride led by hard man and GPS equipped local legend Leon Van Bon.
We went south through Valkenburg and the Amstel Gold race area, then kept heading to the south east, entered Germany, did some rolling climbs, ended up in this amazing olden style German village complete with a castle, church, cobbles, coffee, coke and cake. Then it was onwards and upwards into Belgium and slowly getting up to the highest point in the country, which was actually 694m I'll have you know! Then we continued along a bunch of narrow rolling roads all the way back to our front door. A good 6 hour ride followed by an even better dinner at a newly opened "Wok Always" takeaway shop in town; things just keep improving
The hard man himself
Great.
The old Kinglake Bakery just doesn't live up
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Black Kettle Tearooms are also, I guess, just not quite up to scratch
Jono
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Valkenburg
What a glorious day! My first three days here have been amazing; mid twenties, no shortage of sun and not a breath of wind. The last two days have been spent exploring the area south of Geleen in the very most southern part of the Netherlands. This area is where the Amstel Gold Race is held every year and to put it in the most basic terms, there are 50 climbs (between say 1k to 3k) within a 30-40km radius and to get in some solid riding you can simply create a plethora of different loops over different bergs until your heart's content.
Yesterday we started out coming through Valkenburg and straight up the Cauberg which is the finish for Amstel, it's so cool riding up this hill with all the painting (Schleck, Boogerd, Evans etc) half faded on the road, and the finish line is at the top year round so there's no shortage of half wheeling going up the climb. The day before yesterday I had recently Pez'd fellow anglophone, James Spragg, play tour guide and show me round a bunch of different locations; all adorned with the suffix 'berg'. Good to know that my new training ground, despite being in Holland, is anything but flat. Now for some pictures...
Brad and Loh enjoying the sun
I am also enjoying the sun
Enjoying the green surroundings
Enjoying the Dutch bike path systems
Enjoying the car free centre of Geleen
Definitely enjoying finding an asian grocery store in Geleen (yes I am as shocked as you!). Then compounding that enjoyment with the fact that they had fresh rolled sticky rice parcels filled with minced turmeric chicken. Yes, there was a lot of enjoyment on my behalf.
I can survive a month without food but 3 days without Fish sauce and I am in serious trouble.
Ciao
Jono
Saturday, June 5, 2010
FAQ
Who: Marco Polo Cycling Team
Where: Geleen, The Netherlands
How Long: 4 months
What Races:
To put it in simple terms, 6 weeks racing various tours, kermesse races and 1 day road races, amateur and pro level in and around the Netherlands, France, Germany and mostly Belgium.
Then 2 weeks of agony in Qinghai ,followed by a rest week or two
Then another 6 week European block as above, then a trip home via another week racing in the new Tour of China which is rumoured to be hilly!
Why: Why not?
Life in Geleen: So far so good, a small town, certainly not Melbourne sized. The biggest difference so far is that in Aussie terms we are out in the 'sticks'. Instead of a few hundred kilometres between towns, it's more like <5 kilometres.
Enough: Yeh.
See ya.
Where: Geleen, The Netherlands
How Long: 4 months
What Races:
To put it in simple terms, 6 weeks racing various tours, kermesse races and 1 day road races, amateur and pro level in and around the Netherlands, France, Germany and mostly Belgium.
Then 2 weeks of agony in Qinghai ,followed by a rest week or two
Then another 6 week European block as above, then a trip home via another week racing in the new Tour of China which is rumoured to be hilly!
Why: Why not?
Life in Geleen: So far so good, a small town, certainly not Melbourne sized. The biggest difference so far is that in Aussie terms we are out in the 'sticks'. Instead of a few hundred kilometres between towns, it's more like <5 kilometres.
Enough: Yeh.
See ya.
The European Chapter
And thus it begins.
Welcome to the foreign land of the Netherlands. Welcome lush green scenery. Welcomes obscure but useful bikepaths. Welcome offensively flat countryside punctuated with bergs to the south. Welcome confusing and humorous language. Welcome sun and 25 degrees. Welcome overwhelming cool bike culture. Also welcome swift adaptation to the new time zone thanks to caffeine.
Not so welcome abundance of average coffee (but still warm, comforting and making me go to the toilet since 1989). Very much unwelcome lack of south east Asian cuisine (sniff). Feeling a bit unwelcome myself if I try to ride on the left hand side of the road..'what, they drive on the right here', queue horn, "BEEEEEEEEEP", woops.
Blah blah blah, so on and so forth. This joint is different to Melbourne, but at the same time similar, still a developed, westernised kind of country and frankly I'm more than happy being here. Which is a good thing, as I have 4 months to go. Plenty more stories as they come to hand. It's just me, a slow net connection and a pantry of food getting me through the post ride afternoons.
On a side note, KLM have taken my award for shittest plane food in the aviation world.I call it the Very Offensive Meals In Transit (VOMIT) Award. It it highly prized. Let it be known that every time you serve customers a powdered egg omelette God/Allah/Buddha/Vishnu kills a kitten. A cute one too.
So just think about that KLM.
Bye for now!
Welcome to the foreign land of the Netherlands. Welcome lush green scenery. Welcomes obscure but useful bikepaths. Welcome offensively flat countryside punctuated with bergs to the south. Welcome confusing and humorous language. Welcome sun and 25 degrees. Welcome overwhelming cool bike culture. Also welcome swift adaptation to the new time zone thanks to caffeine.
Not so welcome abundance of average coffee (but still warm, comforting and making me go to the toilet since 1989). Very much unwelcome lack of south east Asian cuisine (sniff). Feeling a bit unwelcome myself if I try to ride on the left hand side of the road..'what, they drive on the right here', queue horn, "BEEEEEEEEEP", woops.
Blah blah blah, so on and so forth. This joint is different to Melbourne, but at the same time similar, still a developed, westernised kind of country and frankly I'm more than happy being here. Which is a good thing, as I have 4 months to go. Plenty more stories as they come to hand. It's just me, a slow net connection and a pantry of food getting me through the post ride afternoons.
On a side note, KLM have taken my award for shittest plane food in the aviation world.I call it the Very Offensive Meals In Transit (VOMIT) Award. It it highly prized. Let it be known that every time you serve customers a powdered egg omelette God/Allah/Buddha/Vishnu kills a kitten. A cute one too.
So just think about that KLM.
Bye for now!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Picture time
Photos from Korea
Hotel view: Beautiful Jeju Island. You can see the pre race presentation stage in the distance
Stage 1, Roll out.
Leaving the neutral section, stage 1, uphill and into the wind and rain.
Many hours post stage 1, plane transfer. Very over it by now, tired and grumpy for sure.
Brief moment on the front, stage 2
Stage 3, pacing back on after a flat. Downhill, tunnel, fast, fun.
Stage 3, Out of tunnel, nice view!
Jimmy, our mechanic, also a big fan of fresh Korean seafood.
A typical Korean sex motel (aka love motel)
Trying to have a team meeting in the overheated, sweaty and stuffy sex motel room!
Haidar in action: Drink time
Loh on the rest day, top of the 1st KOM for the next stage!
On the way up...
Heading back to the motel, rugged up of course.
That's it! And I have to say a massive thanks to Marco Polo Cycling Team and the organisors of the Tour De Korea for another great adventure..flight to Hong Kong departs in 1 hour. Sad sad reality awaits!
Ciao
That's it! And I have to say a massive thanks to Marco Polo Cycling Team and the organisors of the Tour De Korea for another great adventure..flight to Hong Kong departs in 1 hour. Sad sad reality awaits!
Ciao
S.H.I.T
That's it. The race is doooone. It has been a tremendously long two weeks of travel and racing. The mental stress had built up and built up and was finally let down last night with a few beers and about 5 animals worth of meat.
The last stage was amazing and ridiculous at the same time. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
What's Brilliant: Racing through the heart of Seoul. We started with a lap around the olympic park then looped out a highway and the river, u turned, came back, jumped off the highway and raced up and down around this crazy hill near where the president (or prime minister? I am frankly 100% ignorant on South Korean government structure..) resides then through some more big streets to end up finishing near the town hall smack bang in the middle of Seoul. Very cool. Very Brilliant.
What's Silly, Hopeless, Idiotic and downright Terrifying (S.H.I.T): The lack of traffic control and entering numerous massive intersections, with traffic, and, no marshals to tell us where to go! Mayhem. So as we were chasing after a group that split off on the dangerous cobbled speed hump descent (that's another story!) out of the presidential house/park/thingamajig we took two wrong turns and ended up stuck in the middle of a 5 lane road with cars banked up infront of us and behind us. We were screwed! Then even worse, the commisaire makes light of the situation by docking our group a hypothetical 3mins 20sec after saying he'd give us bunch time. What a Sha-mozzle. A brothel. A veritable logistical train wreck. Only beer and grilled carcass's can remedy such a shame.
So now I am about to fly out back to Melbourne and will be MIA on the blog front for a few weeks. The plan at the moment is to head off to Europe by the end of May whereby a massive 3 months of racing awaits. So unless I get any hilarious stories to tell it's bye for now!
Jono
The last stage was amazing and ridiculous at the same time. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
What's Brilliant: Racing through the heart of Seoul. We started with a lap around the olympic park then looped out a highway and the river, u turned, came back, jumped off the highway and raced up and down around this crazy hill near where the president (or prime minister? I am frankly 100% ignorant on South Korean government structure..) resides then through some more big streets to end up finishing near the town hall smack bang in the middle of Seoul. Very cool. Very Brilliant.
What's Silly, Hopeless, Idiotic and downright Terrifying (S.H.I.T): The lack of traffic control and entering numerous massive intersections, with traffic, and, no marshals to tell us where to go! Mayhem. So as we were chasing after a group that split off on the dangerous cobbled speed hump descent (that's another story!) out of the presidential house/park/thingamajig we took two wrong turns and ended up stuck in the middle of a 5 lane road with cars banked up infront of us and behind us. We were screwed! Then even worse, the commisaire makes light of the situation by docking our group a hypothetical 3mins 20sec after saying he'd give us bunch time. What a Sha-mozzle. A brothel. A veritable logistical train wreck. Only beer and grilled carcass's can remedy such a shame.
So now I am about to fly out back to Melbourne and will be MIA on the blog front for a few weeks. The plan at the moment is to head off to Europe by the end of May whereby a massive 3 months of racing awaits. So unless I get any hilarious stories to tell it's bye for now!
Jono
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