"A quick recap"

A quick recap of the past weekend: The past weekend involved Pevele a UCI 1.12 and Douchy les Mines a UCI 1.12 that bore the label of “criterium.” Both took place in France.

Pevele was on Saturday and was probably the most ridiculous start to a race I have yet to experience. At this point I think that both you and I know that races in France often start before the gun ever goes off, but this was more chaotic than average. To set the stage; it was a 17-18km (11 laps total) loop that hit two sections of cobbles. The first and the longest section was the one that Hincape broke his steer-tube on earlier this season (also the ones from our photo op). This was fallowed by a narrow uphill/headwind section that lead to the second section. Still wondering about the start? Hmmm, well the day before we all were planning on a 4km sprint to the first section of cobbles. Redlined from the gun right?? When we showed up they decided to tell us that we were going to do a neutral lap that bypassed the cobbled sections, and then were going to stop the whole peleton and start the race from some other point on the course…..rrrright… Anyway we started our 40-50kph “neutral” lap and the pace car, of which I was literally sitting on its bumper, decided to lead us all down a dead end road. I Then hightailed it to the other end of the peloton, bushwacking-cyclocross style and proceeded to do the rest of the “neutral” lap including the cobbled sections. Here on the neutral lap the peloton split into four groups, yes, splits on the neutral. I really can’t complain too much at this point because I had good positioning and was looking back at the splits…to be honest, I was sort of hoping the splits would stay and the race would just continue without the “official” start. Eventually we were stopped at the designated “official” start and proceded to push pull and creep our way past any official and the start line itself. I mean really this was ridicoulous, guys were lined up on the grass and any other place you could find. Ok go! 8km to the cobbles. Well lets just say my legs didn’t like that restart thing too much or something. I hit first section of cobbles with good positioning, but did too much work to be there. This translates to 200km before the cobbles… uhohh I think I did too much work …100km oh sh—I did do too much. Ok so maybe I got a bit antsy after the chotic “neutral” lap, and it cost me my race and any chances of making it into any sort of selection…of which I feel very strongly that I could/should have been in. It was a hard day to settle with.

Douchy les Mines took place on Monday and was another unique one. Can we say UCI Kermis! Definitely not a Crit. 6km laps (21 laps total)…um no not a crit. It fallowed the typical kermis formula of run you through all the tiny little streets with 1001 turns and then shove you out of town into some windy section…oh and did I mention that little hill, yeah you gotta go up that too. I guess when they said crit all they ment was that there was going to be a pit and free laps allowed. Obviously they ment multiple free laps, being a 6km course and all, that is unless someone can show me how to sprint in my cycling shoes…ummm yeah, I can’t sprint in a pair of running shoes, so go figure. The day ended with three of us in the peleton sprinting for 30th place or something. I will say that this day went a bit better than Saturaday, but not much. Oh, and one other thing, there were millions of little French kids all over the course and they were much less reserved than your typical Belgian. They liked to talk back and throw stones onto the course…yeah and the ones that were trying to look tough, they were sort of missing the target on that one. So, all you US punks out there, you definitely have a one up on the French…or as we have been so affectionately calling them, “Frank.” I not sure if I entirely like Frank, at least at the moment. And Frank FYI, the accordion before the race was just not cool, especially after you ran it all through a ton of speakers.