Saturday, August 31, 2013

For tomorrow we race ...


Anticipation, nervousness.  I just want this to start!  Tomorrow we roll out at 11:30am from Solsona after a 90 minute transfer from Barcelona.  That's 7:30pm Sunday evening in Australia.  

Stage 1 Solsona to La Seu d'Urgell -  87kms with 2,300m climbing on 3 cols.  

Just home from registration, briefing and a paella party down on the docks.  Actually that was the fastest meal I've ever witnessed.  I reckon it took no more than 45 minutes to feed 400 cyclists 2 courses before everyone bolted out the door.  All, like me, keen to get on with it no doubt. 

I've got my number - only looking a little wide eyed and haunted here.


Today we went for a 50km spin around Barcelona, up to a church high up on the highest mountain behind Barcelona.  It was a relatively easy climb of a few kms with a maybe 4% avg gradient.  

The church is impressive.  You can see it down at the seaside - it's topped by a Jesus with arms open wide, watching over the city and spreading love.  Only just a little compromised by the theme park on its immediate slopes, complete with waterslides! 


Here we are setting off making use of more of Barcelona's excellent cycling infrastructure.

Endearingly people had clipped hundreds of little padlocks with messages of love to the safety fence up around the church.  That's Barcelona in the background. 




We thought of stopping at the cafe up at the church but Boy George was playing loudly.  This didn't inspire us.  Fortunately we were riding with a local who showed us the most lovely cafe down in a village at the bottom of the hill.  Last chance to sit around and eat coffee and pastries until we get to the Bay of Biscay next Saturday.



But for now, packing and resting. 

Did I mention I am feeling a bit anxious!!!!

PS: Forgot to mention Greg LeMond is riding with us tomorrow!  

Friday, August 30, 2013

Yesterday I woke to a serenade from outside my window.  It turned out to be a navy ship preparing to leave dock and they had a full band on the deck playing something inspiring but I know not what.  It was nice to see the ritual of sailors in dress kit, including the ones hauling in the ropes who had rather nice dark tunics over their dress whites.

Later I wondered how people ride Harley Davidsons and actually get them to go round corners.  Today I rode a sort of townie bike on a guided tour of Barcelona.  The bike had big high bars on it, not like the Baum at all!  It's a great way to cover some ground, see things you wouldn't on your own and to see more than you would on a walking tour.

But steering those bikes!  I confess, I struggled.  When allocated my bike for the half-day tour I immediately spotted a few things wrong with it and wanted to fix it up.  If I had a multi-tool in my pocket, I probably would.  I restrained myself which is probably good because later on it became apparent that most bikes were less than perfect.  I guess a full-time job in the hands of randoms means large amounts of wear and tear and probably not much love.  Enough about that though.


Barcelona has excellent cycle infrastructure. The hugely successful Bicing sharebike scheme is a great example of how to do it well.  Only locals can use them but you see them everywhere parked in their special bays or, mostly, on the road.   

The tiny little laneways throughout the old city are just made for active transport.  Any cars that go there have to inch along, mostly ignored by the pedestrians and cyclists. 

We spent 4 hours on the bikes, average speed something like about 6 kph I reckon.  But really worth doing and so much better than walking because you can go further.  Coincidentally I met an Australian couple, Ros and Warwick.  Ros was at the same ER conference in Prague as Marian Lee and they know each other.  And he's a cyclist.  Had a nice time chatting to them.  


Here's our little group listening to the history of the Cathedral which is rather an impressive structure and contains 13 white geese and a bunch of crypts and far too much gold leaf. I'd been inside the day before.



And here's some other sites we visited.

Those of you who have been here before and hoping that La Sagrada Familia might be finished.  Not for a while yet.  Or possibly not even then.



Will it look like a hodge podge of styles or be true to Antony Gaudi's original vision.  Anyone's guess.

Here's some of Barcelona's excellent cycle infrastructure.  The fact that people walk on the bike paths and bikes in both the pedestrian and main roads doesn't seem to matter too much.  Although a helpful car driver did point me to the bike path next to the main road I was on - to point out that it would be much quicker for me.  Nice!




Things I learned on this tour:
- Anarchists are stupid.  They keep trying to burn down stone churches and stone doesn't burn.
- Fascists are evil. 
- Antony Gaudi may or may not have had Asperger's.  He certainly was obsessed.
- Never get a Harley Davidson.

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Barcelona

32kg of luggage is a bad idea.  You have to cart it around.  I'm sure that bike bag is bigger than me.

The bike survived the flight and is intact - well it was until I broke it with over-enthusiastic tightening of the stem bolts.  Now fixed again after a visit to a bike shop.  I set off to find said shop with my utter confidence that I can ride on the other side of the road without any problem.  This was OK for about 300m and then I hit a huge roundabout.  Hmm, not so easy to negotiate as it happens.

Barcelona is very cycle friendly.  There's so much more acceptance of cycling here than in Sydney and so many more bikes.  I've been enjoying riding around without a helmet.  It's the pedestrians that need helmets I reckon!  Not that I've seen any accidents I hasten to say.

But one of the downsides of cycle-friendliness and people pottering about on their bicycles is that for people in a hurry it takes ages to go anywhere on a bike! You can't ride with the traffic like you can in Sydney.

Last night I rode with a bunch of ex-pats through a ride I found on the internet.  We met at a Plaza about 6km from where I am staying.  My supreme confidence in my ability to navigate was undiminished by the morning experience and I set off ... just a bit late so put myself under more pressure to navigate and negotiate during rush hour.

Got there with one minute to spare to find a polyglot of cyclists and the regaling of a tale of recent accident in the bunch.  Chap came around a corner up in the hills and hit a flock of goats.  Got carted off in an ambulance.  OK then - I'll watch out for goats!

Barcelona has a big hill right behind it and that's where we were headed up to ride leader Mike's favourite climbs.  In fact it was all climbing and some of those climbs were well over 20%.  I was happy to have compact cranks at this point.  Fortunately I wasn't the slowest, nor was I the fastest so other people could clean up any stray goats before I got there.   But you'll never know the true extent because the garmin had a conniption and kept autopausing.  Mustn't like being on the other side of the world.

It's quite hard to descend on the wrong side of the road, especially when you try it at a time your body says you should be asleep.  I found the right hand bends the hardest because they are suddenly tighter than I'm used to and I didn't know what to do with my knee.  Curious.  And a few times I wandered off to the familiar side of the road, much to the consternation of those following.

Evening rides here don't finish with coffee.  They finish with beer and patatas.  So we did. That I didn't get finished off on the way home although that was good luck rather than any riding skill on my part.

Fortunately the roads were relatively empty because last night, at the crazy time of 11pm,  Barcelona was playing Madrid in a kind of "state of origin" game.

And because I'm reading The Secret Race, this juxtaposition of shops I saw today seemed funny.  I'm not so sure what the pills they are selling in this shop are ...


Saturday, August 17, 2013

Prologue

I’m off on an adventure. I’m packing my bags, my bike and my DHBC jersey and skinsuit and going to Europe.

The first week of September will see me leaving Barcelona on my bike and heading off to Biarritz – over and through the Pyrenees. It’s a 7-day stage cyclo-sportif. Not a race but a “timed event”. We’ll ride 800km and climb 20,000m and it’s called the Haute Route Pyrenees. TdF riders get paid to do this stuff! I, on the other hand, am paying the organisers a handsome amount to take me.

I haven’t been to continental Europe since the mid 1980s. And then I was mostly on a motorbike and a naive young thing. This time, I’m having a bicycle extravaganza. Thought I’d do it before I get too old and while still confident enough to believe I can still do it.

A few days after finishing the Haute Route, I’m off to meet my friends Camilla and Ted in France who will have separately left Barcelona towards Avignon on the Hannibal Tour. Trust them to find a bicycle tour that includes cycling and archaeology and follows the route that Hannibal took! I’ll ride with them for 3 days on that tour before a bit of rest and recreation in Avignon. And we are planning to climb Ventoux ... We’re only a little alarmed about the thought. It looked kind of hard and bleak in the TdF this year.

Then it’s off to Trento in Italy to ride in the UWCT Grand Final.  For some unknown reason I entered the time trial, up a mountain.  TTs are not exactly my forte.  Then, a couple of days later, it's the road race a up a couple of mountains.  Hmm. I’ll either be really good at mountains by then or completely stuffed. There’s about 90 Australians going which is excellent.

I qualified for this final at last year’s Amy’s Gran Fondo in Lorne, Victoria (got a UCI medal – did I ever mention that? ☺ ). That was an awesome ride in lots of ways including that was the first time I rode the Baum.

I’m going to miss the 2013 Amy’s Gran Fondo as it’s while I’m away but I’m delighted there’s a much bigger DHBC contingent this year. It’s a ride well worth doing. But that’s not all in my epic trip.

Seeing as I'm in the neighbourhood, thought I'd pop off to England to stay with my cousin for a few days in East Dulwich. She very conveniently lives just around the corner from Herne Hill Velodrome. And I’ll be meeting up with Dulwich Paragon, a London cycling club and will ride with them and am hoping to race at Herne Hill.