Wednesday, 06 August 2008

More stories....

So, right now I’m at Frankfurt airport, half way to my final destination Croatia. (Could I just say that for such a massive airport there is bugger all places to sit, so I’ve claimed my bit of floor space right by the gate….useless bit of info I know..) Anyway, I’m so excited about seeing my family again. Its only been mid April since I last saw my little sisters, but when they’re only 3.5 and 5 years they change/grow up so quick!!(Dad and his family have come over to visit from NZ at the same time) Oh I cant wait. I was born in Croatia, so my mom, dad and my brother at the only immediate family I have in NZ and all the rest are here, so while Im in Europe I try to see them!!
Righto so by the time I’ve finished this post I’ve already arrived here at my grandparents house… yay! So as I was saying I was born in a little town called Ivanig-Grad, and just a little fact about this town, there are about 60 pubs and around 9,000 or so residents …… I don’t even quite know what to say about that…. Wow…I’m kinda glad we moved outta here…. The other thing that I am amazed about it the fact I can get free wireless! Most of the town can pick it up! Random huh!!  Oh and the BEST ice cream EVER!! Apparently there's a good wee cycling club here, I'm gonna look up a number try hook up with them for a ride!! see how its done here!! ha...maybe a bunch ride???
Anyhow, I was in Germany over the weekend racing in a 45km crit on the Saturday and the Sparkessen Giro On the Sunday which is a UCI race. Where the pro men race after us so there is shit load of people that get right into it..

Saturday was pretty fast it was more of a circuit race as 1 lap was 3 km, and pretty wide roads. Not much to tell really our team was pretty aggressive, but nothing that really stuck, the Ozzies seemed to control the bunch pretty well and they ended up with the win… bunch finish for me.

Sunday was pretty good, think I’m starting to feel better in the races, our team got a wicked start right from the gun, and again we were aggressive. 3 climbs per lap (6 laps) started to take its toll. So the race was a massive range for me today, from good/bad/bad/good… then I saw the front again about 2.5 laps to go and went with an attack and the biggest break of the day formed, and I was in it for once! That finished me off, once we got caught at the bottom of the second hill I was gone.. Boof lights out..

So then I’m riding on my own 1 lap to go, and as I mentioned it was the mens race after ours and as they always seem to have the caravans throwing out all these goodies to the crowd, I managed to somehow still be in the race but stuck behind this “caravan” throwing stuff out at the crowds, then flags with sticks started to hit me and bags and blow up sticks …. So I figured no one really cared about me, waaaaaaahh L and it was time to pull the pin and take the short cut back to the finish… and no I didn’t cross the line to get a finishing time, that’s cheating….. And they had the timing chips on anyway L


To be honest I havent had the most exciting year of racing so far, things haven't quite gone my way, and there really isnt much to say about it so hope you guys dont mind random stuff... :)

Ok that’s all, I'm tired

Bye for now.    Laku noc  (good night)

Marina

 

 

 

Posted by Duv Duv at 08:48:37 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

Thursday, 31 July 2008

Whinge & Race!!!


This was written in 2 parts...

Monday 28th July...
Man last night was a pretty amazing thunderstorm!! Someone did say once you cross the border into Belgium there is like a big black cloud, and it didn’t disappoint last night that’s for sure, I got bugger all sleep kept waking up and not knowing where I was.. Random..

Anyway, its Monday, and we all know what that is in the Tielt household, cleaning and supermarket day!! Weeehoo!!

Far out I recon food in France is sooo much cheaper, I could easily live on $40 a week there where as today I spent $50 Euro on some basic supplies for the week!! But I must admit we went to some dodgy supermarket here where there are 3 different prices. 1 normal price per 100g or whatever, 2nd price for special, and 3rd what savings you make if u buy bulk or some shit, so basically if you buying a block of cheese there is a price like $2.50 but because the block its 176g or whatever it adds up to be almost double the price……. Follow? Nah me neither L ?? But its not actually written anywhere… Well It turned out my addiction to smoked salmon cost me $11.56 Euro for 350g where as I thought it was like 4 Euro something……….. Oh,……. Gutted……. And a box of bran flakes that was packaged to another box, from what I could gather was 2for price of 1, but NOOO, it was just 2 boxes stuck together…. $3.85eack…. Ouch..

Anyway, feel better now that’s off my chest and you know how it hurt me!! Hehehe…I have time to kill so why not tell you random stories!! Ha

 


So today is Wednesday 30th July,  and we went to Holland to race in a crit,, its one of those “post tour crits” where Tour de France riders come out and put on a show, its all fixed but the crowds love it, anyway the most important race was ours of course. So I was pretty excited a bit of speed work and no hills…. And lots of drunk people.. Anyway it turned out to be more of a Dutch kermese, with eh circuit being 4 km long, anyway I got the prime position of dead last on the start line once again, but this time once the race started I moved my way up the front with no panic and I felt pretty good, I was setting myself up for an attack and what do ya know I had a flattie…. Ohhhhhh gutted!! So that was my race over by the time I got a spare, and you weren’t allowed a lap out…. And cause it’s a bit of a spectacle for the crowds once the bunch had gone buy they would all just walk on the road and in your way so it was race over……. The good thing was I actually felt good and thought I could have a wicked blow out before this weekend… another crit and a road race on the Sunday…

 

Righto, off to bed…. Have fun

Over

 

Posted by Duv Duv at 08:53:15 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Monday, 28 July 2008

Limoux & Limouges...

Hey, this is a loooong one!!!

Man I dont know why it cuts off my letters on the right! Sorry trying to figure it out

Right, so I have discovered I really like smoked salmon!! I think I have possibly become slightly addicted to it actually!! Pretty much after every ride I have a moment to myself and make some rice crackers with little bit of pesto and some smoke salmon!! Yummm….

Anyway It all pretty much started with Kaytee and I going for a 4.5 hr ride a few weeks back , I was feeling like shit right from the start but was determined to finish the ride. A massive loop that I have done once before, but not the way she took me!! She was like right, left, straight, right, oh oops left ….. “oh I’m sure it was this way”…. straight, left….etc. eventually we did the “spiritual ride” but backwards, not sure how but we managed to find the main road about 4 hrs into the ride and decided the best idea was to head home… 5 hrs later we were still 14km from home completely blown and out of water in what ended up being the hottest day in that region so far this year… anyway so since pretty much everything shuts down between 12-3pm we were stoked to find a supermarket open. So Kaytee shoots in to grab something to get us home, and what most normal people would have done is grabbed a coke, powerade, moro bar lollies or anything that would get you home asap… but NO, little miss nutritionist needed “proootein”!!! hahahah… she walks out with a meter long bagette “French bread stick” , a packet of smoked salmon and possibly something else but I missed that bit as I was cracking up laughing and couldn’t see much through the tears at that point!! Man I thought it was so funny… like 39 degree heat and your training partner comes out with massive bread stick….

Anyhow, we managed to get home, and did something like 5.5hrs… a bit of an achievement!!

Right, so the rest of the time in Limoux was pretty darn cool!! Getting to know the kiwi girls a little better, and venturing out to the swimming hole a couple of times. My training had been going good, and I was actually looking forward to my first race in 4 weeks!! Tour of Limousan, here in France.. I’ve been doing some pretty hard training and 3 weeks were really good, but last week I was feeling a little flat so I’m thinking this will be one of those tour where you ride yourself into it!!

Racing in these tours can be pretty interesting, right now we are staying at a boarding school, somewhere in Limouges. We have 2-3 riders per room, This year Tones and I are joining the Japanese team as the original team we were to ride for had some bad luck and could not make it. The rooming situation on the first night was a mare, long story short 11pm we had to change rooms, and to make it even more fun, had to go up another flight of stairs so now we have 81steps to climb at least 4 times per day….eeeekkk .. The rooms are pretty nice actually, there is no TV, or a phone near by and lets not mention no internet, (an essential part of a bike riders survival)…. The meals are provided by the race organisation, so brekkie, pre race meals and dinner, you just get a meal ticket and line up in the dining area…

So anyway when we met the Japanese team director to introduce ourselves and get the jerseys we were racing in, he looked a little worried and the first thing he said was like “uhhh…. da jerseys… its …aaaaa… shmall…. “ and off he went and got one for each of us, so we tried them on and no problemo they fitted fine thank you very much, just a little tight around the guns… but that’s all good… Later on that night we rode up and met the rest of the team they all had massive grins on their face and were about 3foot shorter then us, and were kinda pointing and saying something in Japanese…. So we were like, hey what’s happening… what you saying.. And they were like “ohhhh …. you sho shtrooong “ still pointing… at us, basically saying we were rather big built!! Hmmmm… cheers mate!! Hehehe Anyway they turned out to be really nice, their English is waaay better then my Japanese so its better then nothing!!

So here we are….Last night was the prologue 5 km , we kinda got there a little late, I pretty much did 2 laps warm up and away we go!! So nothing to brag about here, I felt like I was towing a fridge actually, a little bogged down you could say…. But a couple seconds here and there wont make a difference right now.

Day 2 = 121km pretty undulating the whole way really, nothing mayor happened til about 27 km from the finish we turned a sharp left, right then left and straight up!! wasn’t quite ready for that one, about mid field, one girl had a mechanical which cause a chain reaction through the bunch.. By the top we were about 150 m off the main group and just couldn’t shut it down… so a small group formed and we rode in to finish… I felt slightly better although the pace was pretty cruisy most of the way I was happier with my riding…. Legs still feel like they’ll cramp any minute tho L looking forward to my massage….

Couple of the kiwi girls had some bad luck! It started raining in the last 20km or so, there was a bit of nasty descend, Laura crashed out, but no mayor damage, Yvette on the other hand trying to avoid Laure apparently had a nasty fall, she had a soft-ish landing into a ditch but must have hit it pretty hard as they thought to start with a broken ankle, but apparently no mayor damage, she was kept overnight though so we’ll see her later on tonight…

Day 3 = 123km stage, rolling as, literally no flats …. My favourite.. NOT. So away we went 3 loops.. Loop one went pretty well about 25km long, I think I got a little too excited having no clue that the rest of the course was gonna almost kill me!! So to stir thing sup I had a few go’s but they weren’t letting anything go, then we hit a slightly bigger climb and that was me. The second loop was a blur and the third, well……….. I didn’t quite get that far it was lights our for me!! Boof gone… the end.

Maybe I wasn’t quite riding myself into this tour after all, a bit too much climbing for my liking L

Laura had another go at perfecting her crashing/acrobatic skills, but this time did a bit of damage to her hip so it sucks will have to wait and see what happens there… and Yvette’s out of hospital with a badly sprained ankle, so will have to have at least 3 weeks off… poor thing. There were actually quite a few bad crashes this tour, I know of a broken hip, ripped shoulder, Yvette’s ankle, Laura’s hip!! And a fair few bandages round the dining hall!!

Righto, Tones and I made our way back to our base in Belgium today, 210 euro’s later.. Far out that’s insane, grrrrr… anyway I shall keep you posted on how things go…

Have fun!!

Marina

Posted by Duv Duv at 05:12:50 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Thursday, 17 July 2008

Random

Hey.... So I have 15 min to kill  here's a "weee" random story!!  Its kinda gross...but hey... its life

So Tones and I went to get our blood tests done the other day, she's getting stuff checked out and had to do a urine test, and I was getting my usual check ups!!

So we line up 7.30am at the local lab here in Limoux, waiting in line while all these old people seem to push thier way in, playing dumb.... anyway so the elbows were out and we finally got our turn! Luckily Bike NZ had set up a wee thing with the lab so we didnt have to give too much detail, 3 min later Tones had done all the paperwork and thengot handed a 2l container..... and apparently had to collect her pee for 24hrs, and .... well just keep it there and hand it back, Im standing there giving her shit, and giggling how massive this thing is, and saying dont worry mate I'll help ya fill it up!! bahahahah.....

So she's off and get bloods done Im standing there giving a few details then the lady goes off and gets another container, and hands it to ME~~~!!!!  I'm like Oh my god!! So I take a seat and wait , as Tones comes out she sits down and its dead quiet with about 15 people standing in line... she looks at me and I got this dumbass face on, and pull out the bottle.... she just BUUURST out laughing and like it echoes through this room.... oh anyway had a wee giggle to ourselves then luckily she had a biggish bag to fit both containers in so we would have to do the walk through the square with them!!

I must say wasnt acaully that hard to fill the container up, so anyway taking it back to them in the morning!! See what comes out from all that!!

Anyhow.... besides that things have been ok, today is not the best day for me, I was pretty tired and have spent most of the day in bed.... you know things might not be so good when you wake up stuffed from sleeping!! hmmmm..... so fingers crossed tomorrow I just out of bed ready to rock 'n roll!! 

A few of us are going to ride  to one of the hills not far away and watch the tour go by tomorrow!!! Will be fun for the whole 20seconds as they fly by!! Never actually seen the tour live ... will tell you all about it!!
Ok thats all from me! Hope you enjoed my story... not my best work but I'm getting better..

Over
Marina  :)
Posted by Duv Duv at 03:04:25 | Permanent Link | Comments (1) |

Monday, 14 July 2008

Training hard!!

Hey

So its been 3 weeks now since I arrived in Limoux, and things have been pretty darn good!!  Must be all the sunshine thats doing me a world of good!! I got a mean tan now too!! yeah!!

Since there's been a wee break in the racing with the team I've been here training my butt off!!  I started off huffing and puffin for like 10 days straight bitching and moaning to poor Kaytee, but I'm thinking things are starting to fall into place and I'm feeling heaps better on the bike!!

Most of the past two weeks I have either spent riding my bike or in bed, I'll ride in the morning, then rest for about 3 hrs with a nanna nap then head back out in the evenings, last week I did like 10 training sessions....  about 23hrs all up... my next tour starts in 10 days so fingers crossed I got something special to produce, better late then never huh!! hehehe

The kiwi girls have finally arrived here! Its been pretty interesting watching them settle in, its only been like a week since they arrived and they leave tomorrow for a tour!! They're all either excited or... how shall I say this politely... crapping themselves!! hehehe.. Welcome to europe ladies!! None have raced in europe before so it will be good fun!!  Tones and I have given them a heads up about the state of the French toilets they will encounter on the way and the communal showers!!  Yeah!!!  Oh, im so jealous they all got the new NZ kit not, the black and white, and new helmets!! Look so clean!! :)  I'm sooo gonna make the worlds so I can wear the kit!!!

Last week 4 of us rode to the beach, 4.15hrs freaking hot day, but man it was worth it, once we got to the beach, water was amazing!!  Ok you might wanna skip this if youre not into too much detail about topless women...........I still find it slightly odd and a little disturbing, topless women....... any age in public... like there were 2 55+ ladies hanging out, no pun intended, having a chat just lying there... then a few middle aged ladies with jugs hanging out but only to mid torso not qutie like the first 2 down to the bellybutton!! Anyhow and then you get possibly the most disturbing, a mom topless playing with her like 10year old sun in the water!! What the!!?? or a father hanging out with his daugheter about 14 or so with just bottoms on!!! Man is it just me or does anyone else find that a little odd!! eeeww.. sorry possibly a tad too much info... but hey...

Hey, random I know but its worth a try, I got a car for sale a Mitsubishi RVR 4x4, sportsgear also known as the "rollerskate"!!  2 l turbo, manual....  1996.   Anyone out there interested?? email me!! pleeeeeeeaaase!! :) kinda need to get rid of it get some muuuullllaaa!!!

Anyhow, off to ride my bicycle!! hope everyone's good!!

Have fun
Marina :)



Posted by Duv Duv at 19:53:28 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Sunday, 06 July 2008

Limoux

Hi!!

Ok, so whree have I wanished for the past 2 weeks!! Well to sunny Limoux, where else!!

After 2 months of just full on racing most weeks, I thought it was time to change the scenery and maybe get some wicked training in.  My next tour is end of July starting on the 24th to be exact so there is plenty of time do sort myself out and get some good results!!

This time last year I was loving life, I had just come off a break and was preparing for tour of Bretagne where I had my first pro race stage win and had a top 5 overall finish!!  So fingers crossed I can produce something like that again this year in Limousine!!

Anyhow!! The last race we did was in our home town of Tielt, in Belgium. (3 weeks ago)  The girls were slightly wacked from the 3 days of racing in Holland before that, we only had 4 team-mates today as there was another tour on at the same time and half the team was still there.  So the plan was to work for our local Belgie, Lien. If we could get her a win she'd take over the national cup series. Basically it was a 14 lap race, and on lap 3, 2 girls got away and managed to stay away, I had a go at trying to get accross solo for 4 laps and managed to close the gap to 30 sec but then just run out of gas!! So basically ended up we were sprinting for 3rd place.  The leadout for Lien didnt quite go as planned, and so I ended up taking 15th spot...........would have been like 6th if the line was 20m before hehehehe I was sooooo blown from the race I could hardly pedal..... anyway... next year we will have the full team there and make sure that the free beers offered from the local pub if we wim are ours!!

Anyway, back to Limoux! I have been here since the 24th june and LOVING it!! Since I arrived I have been on a mission to do as many miles as possible and so far have done pretty good!! most of the days where between 3-5 hours..... woohoooo!!

Beautiufl weather, freaking awesome training grounds and wicked people to surround yourself with!! What else could you ask for!!  The Kiwis have started arriving here to the Bike NZ base which is quite exciting!! For the women, basically none of  them have been here before, nor raced in Europe, so its pretty wicked, fresh faces and amping to get racing!! 

Right now Kaytee Boyd is here. Ali Shanks has arrived to spend 10 days here in her prep for Beijing,  my team-mate Toni Bradshaw arrives today for 3 weeks too and a couple of the U23 guys have arrived too..... so its gonna be all on!!

The Tour de France has started today so even though we dont get the english commentry on tv at least I can see the pictures and figure our whats happening.....

Hope everyone's having fun and will write soon!! Promise!!
Marina :)
 



Posted by Duv Duv at 02:06:30 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Tuesday, 24 June 2008

Last 10days

Hey

Well last time I wrote I think I was off to another race!! That was a Kermese race about 45min from here!!..

Well, what can I say, today I felt slightly better, even the thunderstorms and lightning before the strart couldnt put me off! I was determined to give it a good crack and see what happens.....  The course must have been designed by randoms pulling pieces of paper out of a hat ....  left, right, cobbles...left, left right cobbles.. etc... It was through one of the main cities Anthwerp... pretty insane really a 6.5km course with at least 15 corners and 2 sections of cobbles... about 1km per lap and we had 13 laps to do!! 

Anyway I would love to say I had a solo breakaway for 12 laps and won, but the truth is I punctured on lap 3 and that was it!!  In these kermise races if you have a mechanical like that, its game over!!  So I was stuck on the other side of the course with no one to give me a lift back so made my way back on the rim... slightly lost from all the random roads, this old dude about 70 stopped and asked if I needed help to the finish and I was like yeah sure mate! So he's like follow me, and off he goes on his bike, I was like sweet, then I got a little nervous we went through this park, and it was like gravel, covered with trees and bush, and I was like.... ummmmm no worries if he turned out to be some dodgy guy I could take him on!!!  Yeah!! bring it on old man..... anyway couple minutes later and we were nearing the light and the busy streets so it was all good!!  In fact we turned out right where the drunks from the local pub were standing cheering everyone on middle of a Sunday afternoon!!  NICE

Anyhow, the week was spent hanging out in Tielt!! resting up and a few trips to the supermarket always brightens up the day!!

Thursday we were off to Holland for a 3 day tour!! Now, Dutch racing aint exactly my specialty yet, but it is something I'd like to get get much better at. So I was determined to give it shit and take 1 day at a time!!

Day 1 = 7.9km TT.  what can you say, go hard, and dont think about the pain!!  We werent on any special TT bikes or anything, so times were pretty average compared to the locals...

Day 2 =  109km Road stage!!  Flat, hard, fast, windy!! what can you add to that, oh yeah 150 girls... narrow roads... think we averaged just under 41km/hr... well they did, to be honest I was pretty much just stoked to actually feel my legs today and feel good on the bike!! for the first time in 4 weeks!! yay!! So I finished, my first Dutch road race!!

Day 3 =  111km Road stage..... Flat, hard, fast, windy!! Excepet today I was caught behind a pretty big pile up where my team mate was pretty hurt...  took a while to get through the riders and bikes everywhere, and ended up chasing for a wee while... needless to say I was pretty stuffed once I got back to the bunch, and managed to hang on then another incident with riders that caused gaps in the field, and then that was it, lights out for me!! A group of us got pulled out on the finishing circuits... stink one!!

So although I didnt quite finish the tour, it was a good  blow out and wicked experience and I finally started to feel a bit better on the bike!!!

So thats it for now, We did race on the Sunday as well, here in the local Tiel-Winge world champs...... but I will write abou that next time as my battery's about to die.........

Have fun !!
Marina :)

Although I didnt finish the tour
Posted by Duv Duv at 19:25:08 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |

Sunday, 15 June 2008

Hey

Hey there!!

Man this is pretty bad huh!! Long time now hear...

Well since the tour, there really hasn't been too much happening to be honest but I'm sure I can spend half hour typing about something.... you guys gotta have something to read and kill time right.... 

So we arrrived back on the Monday (13hrs in the back of the van eeeekkk..)  I had a few days easy/off, the following weekend was spent doing absolutely nothing, there was no racing on, and we were too lazy to even venture out of the house let alone go do something exciting, well actually the 2 trips to the supermarket were pretty darn cool... but it was more of a necessity than a pure fun activity!!  Gotta eat sometime!!

Right, we did 2 races in Holland last weekend, UCI races so I knew they were going to be full on!! First day.. well right now is a blur, and to be honest I really cant rememebr much of it (thats what happens when you dont update sooner).. pretty much the norm though... windy, strung out... gap went and bunch split and about 30 of us got pulled out.......  stink one au!!

Next day... lets see... it is Holland right, some of the most amazingly smooth flat roads you can imagine.. So hey why not find the shittiest, cobbles,pavers and bike paths to have a race on with 170women..... yeah...lets do that!!!! And lets put in little loops that even the organizers have no clue where they actaully lead to!! oh and lets name them A,B,C,D2 and D1, and lets make the riders go from loop A, to B to C then D2 then D1, then B then C then make them do loop D1 without actually going through D2 which is the only road that connects D1and C..... you guys following????? yeah thats exactly what we thought!!!!  Ohhhh the great scars I have after that day!!!!!  Anyway the team had a bit of bad luck today either mechanicals or wrong spot wrong time... and had an early exit... But it was a nice day and we got a lovely tan!! oh and out of 170 or so starters about 50 finishesr with the last 30  over 5 min behind and should have been pulled..... as we did when we were 1 min behind.... grrrrr

Today is Sunday, so this weekend we have  2 more races and this time here in Belgium, uuuuuhh soooo excited I really like these races!! A national cup (yesterday) and a kermise (today).  So yesterday started off good.... in the warm up.... I felt pretty good!! Stared off in the race  (14laps x 6km)  I felt that smashed I wa soooooo close to pulling the pin at like lap 2... I have no idea why I feel so lousy, but I couldnt pedal to save myself!! So frustrating... I feel like Im riding like a complete hubbard to be honest..and i know Im not that shit really, so I hung on for a few more laps to see if things would come right, there were a fair few attacks up the front but nothing that actually stuck so lap 9 ish... I took a massive flyer got a wee gap with 1 other just on the climb, well it didnt stick but I think it did tire out a few riders, so while I went backwards 300000 miles per hour.... my team mate got into the next break that stayed away and she got 3rd!!!  Nice....

Anyway, today is another day and I'm racing at 3pm, so even thought things are not going as good as I'd like them to be... I'm prtty excited and know that things will come right soon!!!!! They better!!

Righto.....I'm off to get ready... thanks for your comments guys its pretty cool!! Always get pretty excited when people write in!!  Cheers

Over....
Marina :)




Posted by Duv Duv at 21:46:03 | Permanent Link | Comments (2) |

Sunday, 25 May 2008

Not quite10

Hey

Well I think the last time I was on this thing we were about to head into the mountains for 2 pretty darn hard stages of the tour, and long story short I survived both days, and actually almost enjoyed the hardest mountain day, the peleton split into two and for most of the was I had a bunch of around 40 riders to ride with!!  One American girl even came prepared with her camera for some happy snaps, we were joking round at the start and I didnt think she was for real, but once we a steady bunch she whips out the camera and starts clicking away, quite funny really....the scenery was pretty amazing with the snow etc.....

The following 2 days were pretty up and down, as in the terrain and what was going through my body and mind !!  Anyway, day 7 rolled round and that was is for me this year, had to make a decision and it was to pull the plug.... a bloody hard decision but I was going nowhere.. pretty stink really knowing I've done this tour twice and finished both times with some good goals achieved....

So today is the last stage for the girls 71km in the local area of Limoux!! So I'll be there cheering them on! Then there is the "dinner" tonight which can be rather amuzing, the entree of fish eggs and some sort of pate thing are always a good snack before the plastic pasta ..... but the cake rocks!!! hehe...

 Anyhow.......We drive home in the morning, 12.5hrs depending on the pee stops, but it will be nice to just relax a day or two then look forward to the next race!!

Righto people hope everyone's good, dont be shy, drop me a line!!!!
Have fun!!
Marina :)
Posted by Duv Duv at 23:56:17 | Permanent Link | Comments (3) |

Monday, 19 May 2008

3 Down = 7 to go!!!

Hey

Well we arrived in Limoux safe and sound!!   Oh it was so cool coming back to the house I spent almost 6 months in last year! Kinda felt like home really. Tones and I were both pretty excited about being back and hanging out at the square, sipping away on our hot chocolates, people watching, did I mention there is like 2 mental institutions in this town........

We are here to race the Tou de l'Aude 10 days..

Anyway, so... Friday evening was the first stage,
The Prologue 3.9km, same course as last year... there really isnt much to say really, you just go hard and see where you get, if you happen to save 3 or 10 seconds today really make no difference. There was a bit of drama on the way to the race though, thank god we were using time trial bikes, as on the way to the start we managed to lose a road bike off the roof racks..... not quite sure how it happened but  basically there we were driving along, and all of a sudden a loud ripping noise and we all looked back to see the pink/white machine doing cartwheels along the motorway. Luckinly the team van wasnt too close behind and miraculously the 4 Truck and trailers managed to miss it, the only thing that was close to running it over was this little white fiat/tiny wee thing that just managed to avoid ramming it, altough I think the car would have been more damaged then the bike....  Anyway we pulled over and the mechanic went sprinting back to get the bike.  Poor bugger was so upset (they take ALOT of pride in their work) think he might have acually shed a tear...  the only thing on the bike that was obviously stuffed was the forks!! Anyhow, luckily we have spare equipment and there was a brand new bike waiting for the rider the next day!! no problemo!!

Saturday: 113km   The first 50km were pretty flat, then it started climbing, oh my god it hurt!! Horse Cat climb (pretty much the hardest category climb) the steep part was only 5km, but the overall climb would have been around 12km ish... Not the best day for the team. Start was awesome Helen got in a break for like 30km, but then the climb started and we didn't quite make the front bunch, so lost a bit of time.. I guess one bad day, will have to put it behind us and re-asses our goals for the race!!

Team Time Trial :27km  (my favourite day of the tour) It was a pretty windy, and mainly cross winds so we went with standard bikes, helmets and wheels..... Basically with the way they do the timing here the most time we could lose is 2min 5 sec, even if we were 6 min behind the fastest time... long story short, we rode pretty well considering everything, and used it as a bit of a recovery day...  We are all in one piece and set for tomorrows stage, which is apparenlty "flat-ish" yeah... believe it when I see it!! hehehe... should be wicked looking forward to it!! Then we drive down to the mountains for the next 2 days....

I wont be taking my computer with me so wil be a coulple of day till you hear from me!! 

Over.....  :)
Posted by Duv Duv at 08:18:18 | Permanent Link | Comments (0) |