Ed making a break

Stage 1 TT 7.2 KM
The course started with a steep climb for 400m then levelled off for a very fast tail wind next 4.5 km maxing out the junior gearing. The route then took a sharp left onto an 11% climb to the finish. I missed my start time by 8 seconds due to a misunderstanding and ended up riding in the red zone for the whole ride. I was later given a 60 second time penalty. Lawrence Carpenter riding his first TT came 58th in 13:26. Joe Holloway finished 72nd in 13:40. I finished 80th in 13:55 and Martin Dawkins finished 85th in 14:14.

Ed in the pack

Stage 2 72.4km Road Race Average Speed 38kph
The route was mainly flat with one KOM at the halfway point and then a mountain finish at the end. The race started on narrow roads and the pace was pushed up to around 30mph almost causing splits as the peloton was strung out. After bridging across to the head of the peloton I sat in around 10th as we moved onto a dual carriage way and the peloton regrouped. Small group of 6 broke away and I managed to jump across however the break was shut down after 10 minutes. A short while after this I attacked on a sharp turn off a roundabout with Simon Yates (who is riding in the common wealth games) and another rider and we quickly moved away from the peloton however I got hit by a bout of cramp and was forced to pull over I lost the back of the peloton and rode home alone with cramp hitting regularly, the breakaway I was in went on to finish in the top 10. The rest of vc10 stayed with the peloton and finished in the middle of the field moving up the GC.

Ed in the circuit race

Stage 3 Circuit race 1hour+ 3 laps Average Speed 40kph
The circuit is rarely used as no race want to race it due to its 7% climb, 10% technical descent and two sharp narrow corners. The first lap was lead out by the commissar’s car but within 100m I cramped up again. I pulled over and struggled to ride for the next two laps however after stretching it out I recovered and jumped on the second breakaway group. After finding my legs again and I attacked on the climb and rode onto the back of a lone rider and we worked together to the finish. There was light rain and a strong wind during the race making things difficult. During the race Martin Dawkins one of the VC10 team pulled out, not feeling 100%. Joe and Lawrence finished mid bunch showing their strength and consistency in a very strong pack.

Joe Holloway in the circuit race

Stage 4 75.2km Road Race Average Speed 39.9 kph
Stage four was a flat route mainly along dual carriage way with a long steady climb to the finish. I moved up to the top 10 quickly and tried to sit on the attacks at the start as a breakaway tried to form. I found myself sitting on Josh Edmondson’s wheel (4th in the junior world champs). I missed the break that stayed away and with 40km to go again cramped and lost the peloton. I quickly found myself riding with the broom wagon with an Isle of Man rider however on the last climb found my legs again and caught up with another rider. We worked together but to no avail and were disqualified because we missed the time cut. Joe finished in the top end of the peloton using his climbing ability and Lawrence finished just behind him again showing their strengths on the climbs.

Lawrence on one of the major climbs

Stage 5 94.5 km Road Race Average Speed 37.9kph
Stage five was a hilly route starting on main roads and moving onto smaller roads it started with long climbs and descents. It then moved onto a long, hard and exposed climb and then nearly 30miles of gradual decent before Tumble Mountain, 4miles long maxing out at 15% and an average of 8%. Joe and Lawrence finished mid pack again keeping their placing in GC.

Joe finished well up the GC

Overall Joe finished 69th and Lawrence finished 59th. The overall winner was Dan McLay the British national champion. There was only one kamikaze sheep that attacked a breakaway and took three riders down on stage five. The whole race was an awesome experience and VC10 looked the business despite the team car that thankfully didn’t need to service VC10, however was good to know we had a support car waiting.

Ed at full throttle

The British Summer finally went back to its traditional roots over the last couple of weeks, putting many off, soaking everyone, washing spiky bits onto the potholed roads and giving many at least a chill.

On the plus side, VC10 are getting out racing at weekends and during the week, and training at weekends and on Thursday, too! Watch the website and forum for some very exciting participation offers coming soon – track, cyclo-cross and triathlon and duathlon training.

Bicester Millennium 4-up Team Time trial

What a gas!!! The whole of Southern Britain was bathed in warm summer sunshine, except for a line of thunderstorms marching like a slit throat across North Bucks and Oxon. Weston on the Green airfield was not spared.  VC10 are immensely proud to have fielded SIX teams in this event. This is twice as many as any other club. Though we were all beaten by Team MK, we’ve got good excuses. VC10 – 1 had Dave Johnson, who couldn’t keep up. All the others had problems keeping together as the rain and spray made it terribly difficult to stay on wheels. All competitors should be very satisfied with finishing!!

Final Results

Western Time Trials Association 100 mile TT
Dave Johnson and Chris Grieg harnessed the best support man in the business, Richie Davies, to provide the nutrition and care required to perform well in a time trial of this distance. Rich helped Dave get up at 0330, drove him to the Cotswold Water Park, South of Cirencester (“The Centre of the Cotswolds” – which should tell you something – refer to later…..) and collected together drinks, spare wheels and so on to do the hand ups as the riders passed him 7 times on the main drag and spur road circuit, covered 4 times.

Dave Johnson grinds out a sub 4 hour 100TT

Mostly dual carriageway, the course blasts up and down the A419, with the “up and down” concept rather too literal for the tastes of Big Dave, and Even Bigger Chris. (See “Cotswolds” reference earlier). The climb at the top end of the course, lack of sleep and especially the rising wind put paid to any hope the riders had, with most of the riders in the race packing before the finish. Tall Chris, on his way back after some difficult times, wasn’t able to finish, but impressed with the 75 miles of solid training he got in. Johnson suffered, especially on the uphill sections into the wind, where speeds were down to as low as 16 mph, but, with a big effort over the last lap, and with the help of Energy/protein/ caffeine gels handed up alongside bottles by Richie, just managed to squeak under 4 hours, taking 4th place in 3.59.14.
Job done – just!!!

Whitewebbs CC Evening 10

For the last time this season, members trooped to Hoddesden to attempt fats rides on the F20/10. A slight wind made it tricky, as fast courses are always the most susceptible to meteorological variations, but times were still hot.

Nick Calkin, with time-trialling taking a back seat this season, still managed 22.18. The club’s most consistent, and fastest short-distance rider this year, Pete Lawrence, has improved so much this year that he was actually disappointed to do 20.43.

 Mark Wakley achieved his season’s dream of a 22 minute ride, scoring 22.52. Rich King also pb’d, this with an improvement of THREE MINUTES, passing the timekeeper in 26.26. Will Dixon, although he knows the course, surprised himself by sailing straight past the turn roundabout! 27.50 for over 12 miles is pretty good! Dave Johnson, finding late-season form, posted his 5^th fastest ever 10 at the age of 52, in 20.27. Tall Chris’ 22.56 also signalled a return to form. Joe Holloway, celebrating his 18^th birthday in quite soon, was another personal-best, with a superb 22.20. Greg Lewis, after a mid-season dip in form, impressed with 22.13 and Richie Davies was pleased with 22.24. Damien Cahill was another delighted scorer of a pb, with 26.34, and Cliff grant’s personal best ever 10, at over 60 years of age, made his 22.12 the ride of the night.

Oxonian 50

Only Richie Davies arrived to display club colours West of Oxford during a brief respite in the rain. His report follows:

“Conditions looked good this morning but actually felt like treacle. Wind in your face on the way out, but not that helpful on the way back. Doing intervals to near-maximum conspired with the conditions. I posted 2.8. 07. Off on holiday for a recuperation before next Saturday’s race”

MTB

Rick Featherstone proved too strong for the other riders in the Wycombe Summit race series at Lotts Wood. Rick needed a podium finish in the last of the Vets Races to clinch first place in the series.

Rick had a ding dong battle with his other championship contenders. Rick using all his power and bike handling skills to grab second place in the last race with a few hundred metres to go to wrap up the title.

Torq 12/12

Rick tucking into some hard earned carbo

Not content with this win. Rick and Iwona entered the Torq 12 hour relay race on August Bank holiday weekend.

The event starts at 12 noon and finishes at midnight. Tactics and pace judgement are key part of this race. Iwona and Rick timed their race perfectly by finishing a fanastic second 47 seconds ahead of third place. 47 seconds ahead after 12 hours. Close racing.

Iwona making a rare appearance in a TT

Next Report

Sub 21 riders go Welsh

Will Dixon pb’s despite a 30mph gale

DJ’s season just gets better

VC10′s flying in formation in the WLC

Some impressive performances again this week as VC10 riders travel the length of the country to enjoy their summer racing

High Wycombe evening league 11 mile Time Trial

Road works on the railway bridge between Thame and Princes Risborough have forced the last evening 10 mile TT’s of the season to be moved onto the 11 mile circuit. Tuesday night’s event saw a personal best for the course for Rich King, preparing for the Dunsfold Duathlon on the Top Gear Race Track. His time of 30.24 just beat Richard Wise’s post French- Mountains epic of 31.13. Allan Simmonds continued to impress with 25.49, and Cliff Grant won the vets standard time race ( where actual time is reduced by a constant based on age) with an actual of 27.05, adjusted to 20.37. Unbeatable!

Hertfordshire Wheelers Evening 10

On the same evening, team members tripped to the super-fast F20/10 course at Hoddesden. A bit of a wind slowed times, but they were still impressive:  Pete Lawrence is getting used to blasting out sub-21 minute rides, and tonight he turned in a blistering 20.52 – too hot for Dave Johnson, 20.58. Rich Davies hit the tape at 22.16, then Greg Lewis followed with 23.04, Mark Wakely 23.24 and 15 year old Will Dixon did another personal best with 24.02

Hemel Hempstead CC 10 mile Time Trial

Pete Lawrence

Saturday afternoon started badly, with a very heavy downpour threatening the safety of the race. However, half an hour before first man off, the weather cleared and a wind began to rise from the South East. This made the race great to the turn, but less so on the return to the timekeeper, albeit this is a shorter leg. High hopes for the team prize were dashed when first Chris Grieg did not start; then second, star in our firmament, Pete Lawrence, missed his start time. Traffic had prevented him getting back from his warm up in time. Though only 10 seconds late, it was not made clear to him that only these 10 seconds would be added to his time, and so the timekeeper thought he’d wait for an empty slot, while Pete thought time was ticking away as he waited. Eventually Pete rode away. Later on, Dave Johnson punched him on the nose, but that’s a different story…….

In the end, Rob Fletcher hoofed home in a fine 6^th place, in 21.40 and Dave Johnson’s 21.33 gave him 4^th, and a prize for fastest of the “young” veterans.

Finsbury Park 25 mile Time Trial

An unpleasant Northerly still blew the next morning, where, this time, Dave Johnson let everyone down on the team prize front. A fast start and finish were more than made up for by the headwind in the middle on the sometimes exposed A1 near Bedford.

Pete Lawrence lived up to his “nearly-man” reputation, taking 7^th, nearly in the prizes, in a personal best time of 53.57, and Rob Fletcher backed him up well with 55.19. Johnson, going quite well, used his fabled eyesight to fail to see a huge bug which entered his mouth, buried itself in the back of his throat, climbed up inside towards his nose, and died. The bodily-function-fest that ensued is not suitable to be described here, but it suffices to say that he had to stop, that every sphincter known to medical science failed, and failed catastrophically, and that Dave had a headache, earache and strained stomach muscles. Thus, the last 4 miles were done at a heaving 20 mph instead of a wind-assisted 30mph. In what was probably his best ride of the year in the circumstances, he still managed 55.13. Team prize, needless to say, went to another, less soiled, team.

Winchester Trail Quest

Rick Fetherston tore up the trails in this Mountain bike orienteering event, clearing all the checkpoints with 34 minutes to spare to take an excellent win. Iwona Szmyd almost took all checks to be well clear in the ladies event. Ralph Dadswell picked a similar course to that of Iwona, but missed the location of a couple of checkpoints. He was, unfortunately, five minutes outside the time limit, as he felt he couldn’t use roads not on the map. He could, but hey………

Stop Press – Ossie Assem

Ossie road racing

Ossie has just been in contact to report that he crashed in a road race this last weekend – rider in front lost control with 4km to go. Ossie was thrown from his machine and landed heavily, breaking his shoulder blade. He is understandably upset as this means he has had to postpone his Lands End to John O’Groats ride, a tribute to his Dad. We wish him comfort, a rapid recovery and a strong, brave heart.

And there was me talking about luck………

Round 10

As Helen counted down 5,4,3,2,1 for the last rider last night I suddenly thought is this really the end of the VC10 2010 Club TT Championship? Have we really run 10 rounds?

The evening started with Nicola and Ralph D rolling out on the tandem trike. Time keepers will tell you that to keep the time passing whilst waiting for the first rider back. They start to work out who is going to finish and in what order.

Well Nicola and Ralph surprised the pundits by holding off an inform Richie Davies by 10 seconds. So managing to be the first to start and finish. Apparently they are tv personalities you know.

Ralph and Nicola managed to pb with a 25.07. There was one other pb on the night. Joe Holloway who improved his best ever time by over 30 seconds with a 23.32. Joe is looking good for the Junior Tour of Wales.

Other battles were being fought last night. Could 15 year old Will Dixon overhaul Mark Wakely in the club championship? Mark like 2010 Club TT Champion Pete Lawrence has improved vastly this year.  Will who only joined VC10 half way through the summer was counting on discards to lift him up the field.

Amazingly after the ten rounds had been calculated and two discards applied Mark and Will finished on equal points. Both riders having competed in six rounds. Will just pips Mark on the tie break  by the virtue of having the higher individual round score.  This puts Will on the podium in third place in the championship and Mark in fourth. An incredible achievement when you think both Will and Mark having only three years cycling experience between them.

However, congratulations go to Pete Lawrence who is the worthy winner of this years championship. Pete can look forward to receiving his award after hours of speeches and other prizes been given out at the Christmas Party.

Well done Pete.

Not to be forgotten Will is Junior Champion and Iwona is Ladies Champion. In the Vets Championship Nick Calkin just pips Dave Johnson.

Many years ago, in the 90s, I undertook a cycling camping trip across the Pyrenees from Bordeaux to Barcelona with my friend Ken Powell – it was so much fun over the big mountains that I did the same route a couple of years later.

 Fourteen years later and quite a few pounds heavier, we thought it would be good to have another bash at the big hills and what better time to do it than during the Tour de France, particularly in a year marking the Centenary of the first Pyrenees crossing by the race?

 So along with Steve (westbound) Badger driving the ‘support car’, the rather unlikely looking lardy mountain climbers set off for the first day cycling on stage 13 of the Tour.

This first day was a very gentle affair with a leisurely breakfast in a hotel in a medieval French village, before heading off for two Cat 4 climbs (Cote de Mergais and Cote de Begon). After these we settled down for our first view of the publicity caravanne and the race itself before dashing off immediately after to the Cat 3 Cote de Saint-Ferreol just before the finish.

 At the hotel that night we studied the weather forecast for our first big day, and as this suggested we would have high temperatures the following day we took on a reasonable amount of liquid carbs in fairly large glasses!

The Sunday ride turned out to be hot and sunny with the first climb of the day being the Portet d’Aspet. I was surprised that this wasn’t classed as a Cat 1 and the following climb (the Col des Ares) as a 3. However the ASO had decreed these would both be Cat 2 for this year and we had no real problems on either. On the roadside we came across the memorial to Fabio Casartelli who lost his life descending the Aspet in 1995 – 15 years ago almost to the minute that we paid our respects.The descent of the Ares led to a windy valley section before starting the HC climb of the Port de Bales.  I had done this climb twice before but never in these temperatures and the heat coupled with having two climbs already in our legs, made this the hardest climb of the trip.

Monday the 19 and it is exactly 100 years to the day since Octave Lapize first crossed the Pyrenees in the Tour. We returned to the Port de Bales before 5am to get a good viewing spot and as soon as it was light and warm enough, I got the bike off the car and descended for another climb up the mountain. After yesterday’s long hot slog, this was a much more pleasurable climb and the encouragement from the thousands of spectators was great.

After brunch cooked on the camping stove, chalking the road with the mandatory yellow VC10 scribble, we waited for the race. The location was perfect as it was just where Andy Schleck decided to lose his chain, panic, then race off after Contador.

With the race gone we headed down off the mountain and up the Peyresourde as soon as we could before the thousands of camper vans had time to follow.

 On Tuesday we were unsure whether to ride up the Aspin and watch there but decided due to history we had to make the effort to get not just us on bikes but Steve in the car up the Tourmalet. Steve got a space just before the road blockage at La Mongie but Ken and I rode up through the town and out into the wilderness of the eastern side of the mountain.

This was strange as the police must have closed the road some time ago, because there were very few vehicles on the mountain. Normally this would be rammed with cars and motorhomes by this time.

The climb was fine and once above the steeper sections leading to La Mongie the climb was steady.

One thing I do find strange is that over there, if the Garmin signals a 6% climb it is a relief and you can have a rest – in the UK if I see 6%, I think this is horrible! Not that there was much as this grade on the Tourmalet.

Anyway, back at the car we witnessed Lance in the break and then got ready to leave as soon as possible after Cav had gone through at the back, to make it to the unclassified climb at Sevignacq-Meyracq in time.

Wednesday was to be a rest day for the proper riders and an ideal time for us to have a bash at the whole of the Tourmalet from the more difficult western side. As with any long climb and unlike on the flat, once you get into a good rhythm, it’s very difficult to ride at someone else’s pace, so I soon left Ken and was in my own little world all the way up.

The section up through Bareges is quite steep, as is the pitch after the last hairpin but much of the rest is a fairly constant 9 – 11%. In fact the biggest problem wasn’t the climbing, not even the brainless people on mountain bikes who seem to have no regard for anyone else but simply the amount you sweat and subsequent steaming up of glasses.

The last 2km went very quickly and I even had enough strength to get out of the saddle for the last part – something anyone who has ever seem me struggling up Whiteleaf would find hard to believe. At the top I put on my warm gear and waited for Kenny, who duly arrived about 27 minutes later. It was then time for the mandatory photos (two in two days from different directions) before the descent back to the car.

 The Tourmalet is a long, hard climb with plenty of Tour history but in my opinion the Port de Bales is a steeper and much harder climb from the north.

Soulor day was a complete wash out with rivers running down the road, reminding me of the last time I climbed it many years ago. The long gentle climb from Asson where the climb officially starts is all very easy and pleasant with no major increase in difficulty until Ferriers.  There it ramps up but does stay fairly constant until the top where the Aubisque road joins. Strangely as the race came though the roads dried up – perfect timing.

With the cols out of the way we headed for Bordeaux on Friday, which took us through the long, flat and very windy roads of the Landes. Despite not being able to get the American or Dutch riders very interested in a chain gang, we set a very good pace until I punctured. As I changed the tube, I noticed we were stopped opposite a British couple in their camper van – nothing unusual until we saw they were dressed in full Storm Trooper outfits and were waving Union Jacks to attract more attention from the publicity caravan. After changing the puncture we continued up to the sprint in Hostens before returning to the Storm Troopers location to watch the race.

The final day was a blast up through the final TT course in Bordeaux, lined throughout by miles of vines and thousands of cheering spectators. Unlike 15 years ago when Ken led me up every mountain, this year had been the opposite with me giving him a tow up the hills. Once we got on the flat however it all changed and his power was much more useable and I was quite grateful to sit in at the pace he was going. We returned to the car in time for breakfast before settling down to watch the 170 remaining riders come past individually – fantastic.

With the centenary of the Alps in next year’s Tour it would be great to have another adventure but in my opinion they don’t come anywhere near the Pyrenees in terms of cycling, scenery or history – but we’ll see……..

Thanks to everyone who sponsored me to raise money for WheelPower but if anyone would

still like to help future disabled athletes, the site is still open:
http://www.justgiving.com/TourDeFrance2010

Wizzer.