evenings

Well folks wanted to let you know what the middle of my evenings look like. Enjoy the footage.

Famous French Cuisine

When you think of french cuisine, what does one think of? A very highly sophisticated palette including but not limited to hearty stews, amazing cheese, even better wine paired with generous portions of tender meat, thick creamy sauces and lots of flavor right? Well yes for the general frenchman or frenchwoman this would be spot on and any time spent here for a non cyclist would be a trip of a lifetime for their tastebuds. Unfortunately I do not fall into the non cyclist mold here and in 56 days of living here, that is 168 meals, I would say that I have eaten pasta for 110 of those, yes pasta is quite popular for breakfast on race days. What I cannot figure out is that I am so close to Italy, land of pasta, yet every time I eat the pasta here it is not individual noodles but it gets cooked into a pasta cube that gets cut up with a knife and fork. I do not get it, after experiencing this food more than a few times I decided I was going to watch the process here for cooking pasta. Using fresh pasta, not the hard stuff in boxes, it clearly says cook for 3 minutes at boiling. However, 3 minutes came and went, 6 minutes came and went and finally at 10 minutes, over 3 times the suggested cooking time did the temperature drop and pasta taken out. When I asked them about why they enjoy it when cooked longer, it was not the flavor is better, it was that is just how it has been done forever. A quote I have heard a lot lately-"It is what all the French racers do. If the pros do it, then it is the right thing to do." Well, needless to say I am not a huge fan of the french pasta cube and I offered to make pasta al dente once for them and well, they did not like it. It was undercooked and had to be chewed they said.

And for the awesome cheese and wine to get to taste, well that is out of the equation for sure. Cheese has fat in it and cannot be eaten and wine will make a cyclist slow, even a glass with dinner so no chance there. What about those awesome sauces, well once again they are said to have fat in them so no go on that front. What does that leave, oh yes, the stew. I do get to enjoy some really good vegetable soup. And lastly, meat, well if I get to eat that hearty meat, often times it will be cold because "its better to eat it that way for you." And the great flavors associated with it, well from what I have experienced, everything just gets dipped into dijon mustard.

So in summary my rules for eating are: No sugar, No fat, pasta for most meals and quite a bit of cold meat dipped in dijon mustard. However, every once in a blue moon instead of my director running me into town to go grocery shopping his girlfriend takes me in and boy oh boy does that make a difference. Some good belgian trappist beer, some honey, and even some milk and cereal. So far this has happened twice now and it was amazing.

second again

Well folks, will make it pretty simple. I finished second today. Yes, that would make 3 second place finishes on the year for me. I am really itching to get that W, but for one thing or another just can't get the right combination to work for me. Today I made the break, spent 100 kilometers off the front and watched as someone attacked from 7 kilometers out. Not thinking that he would be able to make it, I mean come on, I have 6 other guys with me to pull him back. Well, everyone seemed inclined to settle for a fight for second place and so I took the sprint.

Gotta say, feels like a repeating record to finish second once again. The form is there, it was actually a pretty easy race once I got into the breakaway, really smooth.

On a different note, today after the race I had the chance to do my very first French interview without a translator. I gotta say, being tired and trying to discern just what I need to say was quite difficult, but extremely gratifying at the same time. While fitness can change it is great to be able to see the progress being made with my language skills. When I first arrived I absolutely sucked at speaking and now I can actually interact and carry on conversations. I feel like a little kid in preschool being able to see the changes. Gotta find the good in everything right?

Dogs

Based on 2 months of near daily riding around France I have come to the conclusion that everyone and their mom owns a dog if not 3 or 4. Why the hell is this? I mean yeah, they are cool animals and all but really? I am especially fond of my next door neighbor and their animals. As it currently stands I live on a fairly busy street with a few houses pretty darn close to me. Every evening, without fail at around ten o clock at night the dogs get let out of the house to play for the night. Yes, thats right, they do not believe in fencing to keep these dogs in, they just get to run around all over the place. Well, ten o clock seems like a great time to go to bed but no, I get to listen to these little shits bark all night long. So, these 2 dogs get to barking, and then all the other dogs in listening range want in on some of the action and before long, I have looked at my watch the umpteenth time and its midnight and still barking. I am hoping that its like living by an airport and getting used to sound of airplanes because right now my patience level for dogs is at an all time low.

Along those same lines, how many times have you been to a race in America and spectators bring dogs? Pretty tough to think of it huh, well here it appears that about 4 out of 5 are going to have their dog with them. And, no, its not some big bad ass dog, the dogs have to be the size of a rat and be able to fit in some woman's purse at the same time. I still cannot figure out the French love affair with these tiny little things. And on top of that, having dogs at a bike race never turns out good. I have seen someones dog get loose, cause a pileup in a race because the dog went out on course, dog got injured and the woman who owned the dog was angry at the racers. What the hell? I guess that is what happens when someone grows up in a nanny state, it must never be her fault?

However, the cream of the crop with the love affair here with dogs was a few weeks back. We had just finished a race, and the folks that took me to the race wanted to grab a coffee after race, so off we went. If you are wondering, yes, they have a little tiny dog with them. As a cafe is found, we exit the car, the dog exits with us just like it is a part of the family and here is the best part, joins us in the restaurant for a coffee! What the hell? I cannot fathom this nor can I comprehend the fact that after looking around I noticed countless other furry little dogs.

I am sorry for those dog lovers out there, but I believe that a good general rule of thumb is leave your dog at home, don't take it to business and let it run around and most certainly lock the damn things up at night and keep them under control. If anyone needs another reason, have a look here. Just a few of the casual observations over here.

Travels

I know, I know, volcano this volcano that. Unfortunately, watching the news here it seems that this is now the only thing that is getting covered. Every news story has to cover some story about French nationals stuck somewhere around the world, often times New York and how its just so horrible for them. People are downright in tears over the thing. While it sucks, sure, there is moer going on in the world that I want some coverage of. It has even made its way into the cycling race coverage. For the cycling coverage, it sure has been pretty funny to read about cyclists here in Europe that cannot get to fly to the races but actually have to drive. Gasp! This week there is a large block of professional racing up in and around Holland and many folks have had to either drive or take the train across France from Spain or Italy to get there. While this sounds like a long way folks, we are talking about less than Boise to LA. I essentially made that trip 3 times this winter, once in December, once in January and once in February. The fact that some of these racers had to spend more than a few hours in a car was just god awful for them. I have to think about my former team driving from Boise all the way to New Mexico, a good 2 day trip, to race the Tour of the Gila this next week, a race I am going to miss participating in. All of this just goes to some of the big distinctions from racing back home to racing here. They will not travel more than an hour or 2, 3 hours tops to go to a race here, while back in Boise, I cannot count the hours I had in a car over the past few years. I really do feel that the time in cars with teammates provides a great opportunity to bond with each other and get to see how everyone reacts under varying circumstances.

Sorry to go off on a limb there, just trying to figure out some of the odd thought processes here. Well, looks like it might hit 40 degrees today, so off to go ride my bike now.

Eiyafiatdaiokudl

Well folks, as it seems everyone in the world knows by now, European travel has been pretty much at a standstill for 4 days now. For me to be living in a little village that is primarily around to cater to tourists who want to visit the gardens of Claude Monet-I see a few tourists during my day. However, with so many people stuck in Europe and unable to fly out and flights now backlogged for a minimum of 5 days, my town is hopping. In 2 months I have not seen this many people around and many of them are just staying a little bit longer until stuff gets sorted out. It is certainly much prettier here than Charles De Gaulle airport and much nicer to sleep on a bed rather than plastic chairs. This has certainly got to be helping out the local economy and while it amounts to a bit more work, no ones bottom line is going to be complaining. They are also doing some practice flights to determine if its safe or not. I missed a shot with the plane flying super low, but at least got the flight contrails.





Since I did not get to race this weekend, I ended up getting some good training in, even though they are telling folks on the news to limit outside activities. While it was a bit of a bummer to not get to race, I got to go and have a nice little picnic down on the river bank which was quite nice. Scenery is not too bad either. Its nice to have a little relaxation every now and then.

Have been told that I am racing this weekend so hoping for a nice week leading up to it and this air to clean up a bit.

3's

Lets hope the saying bad things come in 3 hold true. Early this week was planning on having a good block of racing this weekend, all things were coming together and Friday morning legs felt great. But, as I am learning, when something is going well over here, expect something to go bad. I get a ring from director pretty much saying, well, No racing this weekend. The officials have stated the race I was slated in for Sunday I cannot do and I am obliged to race another race 3 or 4 hours away and the team says they cannot get me there. Damn-Sunday racing is over. Saturday there is a race a little over an hour away, but the officials once again shut the door. Erik is an American, and saturday only the French can race so, once again Damn. But, tonight, Friday night you are going to now go and race a night time crit, oh boy.

As per the norm, somewhat questionable course selection, absolutely convinced they look for as many obstacles. last night we had train tracks in middle corner 3, roundabout, and some random 4 foot cement poles down middle of final straight-all in a 1 km course. However, first race here without rain and got to use my new tires so really excited, felt great, legs had "good sensations" as they say here, and generally happy. But, flatted near end of race so essentially lights out never saw front again. 1st of the 3's. Generally this sucks, but it really sucks because I now lost a great chance to get a result to move up categories, have to have 4 wins to move up. 2nd of the 3's. Lastly, while flatting sucks normally toss in a 5 dollar tube when I get home and all is good, but no. Upon inspection got a nice big gash in a fresh tire, awesome tire got all of an hour and a half of life and now to the dumpster she goes. What was a 5 dollar fix is now going to be a 60 euro fix, yep nothing cheap here.

So in summary, lost out on opportunity for some good racing this weekend, lost out on a result, lost out on some prize money from said result and end up getting to actually pay for some new stuff for my bike. Somehow I think this math is wrong and going the incorrect direction.

Thankfully I am learning to be a little more flexible with my life, even just a tiny bit I am finding helps. But next weekend is another weekend and all I can do is train this week to hopefully try again.

Other foreigners in France

This past weekend got the opportunity to race against a good chunk of other nationalities. There was a group of 10 Japanese, 8 Poles, another 8 Turkish riders, few spanish, some german and some Russian folks too. While this isn't that big of a deal, the housing situations of these others puts the larger sense of racing here into a new perspective. My last post talked a bit about how overly dangerous I felt that the racing was here and the amount of risk that many riders were willing to take for a little bit of cash.

Well, here in France teams can have no more than 2 foreign i.e. non french rider on a team so racers from foreign countries get split up on teams but often live together, such is the case with the Japanese. They have 10 people in an apartment, no kitchen, a sink to shower, yes thats right, no showering, no washer and dryer, just rinse clothes in sink and call good. What do they do for food, they have a little MSR camping stove to cook pasta-breakfast and dinner everyday. They came here with very little and if there is 2 euro for 35th place, they will race as hard as they possibly can to win that tiny bit of cash even if it means wrecking out half the field.

The polish riders have it a little bit better, each rider has his own room which again consists of a bed and when sitting on bed, can touch all 4 walls. In this room is a sink for a shower again and a microwave to cook with. Once again, came here with very little and living from race winning to race winning.

And lastly, as explained to me, the Turkish riders here are living in someones cold basement on little mattresses on the cement.

From what I can understand, many of the racers here come from extremely poor backgrounds and this is their way out of that. While these conditions here may sound quite rough, as is often the case it is much better than what they have back home. What happens if they are not able to make it in cycling, they go back home and work in the fields or even worse, there is no work and panhandle on the streets. This situation is not just limited to the foreigners as many French racers here also come from difficult backgrounds and are also living from race to race.

Because of this, even though I find myself in a less than ideal position, I am doing quite well-I have a bed, I can shower, I can cook a bit and I can make some tea to drink. As it was put to me, I am in paradise. Upon finding out this information about many others it makes a little more sense now to me as how aggressive the racing in and why there are so many more risks taken here. It certainly brings into perspective what America has to offer.

Long weekend

Well folks, this evening finishes another weekend of racing, the whole racing on Monday thing is going to take some getting used to. To summarize, yesterday I was told I was going to go and race a crit, sweet! a crit, American boy knows how to ride those no worries. Haha is what someone is doing right now, I am sure. Its a 3 kilometer course, with 4 separate roundabouts on straightaways, one set of 3 roundabouts linked together with about 9 different ways to go through it and still be on course and 2 of the other straightaways have these large 4 foot cement poles running down middle of road, as we get to race full road. We only get to do 40 laps of said course, which is enough but it is essentially doubling any crit race I have ever done. Needless to say, after about wreck 15 or so, I am thinking what the hell. People here do not fully understand the idea of chilling out and taking a few less risks. After getting caught up and hitting deck, I did what everyone in America knows, roll up shorts and roll to the finish to get your lap. Once again Hahah is what someone is doing. Free lap, what for stupid American? is what I am told and to get a hurry on, race is up road. So that about sums up yesterday, tried to stay upright, big emphasis on try over here and rolled in with peloton as even more wrecks trying for final sprint.

Today was supposed to be a bit more straightforward. 17 km circuit done 7 times. there were 3 major hills, about a mile long and this made 21 serious climbs on the day. For the Boise folks, think of just doing 7 dump loops without the flatness of Hill road and more climbs. Felt so so on the day, never awesome thats for sure and never horrid, until the finish. I never saw the front of the race today, nor did I get to see my feeder. Through some awesome mis communication I was told car would be in caravan, but it ended up not being there, and I raced with what I had on bike. With about a half hour to go, the lights went out and it was everything I could do to finish with peloton.

Once again though, racing on little one land roads with god knows how many number of traffic islands and whatnot. Just trying to think here, I can vividly remember 8 turns today full of gravel which makes 42 turns really. And once again, tons of wrecks, not trying to whine but god damn they do not understand the concept of at least cleaning up a turn for a bit of safety. Someone told me that they do not turn off the wind nor do they take away hills, the extra danger is just another obstacle. Now I really do appreciate the rider protest at the Giro last year. Hoping to get my legs back under me in next few days to go back out and ride way outside my comfort zone.

Herbicide

Herbicide, you might ask, yes herbicide. But more importantly, 24d. For those of you who do not know, I have spent many years before this year trying to supplement my racing with working lots of odd ball jobs mainly doing yard work and one year of working for a landscape company. The product 24d is one of the most widely used herbicides in the world and one of its key uses is weed control. You might be asking yourself why am I telling you this, well guess what, I got to experience the lovely scent of it this week.

I had some fun hill intervals to do on Thursday and found a nice little hill and guess what, work was being done. Like I have said in earlier posts, France is quite keen on trying to make this area around Giverny quite pretty for the tourists and well guess what. Whatever the french municipality is that was doing the work was spraying both sides of the road to eliminate the weeds. On thursday, I had 6 total hill repeats and so that meant I got 6 times to engulf this wonderful scent. Now, mind you when I was working back home I never really noticed a scent yay or nay with it, but I can most certainly tell you that with one whiff of it I knew exactly what it was and brought me back home-something dearly appreciated.

I know many folks might be wondering why something like that might put a smile on my face, but being in a foreign land, not knowing too many folks and everything being new-well having something pop up that you know is really nice. And so there you go, another day of finding the little things that make everything else that tiny bit easier to deal with.

Culture

Spring is in the air, April is now the month and all cycling fans seem to be watching what is going on in Belgium and northern France right now. If you do not know, this is quite the important week with some major racing going on especially Tour of Flanders last weekend and the big daddy, Paris Roubaix this weekend. Its been pretty insightful to watch folks set up parties to watch these big races just like we do back home for Super Bowl sunday. In the newspapers, riders are covered in depth and if they have had a cough in the past 2 weeks even that gets reported. This is how ingrained the racing culture here actually is. A great example is that earlier this week my next door neighbor stopped and talked to me as I was getting home from a ride and wanted to tell me all about the racing that he has watched over the years. He is not a racer, does not even ride a bike, yet he is probably 60 years old and has followed it since he was a little boy. He was talking about so many riders that I had never even heard of and this really did make me think about how much history there really is in this wonderful sport.

I have gotten word that I am going to be racing this next sunday and monday but get to have saturday off from racing.

stay tuned for a special pre roubaix post and thanks for reading.

Second in as many weeks.

Well folks, once again I lost a race today by a tires width. That makes two second placings in as many weeks. There is someother guy out there named Boonen that has done the same thing these past two weeks, thats not too bad then I guess.

Once again another hard day in the saddle, raining at the start and then I got to race in a 30 minute hailstorm and I never thought that I would say this, but was crazy excited when the rain then began again and the hail went away. Now I have got some awesome bruised arms and legs.

Race was unlike any that I have been in over here. With the crazy weather the day was more attrition than anything and was just important to ride at front of race and make each split. Did my best to be as hidden as I could, but after last weekends second place, I did make it into a few moves, but the makeup never worked-the other guys said they would not work to the line with a sprinter. Yeah, thats right, now they think I am a sprinter here, who would have ever guessed that. Well, today had a group of 5 get away with 20 km to finish and threw it down for a sprint and well, got beat again.

Quite happy with the progress, but really wanting that top step. If there is any other bright spot to look at its the bouquet of flowers that I have been getting. Today, I got to have 2 bouquets, one for second place and the other for some mid race prime I won. Well, one set of flowers went to my directors girlfriend to get put on dinner table and other well, lets just say its a great way to get to meet some gals over here, even if they are a competitors sister.

hoping for a great week or riding to get back at it and try for that W.

Happy Easter folks

So, I have got many questions from folks about what it actually looks like here. Just moved into a new place the other day, its going to be a temporary move I have a feeling, but hey, the view out my window is downright amazing. Hoping that I can get a sunny day sometime to really show off the colors here. There is a reason why the Impressionist movement gained momentum around here.




I also want to show what a normal ride around here looks like. In this photo, there are actually 5 distinct villages that have their own mayor, voter district and seperate entity. Pretty crazy to think that all of this is in just one image huh? Also notice the flatness on top of those ridges, well to get to the top is amazingly steep little roads and then crazy windy, small farmroads on top. Its quite different than what I am used to back home, but steadily trying to get used to it.

As I write this I am relaxing before taking off to another race this afternoon. Hoping for something good to happen, maybe a little chocolate bunny can help me along today? As its a major holiday today, the race is in conjunction with a large festival and lots of folks are expected to be out in full force spectating and generally enjoying some family time.

Stay tuned for whats hopefully another good result.

Never an actual home

Lets just say that as a cyclist, its pretty hard to call someplace home. Before I arrived I was told that I would have a house, but when I actually arrived the work on the home was not yet finished. This being the hometown of Claude Monet and lots of museums, work on those to get them ready for opening takes first priority. So, I have spent the last 5 weeks living in a hotel and if anyone knows anything about Euro hotels, everything was within arms reach-awesome. Well, today got the call that the contractors were done fixing whatever was needed at the house-water, power important things right. Well, the house is actually above the local theater, has 3 bedrooms, a bathroom and no kitchen. Wait, what, no kitchen! Exactly what I said. Going to deal with it for a few days, but my director is out of town right now until Monday till something else can get figured out. 5 weeks later and I am really looking forward to opening up my suitcases and unpacking. But, I will not hold my breath. Certainly going to be learning to adapt this year.

Got another 1 day race this sunday, hoping for some good things to happen.