No, not that sort of tart! Just an excuse to post gratuitous pictures really…… No, usually, of a Monday I ride Big Bird down to the Boulangers in Rochechouart and treat myself to a sticky tart, then I ride back, tart in rucksack, before enjoying a few minutes of self indulgence with the tart and strong fresh black coffee. This Monday was just such a day.

Anyway, who should I happen to meet in town, but international motorcycle enduro rider PK Cheetham. Now, PK has ridden with the best on a motorbike, and I reckon he’d love MTB’s if he’d just give them a try, but try as I might, I cannot get him to pop his MTB cherry. I try tricking him, “feel how supple the suspension is on Big Bird”, I say. I pick her up and drop her, she sticks dead as a dead thing, not a sign of rebound. “She’ll never buck you, here try for yourself”, I say and push Big Bird towards him. He pumps the suspension a little, “very nice”, he says. “Marzocchis!”, I say, knowing he’ll be impressed. “Where’s the engine? where’s the start button?”. If he’d just try her once, I know he’d be hooked. Any ideas how I can get him to give it a go?

Tart in rucksack I head for home. My legs are tired from the weekends efforts, I spin an easy gear. The real tart? She’s a beauty. Betcha can almost smell the coffee 🙂

… and still it rains! After yesterdays turbo session I really couldn’t face another one, so I took my dirtiest bike for a training wash. Stuck my aged Polar on the bars, wrapped in cling-film. I dunno why really, I just did.

Ah yes, it’s good to be out. Up through the woods the ground is very very wet, and what was the main trail is now a little stream. By the top of the woods my glasses have turned into blinds so I relegate them to the back of my head. Out onto the lanes and onwards towards…. erm, well I don’t know really, ain’t got a route planned, just see what happens.

Down the main road towards St Cyr, left at the bottom of the climb, up through a tiny hamlet, then left off-road. It’s wet, but not cold. I stop for a pee. I’m steaming almost as much as the piss! 🙂 After a while I think i’ve finished peeing, it’s hard to tell. It’s me age!

Climbing up the trail there’s plenty of grip, and I’m making good progress. Back onto the tarmac I’m heading towards Cognac le Foret. I climb up past the aviation masts. There’s no view today. Then take the road that runs along the far side of the hills back towards St Cyr. The rain eases a little, and the sky looks a little brighter. Hey, maybe the rain will stop, and I’ll dry out before I get home.

Back through St Cyr and on towards St Auvent where I’m planning on riding down the pavée section. Onto the pavée, it’s steep, wet, and covered in leaves, but actually it’s not too bad. I make it to the bottom with hardly a slip. At the footbridge I stop for a minute to look at the raging river. Next little challenge is the granny ring climb up towards the L’Age turning. Yes, the same one I like to rattle down when I’m going the other direction. There’s some tricky steps halfway up. I just about manage them though I do have a foot out of pedal moment.

Along the dirt road back into L’Age there’s a French gate (length of string) blocking my way. A farmer is herding some cattle out of a field. His dog comes and says hello, he’s nice. As the cattle move on down the track the farmer collects his gate and gets on his ancient peugot bike to follow them. He sees me, looks up at the sky and gestures in a WTFs with this weather manner… we both laugh and continue on our way.

Last climb out of the valley, almost home. I pass the post that I use as my sprint marker and jump out of the saddle for the usual 15 pedal turn sprint. My shoes squelch, and water wrings out of my gloves. It’s been a wet ride.

Wednesday’s apre-midi session with the ROCC didn’t happen due to persistant pissing down and high winds. I took a day off the bike! Thursday started of dry, but by the time I’d had a pre-ride brew it was already raining. Only one thing for it, a turbo session.

I just detest turbo training. 5 minutes lasts an hour, and the harder you work, the longer it lasts. But, it does the training trick, and I’m desperate, so I did it. One hour working at a solid level 2 (heart rate around 150bpm).

I used to do quite a lot of turbo sessions at one time. I had a musicians metronome to keep cadence, and a heart rate monitor. Yep, even used to record my heart rate, plot a graph, and stick it in my training diary. Got to the point where I knew what gear and cadence would produce what heart rate, give or take a few beats.

With my 5 minute warm up under my belt I was on my way. Got a nice suprise to find that my natural cadence is quicker than it used to be. Got a bleedin’ shock to find out how hard I had to work to maintain 150bpm on the HRM. Daydreamed a bit, found that when I was thinking about upcoming races I worked harder and my heart rate went up – obvious I suppose.

With one hour done, soaked in sweat, I climbed off, and I’m thinking to myself…. wasn’t so bad was it? might do another one tomorrow NOT!

Something happened on the run yesterday that really brought home to me how much cycling performance is ‘all in the mind’.

Let me set the scene – Since moving to France at the end of last March I often go on the Rochechouart club runs on a Saturday afternoon. I’ve got to know a lot of the riders and how they ride. Now, because the end of March is the start of the racing season, there are some riders who I know from racing that i’ve never seen on the club run. OK so far? Right, so as the 2008 racing looms nearer some Wednesday afternoon sessions have been organised to get base miles in. Brisk, progressive, but not fast. The first one was this Wednesday. The riders were – two racers (Maxime and Eric) one strong man from the Saturday club runs (Bernard), and me. Bernard is one of the strongest from the club runs, he loves to go on the front, and likes to dish it out, he climbs well and is ‘bunch engine strong’.

Here’s what happened – We set off, all seems well, banter and joviality as normal, no hint of any problem. The first few kms Maxime is on the front. We climb up toward Chassenon and down towards Chabanais. I roll through to take a turn on the front, and after a few more kms I move over to let someone else through. I don’t want to hog the show. When I roll around to the back Bernard waves me through to go in front of him. No problem, I’m thinking that he’s just saving himself until we get to the meat of the ride. However, as time goes on it becomes clear that he doesn’t want to go anywhere near the front. Unusual.

60kms later, and Bernard is starting to struggle, but he’s OK, and were not far from home. 10km from home the two racers Maxime and Eric peel off and head home leaving Bernard and me to ride the last few kms down to Rochechouart. At this point, to use the words of PG, Bernard ‘falls apart like a cheap watch’. Now he cannot even maintain an easy pace, and tells me to go ahead and leave him. I use his words on him saying “se necessaire pour le moral de la group arrive ensemble”, (it’s good for the moral of the group to finish the ride together). This is what we always do on a Saturday. He’s obviously blown, I slow down and try to get him chatting. The kms always seem to go be easier when chatting, even to a daft English bloke with a poor grasp of French. Bernard tells me that he didn’t know the ride was going to be so long, and so fast, that he hadn’t eaten enough, and only had one bottle!

Now here’s the thing – The ride had been no harder, faster, or further than some of the Saturday rides where Bernard had been strong. The big difference was that the racers were not there. Both Maxime and Eric are first category riders. I think, that in the company of the racers Bernards confidence in his ability deserted him. He’s easly strong enough to have coped with the ride and more. But today it really was like riding with a different man. Surely, it’s all in his mind.