I'm pretty sure that trip from Masterton to Scaer by car, plane, plane, plane, bus, train and car broke my personal door-to-door record, 50hrs. Quite uneventful though, no mad rush which is kinda unusual for me. I missed the first TGV connection out of Paris but managed to re-coordinate and finally meet teammate Jimmy Barnes in Quimper after a few years of email conversations.
The team I'm riding for - VS Scaer - have been great thus far, getting me sorted with an apartment, making sure I'm not stuck for anything, putting up with my dreadful French and even going so far as to organise a small presentation. Kinda funny that the three cycling articles in the paper yesterday were the Tour of Italy, the Tour of Dunkerque, and me arriving in France!!
The apartment is in a primary school, definitely a bit odd, but it's a good setup. I’ve got pretty much the entire second floor of the building to myself, and a fan-club cheering me on every time I go out training. Between staying at James' a couple of nights and school holidays I've only been here one day with kids running round in a playground thus far.
The first week here was jolly cold, I'll consider it my winter for the year, the first race I did was on Sunday and it peaked out at 12deg which didn't help. No startlingly good form appeared, I didn't really expect to be up to much so soon off the plane and just rolled around at the back for 60km and stopped when the legs turned to wood. Good to get a number on and into a big and kinda crazy bunch again though - plenty of tiny roads for racing on around here for sure!!
Monday was even worse on the weather front, about 8deg and raining, managed to avoid racing (200 starters, not many finishers, sounded grim) and headed out for four hours of "entrainment tranquil", returning frozen through and covered in smelly brown stuff. Was wondering why I got so much thermal kit, obvious now it's because some days you need to wear it all at once.
A bientot …
The team I'm riding for - VS Scaer - have been great thus far, getting me sorted with an apartment, making sure I'm not stuck for anything, putting up with my dreadful French and even going so far as to organise a small presentation. Kinda funny that the three cycling articles in the paper yesterday were the Tour of Italy, the Tour of Dunkerque, and me arriving in France!!The apartment is in a primary school, definitely a bit odd, but it's a good setup. I’ve got pretty much the entire second floor of the building to myself, and a fan-club cheering me on every time I go out training. Between staying at James' a couple of nights and school holidays I've only been here one day with kids running round in a playground thus far.
The first week here was jolly cold, I'll consider it my winter for the year, the first race I did was on Sunday and it peaked out at 12deg which didn't help. No startlingly good form appeared, I didn't really expect to be up to much so soon off the plane and just rolled around at the back for 60km and stopped when the legs turned to wood. Good to get a number on and into a big and kinda crazy bunch again though - plenty of tiny roads for racing on around here for sure!!Monday was even worse on the weather front, about 8deg and raining, managed to avoid racing (200 starters, not many finishers, sounded grim) and headed out for four hours of "entrainment tranquil", returning frozen through and covered in smelly brown stuff. Was wondering why I got so much thermal kit, obvious now it's because some days you need to wear it all at once.
A bientot …
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