Time to collect the Dossards* again!

We always look forward to the weekends as it is usually time to collect the *number tags and race. Yesterday was a race at Braud St Louis, a town North of Bordeaux, about 45mins drive away. We will usually wait for Sylvain, the vice-president of the club to come and pick us up if the race site is not a rideable distance away.
Waiting for Sylvain outside our apartment.

Startlist for the race.

Collecting Dossards.



Team car with our POLYGONs above.

Calvin and his OGK helmet, good thing we got LIMAR now.

Packing up to go home.

Post ride recovery, and food too.


The race was CAT 2 and 3, 20 laps of 4.9km, not too fast but the selection was decided from the first lap. The wind was strong, and that made catching the breakaway really hard. We stayed on in the group, made and covered many efforts that to try to bridge to the break but it was impossible. On the 2nd last lap, there was this corner where a cyclist collided INTO Calvin and caused him to crash. His helmet cracked, but fortunately nothing was broken. We will be looking forward to our next race next Friday, which will be a night Criterium. Exciting!

More on us...

What do we hope to achieve out of the training stint in France?
For this training stint in France, we hope to get as much race experience as possible and also if possible, get some good results. Apart from that, we would like to get valuable insights on how the french cyclists train and improve ourselves. We will be training with the French cycling club CAM de Bordeaux, and hope to also learn more of the french culture, and to speak their language.

On training, for the first week in France, we didn't have our bicycles as they were delayed. So we spend some time getting orientated. We went to the velodrome for the first time to do a short session to get the legs spinning again. It was a really good experience as the velodrome was a world class one with 45 deg banks, and the bikes we rented were fixed gear, so it took some getting use to. On the next day, our bikes arrived, so we did long tempo rides during the week to get the body and legs going again.

The training/competition here is definitely different from that in Singapore and SEA. The competition level here is definitely higher, especially with more different conditions and terrains, such as longer and steeper climbs. The riders here are also very strong and motivated.

Who are the people you have met?
So far, the people we've only come into contact with a few people who have really been selfless and helped us alot. Sylvain - co president of CAM de Bordeaux, Vincent - his dad, Damian - our mentor,he looks after us here, almost like our guardian, and also our apparel sponsor F2P, some guys from the cycling club who we don;t really know yet. We find it abit difficult to communicate with them sometimes because we could barely speak french and they don't really speak English except for Damien who speaks perfect English and Sylvain.

How living there is different and probably the cycling culture?
Food, climate, cycling paths everywhere, more cycling friendly city, and more people here commute on bikes than in Singapore. We were especially surprised to see so many female commuters on bikes, and some were even wearing high heels!

There will be a Criterium next weekend. Basically there'll be races on most weekends and we'll keep everyone posted!

Au Revoir.

SIM CIRCLE

As promised, here is more of SIM SIM=)

Cold!

Last Saturday, we went racing at this town called Saint Astier. It was 2 races in a day; 8.5km time trial in the morning and 106km road race in the afternoon. We were very excited as it was our first race together, as the previous week Calvin went to race while I rested at home due to a bad knee. The town was an hour drive from Bordeaux.

For the time trial, it was a hilly time trial with a long steep climb towards the end. Calvin got 84th and I got 85th position out of 88 respectively, about 3 minutes down from the leader. The difference in standard is big!!! For the road race, we got dropped on a steep climb, was really hard on, full gas racing for us. What we need now is more training and racing to get those legs going! We will persevere and get there...we will.

Some happy pics..enjoy..


Very nice team car!


Chef Lim in action.



Briefing before the race. The guy with the paper in his hand is Sylvain, co-president of club and the little boy is his son, Antoine.



Tim with Antonie.



I am going to attack calvin today!



Calvin with Antonie.



Full battle order, it was 6 degrees today. So cold....before the happy ride.