Team Sharp4Prostate decamp to Malaga for a weeks warm weather training at ‘with’ the Rapha Condor Sharp team. My stats:
- Training hours: 16 hours on a bike plus 5hr stretching and core
- Road Miles : 249 miles / 401km
- Climb : 6499m / 21332ft
Arrived late into the camp from Barcelona, the rest of the guys having already been at the camp for 4 days. There seemed to be some pretty tired bodies waiting for me!
New bike – love at first sight. A few final tweaks to get the bike fit right and then off for my first ride in Spain.
Start, a pootle north of Malaga. Nice and gentle but we still averaged 29kmh (must be the bike). Then a controlled time trial. All’s well to the first town when the route sends us up a vertical hill made out of concrete and into a dead end. Bumped into Karl, also lost, and then Paul, equally clueless. Directions from the locals helped send us all off on the wrong road –our lack of Spanish to blame. After an hour lost, regroup, coffee, sandwiches. We split – Karl and Paul heading home with Richey. Dan and I riding together with Marco in support.
Uphill, then further uphill before getting to a big hill, in all about 50km of constant climbing. Scenery spectacular. Limestone gorge, orange and lemon trees in fruit and the cherry trees in flower. All very pretty. Dan and I both discover why the pros eat nutella sandwiches and not goats cheese sandwiches – they repeat on us all afternoon.
Felt strong but may have been deceiving myself we are ‘followed’ by a flock of vultures circling overhead obviously waiting for the weak one at the back to finally expire. (not sure vultures flock or you can follow by circling but hopefully you get the gist).
The back to camp. Stretch. Eat. Sleep
My day 2
Day dawned grey - quietly confident the light cloud would blow over. At breakfast it is reported Dan has been sick in the night. Dan blames food. John Herety (Director Sportive for the RCS team) blames 4 beers and a protein recovery drink. Net result is the same, off for a big ride into the mountains on my own.
After about 1km the rain started, then the wind picked up and it started getting cold. An hour and a half later and I am beginning to wonder what the symptoms are for early hyperthermia, my guess is that praying for climbs is probably not a bad sign, singing Pet Shop Boys songs to yourself another. Fortunately the route went up, for the next 41km, less fortunately I saw a goat herd and sang Sound of Music songs for the rest of the ride. Two and a half hours in and support, in the form of Marco and Richey, arrived. Dry kit, cheese sandwiches and coke. Three and a half hours later they pull me off the road and drive me home. Happy.
Stretch, food, insightful (if slightly worrying) conversation with the pro team who seem to think the RAAM is a bit of a tough challenge. Bed.
My day 3
Off with the pro team for a 35km ‘warm up’ and some photos.
Next, onto the Ronda valley (which I thought was in South Wales but apparently not). This climbs out of Marbella and goes up, for over 1000m. Weather cleared to a beautiful spring day.
I would like to wax lyrical about the view – it was ‘nice’ - but following Dan up the climb was distracting. The lycra in his shorts had worn and the back of his shorts had become transparent. My view was similar to watch builders bum for an hour and a half from about 2 meters back. Dan blamed Paul – apparently he has a bigger arse – but I am not sure what this had to do with the demise of Dan’s shorts. Still give the choice between leading the climb or following and putting up with the view, I chose the latter. Discretion (or lack of it) being the better part of valour.
Then down. Very fast and very smooth. Wind was gusty which was a bit disconcerting but the road was dry. Fun. Top speed 68kmh.
Coffee, smug grins, back to base for stretching , food and then bed.
My Day 4
Sun. Short ride with some of the pro team and then peeling off back to base. Dan filming.
Hard to describe the way home. It was not very grown up. Fast, average for 90 mins of 32kmh. 200m to go and Paul won the sprint. I since discovered he has ridden the same finish every day of the week so was well rehearsed – I thought we had 2km to go. To be fair– I wouldn’t have caught him even if I had known.
Back at base – packed bikes, stretch, sauna, pizza and chips and off to the airport.
About 3 years later EZ jet get us home. -4 degrees with rain and snow forecast.
Miscellaneous comments
Marco and Richey – I can’t begin to explain how fantastic it was to have these two colossus providing support before, during and after the rides. All I can say is they made me feel like a pro. I know I’m not, but it was really nice to pretend.
The Bike – The new Rapha Condor Sharp team bike is awesome. Comfortable, fast and very pretty.
The pro team – I am sure they had much better things to do than put up with me asking banal questions. A big thanks for putting up with me and good luck for the season.
The European Union. Many thanks for the roads. It is great to see where my tax contribution goes. Rome left a legacy of roads for Europe and it looks like the EU may just do the same. If they could sort out the roads in Surrey too it would be appreciated.
No comments:
Post a Comment