I don't want to be the weak (Transcontinental Race 2015 part 2)

I'm not WEAK !

The public start the count down

5 !! 
........4 !!
...............3 !! 
......................2 !!
.............................1 !! 
....................................GOOO !!

I wasn't far from the race car, but it took me a long time before starting pedaling because of guys who couldn't start cycling on the cobblestone. Rushed through the crown and started the long descent in the city, 50 meter of race and i have to start spinning my leg to reach the race car, i found the french guys, Alex, Sam, Clem are right behind the car and a small peloton start to pack behind, we arrived at the bottom of the Mur, and the peloton start to push hard on the pedal to climb. Samuel is just in front of me, i push on the pedal, expected to do the whole climb on the bike, but my plan to use the right side of the road was screwed by the presence of people. Well let's change, quick jump off the bike, run the hardest part of the climb, jump on the bike, keep going. At this moment about 10 people are ahead of me, we were riding fast, we were in the race for real. Our friends cheered us in the climb "GOGO SAM ! GOGO KIWI !". At this exact moment I pushed harder and wanted to show one last nice face.

From the top of the Mur, we are free to take any road and aim for the first Checkpoint The famous Mont Ventoux. I turn on my GPS, we started to do again the descent, Sam and Alex still in front of me, All the peloton in front of me take the same road, but my GPS tell me to don't follow them, i must stick to my plan, i dive in Geraardsbergen for the second time to reach the beginning of my route. 

Far away i see bike lights, well looks like i didn't took the best way and there is a lot of people in front of me already, well ... no problem :D .

My GPS route start, i take my aero position, and start spinning leg at my natural pace. The chase start, i like seeing people in front of me, it naturally stimulate me, I feel GREAT ! Rapidly I overtake 3, 4, 5 and more rider. Until the moment i see no more guys in a while, i must admit for a moment i had doubt about my route, "if there is nobody i must be on the wrong way, even if my GPS tell me i'm good", i stopped and checked the tracker on my smartphone, i had to understand what happened.

And the fact was, if i didn't understood the situation, it was because in my brain the probability of what happened was 0%. I was leading ... ME ? ! in front of everybody ? I couldn't believe it !

Me #152, first crossing the french border ? Really ?!

Ok keep calm it's just 60km since the start ... I just had to keep riding at my pace. 


At a moment, two guys caught me, one of them had a full time trial bike, i didn't knew who was this guy at this moment. But getting caught by these guy, i wanted to fight them, Sometimes they where in my wheel, sometimes i put distance between us, and came the moment they overtook me. In my head started a fight between the TT bike and the Fixed gear bike, We where in a section where we had some rolling hill, I focused on my best pedaling technique, push and pull all the time, giving a 100% efficiency in the transmission. At a moment i saw the opportunity to leave a message in a uphill, Mad in my mind, I overtook the TT bike, pushing hard on the pedal, and tried to gave my best poker face. 
I wanted to leave the message: "I don't have a TT bike, BUT I'M NOT WEAK"

I was so focused in what I was doing i can't remember what he said at this moment. But he got the message... very well... and he's going to give me an answer too...
Few kilometers after, a false flat, I was happy to see on a radar that I was riding at, 35 kph. But my smile disappeared instantly when I saw the radar changing a 42kph and the TT bike overtaking me at the same time. I got the feel he was saying to me: "Let me show you the difference of speed between me and you"
The only thing I could do was to admit my defeat. I ride a fixed gear bike, and I assume my choice even if that leave a bitter taste in my mouth.
That's how I met for the first time the TT bike guy, #59 Ultan Coyle, this guy will finish in 4th position.

#59 Ultan Coyle, Finish in 11day +

Hours after, i saw somethings I really hate to see, the huge wind turbine of the first flat land in France, and with it came the f*ck*ng huge crosswind. I know it well for already having bad moment there. With my low weight and the big surface I exposed directly to the wind, I rapidly get shaken.
With my fixed gear, could do nothing but trying to push hard, but I knew it's a long route to get out of this wringer. Then a rider overtook me spinning his leg with his gear, and another, again, and one more .... I was seeing them flew away, and i was totally helpless.

At moment I started to think, why ? Why am I here ? Trying to ride though this wind. I think it was my very first mental test. All my thinking was about this wind, I had to change my mind. And the only thing that came was to imagine an interview on the finish line between Mike Hall and me. It happened during something that feel 2 hours, in reality just enough time to get out of this windy path.



Few hours after, going down to Dijon, I started to do more and more gravel road. Until the moment I went into a forest, the track disappeared little by little, at a moment I realized I couldn't ride more and had to walk, following my GPS I had to walk 500m, but the road on my GPS was misplaced. I walked for 45 min on a horrible horse path. That kind of situation makes me really angry. When I reached the road, I had to leave that shitty path, in exchange I did a detour to reach the road I wanted. I was really angry, feeling miserable, loosing a lot of energy for nothing. My goal to be after Dijon at the end of the day failed.

At the end of the day, I started to doubt about my final target, will I be able to do it before the finisher party ? What should I expect ? A lot of question you start to ask yourself, but the most horrible thing is, you are alone to answer. You had a bad day on flat road, so all the answer you get are "it going to be worse, you never going to make it though the mountain, you should stop now, plus you are not so far from Paris (my home), easy back up". Well before giving an answer, I'm going to sleep. "Don't get important decision in the night, when you are exhausted", that what I remembered from Mike Hall advice from the manual. He's 100% right. Bad physical and mental condition will lead you to a bad decision.

Next day was better, I reached some road I know, going full south on N7, I've been there 2 years ago for a Paris-Marseilles. I was happy to be there, I would have regrets if I had scratch last night, Mont Ventoux at the end of the day was the daily goal. I tried to spin the leg fast to catch the time lost, and the first pain came. My left Achilles tendon started to burn, probably because my saddle broke 2 weeks before the race, had to buy a new one but i didn't paid attention to the thickness. The new one give me a higher position so I should have put a lower position to my seatpost (I completely ignored it). I never had pain there and decided to ignore it and expected the night rest will help to recover.
At the end I didn't reach the bottom of the Mont Ventoux. I was paying the time I lost the precedent day in the wind and the forest.

Before the Mont Ventoux, I checked the tracker, and I saw Sam on top, I started to calculate how far he was ahead of me, humm about 6 hours, Shit !!
Everybody have an idea about what is the mont Ventoux:

21km, average climb 7.5%

Ok, it climb, and so ? 150W on flat are still 150W on climb. It's easy or hard because of what ? The speed ! Obviously you are not going to climb Mont Ventoux at 30km/h. I prefer to think with power ! If you power out over your average for crush your personnal best on the climb while you still have more than 3000km to do, is it wort it ? I don't think.

You see ! It's flat !

Magic ! Same effort than if it would be on flat, the only things who change is the speed, so why saying it's hard ? Especially if you are on gears, you should be able to turn spin your leg, it's a really nice road, this is not a technical mud climb coming from CX.
The timing for climbing was still good, I expected the evening or the night, I have the morning. At least the sun should not burn me hard.
I switched my gear for the 19 tooth sprocket, and started to climb. The first section is quite fast, then started the middle section. Climbing on a fixed gear bike is more like going upstairs. You go on a pedal, then the other slowly. In your brain "Left", "Right", "Left", like a clock, Surprise ! I'm having a good pace, I'm not overtaken by the million guys riding there. In the hardest part I try to push as hard as possible, but I feel I'm wasting a lot of energy for riding at 5km/h, going to walk a little. Finally I get out of the forest for a martian land, rock everywhere. When I look to the top, I can see thousand of riders climbing like a horde of ants. A guy tell me "2km and we are to the top !", 2km after in my head "YOU LIED B****". I will never forget the wind, the higher you get, the stronger it is ! Even hiding being a massive guy was pointless and at every turn there is more wind waiting you.

After 21km of climb, I'm in front of the sign "Mont Ventoux", Yes ! First Check Point !

Checkpoint 1 : Sommet Mont Ventoux 1911m

Samuel 6h before me on top of Ventoux, looks fresh for me.

The legendary Mont Ventoux was done, a big part of the Alpes. I'm around 25 to be there, slowly concurrent overtook me, Sam did the climb in the early morning, 6h before as I calculated before, and he's 11.
"Climbing in early ! Insane Samuel good job !".

Now a big descent, 5km and I broke a spoke. I took it off and tighten the spoke around, With a fixed gear bike, descent are more painful than climbing, you spin leg as fast as you can, your leg rub on your saddle, and even if you decide to unclip your shoes (in my case the last shoe I could clip), all your weigh is on the saddle and your hand so it means that you have more risk to be victim of saddle sore or numb hand problems.

Pain in the hand

The road was globaly going in descent, it was nice to be able to spin the leg easily after the Ventoux. At a moment I saw a rest area, i plan you rest for 30 minutes, I couldn't stay more for sleep, prefer to ride for keeping warm. that 30 minutes rest lasted 6 hours .... It was impossible to get up and move, I was freezing dangerously, I suppose the lake (50m from me) was absorbing all the heat. Had once experienced this before in my life. It's so horrible, I get on my bike and stop in the first bakery, there i met #126 Felix Burkhardt, he told me the temperature fell under 5°C. Thanks to my survivor blanket, I could stay warm enough and survive this night, at the morning wasn't sure to continue this race.

I hate being cold....






Well, I don't give up, let's go to checkpoint 2. My Achilles tendon pain come and go. I'm at midway of the Alpes, my first goal was to pass the Alpes, if I do it, I will go to the finish.

In the Alpes you meet a lot of local rider, In the last climb before CP in the col of Montgenevre, two girls passed me at the speed of the light, they were doing a special training. Having them in "front of me was a good motivation", I had someone to "hunt", Little by little I shortened the distance, until the top where my ego helped me to overtake them "YEEEAAAHHH".

At Sestriere, a lot of bike were in front of the hotel, I validate my brevet card, and the staff told me i was 37th. One more time I'm paying for all the stop and the 6 hours sleep I had, but I'm fresh and ready for the next stage. When i see the others guys around me, a lot of them are sleeping, or look not well. I decide to take a good pizza before going on this little gravel road.

The strada del Assiesta is the kind of path where you usually take your mountain bike, and the fact, the only people who was there, where riding DH bike or 4x4. It wasn't the kind of path you take with your road bike, all the climb were as steep as the mont Ventoux, with gravel... huge rock. It was impossible for me to climb with just one foot clipped, and I know I wasn't alone to walk and push my bike, There was some road clip footprint. Things didn't change, descent were such a pain but this time it required all my concentration and mountain bike skills to control my trajectory. Each rock could produce a puncture or worst, I was still riding with one spoke missing, I didn't wanted to waste time there. At the end of the strada del Assiesta, I found maybe one of the best asphalt a ever saw. I was so happy, I climbed to the top of the col del Finestre, and there was something I couldn't expect, MORE GRAVEL, RAAAGGGGHHHH.

Strada del Assiesta: You think it's a wonderfull place to ride ? NO IT'S NOT !!

The darkness of the night was there. and I used my brake so much I started to feel cramps in the hand, more all my weight on my hand gave me pain in the palms. The only things who gave me hope was the heat rising when I approached the city of Susa.
I finally managed to get through the Alps, so happy, a deliverance of my body and my mind. A long straight and flat road to rest as a reward for getting through this sh*t.

Trying to fix my tendon ...

I will always remember the Alps as a test for me. Am I tough enough to deal with mountain with my fixed gear bike ? Everybody told me I could not, no one would bet 1cts on this, for many months I dreamed about the race,  about the Alps, about each stage, and in my head, even if I had some moment were I doubted, I never thought I couldn't do it because I use a fixed gear bike. Maybe I go slower, walk or push my bike, if I still have strength to get up, I will keep going forward.

Failure wasn't an option.

I did it. My moral was 10/10, I supported the pain through my whole body, and it was time to speed up and catch some concurrent. I knew there was 40 guys ahead of me, so I changed my mind from "get through the Alps" to "hunting mode",

13km and then ... Another spoke broke ... The condition for riding wasn't good, so I decided to get 3hours rest in a warm 24/7 bank agency. We will think tomorrow about the plan to follow.