Here’s the status report after two nights of racing in Zurich. Actually, I’ll take it from the top leaving Nice last Thursday. At first the trip got off to a rocky start at the bus station when a pigeon lurking in the ceiling catacombs shat on my head. It was a pretty perfect shot and I can only imagine the high-fives he would receive later. But actually it turned out that it was lucky shit because we got business class upgrades, our bikes flew free, we gorged ourselves on grapefruit juice and chocolate croissants in the business class lounge before the flight, and we got two first-row aisle seats.
The first night we stayed with one of my dad’s childhood friend who moved to Zurich after the 1956 Hungarian revolution. It took a bit of trial and error on the S-bahn to make our way there, but it was really nice staying with them, hearing their stories, being treated to meals, etc. The next day was our first night of racing, and things were a little rough around the edges for us. Dan came down really hard for our first exchange and almost took out the whole field, I rode down on the apron to avoid him then he went underneath an exchange. Nice. Then a few laps later after throwing Dan in I was riding relief in the pole lane and was just about to look over my shoulder to move up track when two guys started yelling “Whoa! Whoa!” then simultaneously plowed into me from behind. I’m not really sure what happened but my guess is they were trailed off the back of the group, weren’t watching, started their exchange, then one guy went under and the other went over. They both hit me though and we all went down. I wasn’t hurt much but both my wheels took quite a hit and my frame was dented, but everything held up surprisingly well. And really that’s fine, the other guy’s SRM was swinging from his bike like a metronome and he hobbled off the track to the medical tent so he was much worse for wear.
I got back in the race and the rest of the night was pretty much just damage control. The racing was super aggressive but not very directed, so guys were just all over the place and there were quite a few more crashes. I think at the end of the night about half the teams had hit the deck at least once. We ended up losing a lap as a result of the crash, then lost another right at the end from a missed exchange and finished low-mid pack.
After our very rough opening night we were both much more focused last night and talked through some of the problems we had previously. I also decided to not take any chances and went ahead with the full-body shave just in case that’s what was holding me back. Again there were a ton of crashes including the leaders of the race going down and one of them ending up in surgery that night to fix a torn groin muscle. We learned at breakfast this morning that he’s now back home in Belgium, so that’s another team out. Towards the end of the race we attacked a few times to try to take back a lap and got about half a lap up one point before coming back right on the sprint lap. The Czech team made a nice move and took a solo lap to move into the lead, but then their first exchange back in the field they took themselves out and almost lost it at the end. They are still in the lead but one guy has been walking around with his arm in a sling since then so that can’t be good for the exchanges.
Tonight we’re both pretty excited to go for it, we’re feeling better every day and don’t have a GC spot to defend so the plan for now is to go for an early lap and try to win the stage. Since this race is scored like a normal 6-day rather than an omnium, we’re in no way a threat to the overall and there are no points on the line until the last 40 laps, so it would in theory be silly to chase us. And there’s been so much mayhem the last few days that hopefully people will be content to just let us roll.
OH, another pleasant surprise is my Danish friend from last year in Copenhagen is back. Keven called him “the white one” because he’s albino, Dan and I call him “the friendly ghost,” but somehow in a year he has neither let the grudge go nor come up with anything new to say so whenever we’re in front him he just starts barking “fucking Americans, get out of here!” He said the exact same thing last year and even socked Keven in the hip during one of our exchanges, which was his breaking point and once Keven started fighting back the dispute ended. Last year it was unpleasant but this year it’s just funny, especially because we simply smile and greet him and he won’t so much as make eye contact.
And so continues the high-school drama of the UIV Cup. Maybe in the next post I’ll talk about the subtle hierarchies and social jostling in the post-race cafeteria.
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Small victories
It’s been a while without any postings so I’ll just cut to the meat and talk about the good stuff. I’ve been thinking of the “small victories” concept for a while since there haven’t been any moments of epiphany but in hindsight I’ve been making lots of small strides towards getting settled here.
Victory number one was figuring out social outlets in town. Nice is a bit of an odd place in that it there doesn’t seem to be much unifying culture. The longer I’m here the more it seems like just a big bunch of people who all decided to live in the same place because it’s pretty. But for the most part people mind their own business, don’t make eye contact, and aren’t too receptive to impromptu conversation—at least that which would lead to future conversations. BUT, a few weeks ago I found a weekly language exchange that has about 10-20 people from all over the world. For the first part we speak French, then the second half is whatever other language you want. It’s simultaneously a great way to learn French and meet some people who are more friendly and outgoing than the average Nicois. Between that exchange and some other creative means I’ve been able to find fun and interesting people to hang out with and help keep me from going hermit.
Along those lines, victory number two is my progress in French. Though I’m still quite a ways away from where I’d like to be, I’m at least to the point now that I can communicate only in French when in public, understand people on the phone, write emails, and in general get my point across (even if a little game of charades becomes necessary). One problem I find is that around the time I start to become comfortable with a language I try to make a transition from thinking in English and translating to a more natural method of simply thinking in the language and expecting the words to be there. I think that’s the steepest part of the learning curve, and when I’m trying to break through that crux my command of the language starts to decline. So right now I’m either really on-form and can speak somewhat naturally, or I get stumped and can barely get a word out. Most of it comes down to how tired and focused I am… but it’s a necessary stage and hopefully won’t last too much longer.
Christmas Eve was perhaps another small victory. Just about since I’ve arrived I’ve been looking around for people to spend Christmas Eve with since Thanksgiving was a solo venture. The problem is that most people either have family here or they return home to their families, and those without either option (such as myself) for some reason tend to keep their mouths shut. So come Christmas Eve I had invitations to Christmas Day and New Years celebrations, but nothing for Christmas Eve, which is typically the more significant occasion for my family.
And so came a scheme. Walking and riding around the city one thing that kept jumping out is how visible homelessness is here. In Seattle there is a significantly larger homeless community than Nice, but the homeless here seem to make no attempt to conceal themselves and indeed there are few options in that regard because the city is so densely populated and every bit of public space is frequented by the general public. There also seem to be very little in the way of shelters, soup kitchens, street newspapers, etc to help take the edge off. And so it struck me that it’s not at all difficult to find some other people in the city family-less on Christmas Eve, I was just searching too hard and not really looking.
So instead of buying gifts here and sending them home to family and friends, I decided to take that money and go buy a bunch of food at the store, make little individually wrapped Christmas dinners, then walk around town and have a bunch of little Christmas dinners with the people I’d find. The concept in my head is sort of like purchasing carbon credits to offset your emissions… so for all of you who didn’t receive something in the mail from me, this was “your gift” instead of some silly souvenir from the Riviera.
That was the idea anyway. I managed to recruit a buddy to come along, so around 8pm when all the crowds cleared out and the streets were deserted, Danish and I started our urban trek with backpacks full of food we’d just prepared. It turned out to be a lot harder than we expected. Our primary obstacle was language—not French, but rather that we didn’t find a single homeless person from western Europe. The first guy we came across was our “easiest.” His name was Jozef, who came here from Prague just a few weeks earlier with his black lab puppy Franz. He spoke only Czech, but it was so easy to communicate with body language and gestures.
Our next few attempts didn’t go too well. One guy had a dog who was just lying there when we walked up, and had ignored all the other people who’d walked by and ignored him, but when we gave some attention he started running around barking and jumping happily and wanting to play. That was fine with us, but it made a big scene and people on the street started yelling at us and the owner was all but passed out anyway, so we just had to keep walking. Most others we saw were either asleep or too inebriated to be receptive.
From then on we became a little more “selective” and had to pass some folks by. From the outset we decided to go for quality over quantity, so rather than simply walking around handing out PBJs we wanted to make some really nice meals and go sit down with people and have an actual familial exchange—which, more than the mechanical distribution of gifts, seems the real point of Christmas. But that wasn’t seeming very feasible.
Our final stop is how the evening will be remembered, I’m sure. We were walking along the Promenade des Anglais, the main drag along the sea with all the ritzy casinos and hotels, and found a group of five guys sitting in a circle talking boisterously. We walked up and asked if we could join them and they happily welcomed us, pulling up bags and boxes for us to sit on. They were all from former Soviet states—Belarus, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, etc, and spoke a mix of French, Russian, and Spanish (one guy coming most recently from Barcelona). We ended up staying for about half an hour, trying to understand their stories and give some of our own. They offered us lots of food and drinks, though interestingly didn’t touch anything we’d given them (in front of us anyway). After a while things got too intense for us because they kept getting more and more hyper, hugging us and getting up and running around, bringing back extra boxes for us to sit on, event a giant oriental rug. We were really tired at that point and kept trying to leave, but whenever we’d make those motions Alexi, the most communicative and welcoming would get really despondent and upset that we were leaving already and kept asking us why we were leaving, where we were going, and so forth.
Ultimately we just had to shake their hands, wish them well and walk away, which was a really discordant end to the evening that left both of us not too warm and fuzzy and somewhat questioning of our “tactics.” When we went into the evening we didn’t know at all what to expect, but figured we’d just put ourselves out there and give it a go. We now have a list of criteria should we try again. I think everyone was appreciative but in the end I think Danish and I were probably more affected than they were. Which is pretty much exactly what I didn’t want to happen—a kind of unbalanced, voyeuristic exchange—but perhaps it was naïve to expect otherwise.
There are of course many other stories both from Christmas Eve and the last few weeks, but I’ll leave it at that for now. Some other not insignificant side notes: I both got into law school and got a scholarship, I’m thinking of applying for a really great job through the French embassy where you teach English 12hrs a week and get paid about $1200/month, and I leave for Zurich on Thursday for a RACE. Yeah, it’s been a while, huh? I’ll be hitting the intensity hard the next few days and trying to get back in the zone since this might be the last race of the season. Speaking of which, it’s been a long one… my first race this year was January 2nd, my last will be December 30th, and in the middle have been about 115 days of racing. Dang. Hopefully I can wrap up the season with another win?
Victory number one was figuring out social outlets in town. Nice is a bit of an odd place in that it there doesn’t seem to be much unifying culture. The longer I’m here the more it seems like just a big bunch of people who all decided to live in the same place because it’s pretty. But for the most part people mind their own business, don’t make eye contact, and aren’t too receptive to impromptu conversation—at least that which would lead to future conversations. BUT, a few weeks ago I found a weekly language exchange that has about 10-20 people from all over the world. For the first part we speak French, then the second half is whatever other language you want. It’s simultaneously a great way to learn French and meet some people who are more friendly and outgoing than the average Nicois. Between that exchange and some other creative means I’ve been able to find fun and interesting people to hang out with and help keep me from going hermit.
Along those lines, victory number two is my progress in French. Though I’m still quite a ways away from where I’d like to be, I’m at least to the point now that I can communicate only in French when in public, understand people on the phone, write emails, and in general get my point across (even if a little game of charades becomes necessary). One problem I find is that around the time I start to become comfortable with a language I try to make a transition from thinking in English and translating to a more natural method of simply thinking in the language and expecting the words to be there. I think that’s the steepest part of the learning curve, and when I’m trying to break through that crux my command of the language starts to decline. So right now I’m either really on-form and can speak somewhat naturally, or I get stumped and can barely get a word out. Most of it comes down to how tired and focused I am… but it’s a necessary stage and hopefully won’t last too much longer.
Christmas Eve was perhaps another small victory. Just about since I’ve arrived I’ve been looking around for people to spend Christmas Eve with since Thanksgiving was a solo venture. The problem is that most people either have family here or they return home to their families, and those without either option (such as myself) for some reason tend to keep their mouths shut. So come Christmas Eve I had invitations to Christmas Day and New Years celebrations, but nothing for Christmas Eve, which is typically the more significant occasion for my family.
And so came a scheme. Walking and riding around the city one thing that kept jumping out is how visible homelessness is here. In Seattle there is a significantly larger homeless community than Nice, but the homeless here seem to make no attempt to conceal themselves and indeed there are few options in that regard because the city is so densely populated and every bit of public space is frequented by the general public. There also seem to be very little in the way of shelters, soup kitchens, street newspapers, etc to help take the edge off. And so it struck me that it’s not at all difficult to find some other people in the city family-less on Christmas Eve, I was just searching too hard and not really looking.
So instead of buying gifts here and sending them home to family and friends, I decided to take that money and go buy a bunch of food at the store, make little individually wrapped Christmas dinners, then walk around town and have a bunch of little Christmas dinners with the people I’d find. The concept in my head is sort of like purchasing carbon credits to offset your emissions… so for all of you who didn’t receive something in the mail from me, this was “your gift” instead of some silly souvenir from the Riviera.
That was the idea anyway. I managed to recruit a buddy to come along, so around 8pm when all the crowds cleared out and the streets were deserted, Danish and I started our urban trek with backpacks full of food we’d just prepared. It turned out to be a lot harder than we expected. Our primary obstacle was language—not French, but rather that we didn’t find a single homeless person from western Europe. The first guy we came across was our “easiest.” His name was Jozef, who came here from Prague just a few weeks earlier with his black lab puppy Franz. He spoke only Czech, but it was so easy to communicate with body language and gestures.
Our next few attempts didn’t go too well. One guy had a dog who was just lying there when we walked up, and had ignored all the other people who’d walked by and ignored him, but when we gave some attention he started running around barking and jumping happily and wanting to play. That was fine with us, but it made a big scene and people on the street started yelling at us and the owner was all but passed out anyway, so we just had to keep walking. Most others we saw were either asleep or too inebriated to be receptive.
From then on we became a little more “selective” and had to pass some folks by. From the outset we decided to go for quality over quantity, so rather than simply walking around handing out PBJs we wanted to make some really nice meals and go sit down with people and have an actual familial exchange—which, more than the mechanical distribution of gifts, seems the real point of Christmas. But that wasn’t seeming very feasible.
Our final stop is how the evening will be remembered, I’m sure. We were walking along the Promenade des Anglais, the main drag along the sea with all the ritzy casinos and hotels, and found a group of five guys sitting in a circle talking boisterously. We walked up and asked if we could join them and they happily welcomed us, pulling up bags and boxes for us to sit on. They were all from former Soviet states—Belarus, Lithuania, Kyrgyzstan, etc, and spoke a mix of French, Russian, and Spanish (one guy coming most recently from Barcelona). We ended up staying for about half an hour, trying to understand their stories and give some of our own. They offered us lots of food and drinks, though interestingly didn’t touch anything we’d given them (in front of us anyway). After a while things got too intense for us because they kept getting more and more hyper, hugging us and getting up and running around, bringing back extra boxes for us to sit on, event a giant oriental rug. We were really tired at that point and kept trying to leave, but whenever we’d make those motions Alexi, the most communicative and welcoming would get really despondent and upset that we were leaving already and kept asking us why we were leaving, where we were going, and so forth.
Ultimately we just had to shake their hands, wish them well and walk away, which was a really discordant end to the evening that left both of us not too warm and fuzzy and somewhat questioning of our “tactics.” When we went into the evening we didn’t know at all what to expect, but figured we’d just put ourselves out there and give it a go. We now have a list of criteria should we try again. I think everyone was appreciative but in the end I think Danish and I were probably more affected than they were. Which is pretty much exactly what I didn’t want to happen—a kind of unbalanced, voyeuristic exchange—but perhaps it was naïve to expect otherwise.
There are of course many other stories both from Christmas Eve and the last few weeks, but I’ll leave it at that for now. Some other not insignificant side notes: I both got into law school and got a scholarship, I’m thinking of applying for a really great job through the French embassy where you teach English 12hrs a week and get paid about $1200/month, and I leave for Zurich on Thursday for a RACE. Yeah, it’s been a while, huh? I’ll be hitting the intensity hard the next few days and trying to get back in the zone since this might be the last race of the season. Speaking of which, it’s been a long one… my first race this year was January 2nd, my last will be December 30th, and in the middle have been about 115 days of racing. Dang. Hopefully I can wrap up the season with another win?
Monday, December 10, 2007
Problem: solved
Water has been a problem on my rides. I currently have plotted out all the public fountains (aka. drinking fountains) within a three hour ride of Nice, and with just one bottle stuffed into my back pocket I generally have to stop at all [three] of them whenever I go by. The bigger problem is that when descending my bottle bounces around in my jersey like a little kid whose pony escaped the riding circle and is at full gallop through the hay field.
Well necessity is the mother of invention, and so I introduce to you my newly fashioned Water Retention System. Alone, the components look like a cheap plastic bottle cage, a wine cork, and a handful of zip ties. But like any great team the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and these parts work together with such harmony that it was difficult to ride today for wanting to look down to admire the poetry taking place on my down tube. It’s like a symphony, or a marriage even… neither of which I have been part of, but if they work as well as my Water Retention System, they aren’t as tough as everyone thinks.
Saturday, December 8, 2007
BAM!
If there were a sound effect for my ride today that would be it. I think I also might have heard my knees make that noise at least once… I finally figured out why everyone says the riding along the coast isn’t very good. It’s actually not a reflection of those roads, but of how incredible the riding is in the mountains to the north. I think today might be deserve the title of the nicest ride I’ve ever been on.
I was shooting for a solid 5 hours with tempo climbing, and made a nice playlist for the ride of some old school favorites like Grandmaster Flash, Biggie, and Talib Kweli. It was about 5hrs straight of music and the idea was I couldn’t go home until it was over. It takes about 15min to get out of town going north, but when you’re out you’re definitely OUT. The climbing begins a few km’s after that, and lasts 25km to the Col de Levens, which is only about 600m (1970ft) high but of course you’re coming from about as sea level as it gets. That was a nice climb, very steady highway grade in the sun. After that is a long twisty descent for about 15km, which was GNARLY and super cold. All the north-facing hills were a solid 10 degrees colder than their south-facing colleagues. There was also a big temperature inversion, so the valleys had ice on the sides of the roads (which are salted) and my hands and feet went totally numb, but on all the Cols I was nice and toasty.
The descent takes you all the way down to about 200m (650ft) at the north-most point of the ride, just shy of a town called Roqubilliere. At that point you turn onto a one-lane road and begin the hardest part of the ride, the climb to the Col de Turini. It’s a switchbacking ascent of 17km, and the summit is 1767m (5800ft). That comes out to just over a 9% average grade for those who slept through math class. The first half I was happy to be getting warm again, the second half I was perhaps less happy about the whole thing but occupied by the incredible road. The road skirts a deep canyon, and at times the road is just etched into the side of a rock face and as you ride you can look over the edge to the floor a few thousand feet below.
That climb seemed to take forever, and I saw maybe three cars the whole time since there’s not much going on up there. The descent to town starts almost immediately, and was even better than the last. From Turini it’s about 50km back home, and except for a brief climb over the Col de Nice about halfway, it’s downhill the whole way. The first 20km or so are all one-lane, super-twisty with switchbacks and cliffs and such. I really wanted a road bike at that point to rail it, but it’s probably for the best I didn’t have one because I probably would have ridden off a cliff going to fast and giggling.
In all, a track bike is far from ideal for jaunts through the Pyrenees, but today I think I really nailed the fixie descending technique. It’s a lot better with switchbacks because you only get up to about 35mph on the straights no matter what bike you have. With just a front brake, the key is to let it rip on the straight-aways and spin your legs out (in the gear I’m riding that’s about 180rpm), then jam HARD on the brake before the hairpins but modulate it so that you’re doing a rolling stopie and the rear wheel lifts just a bit so you can skip into the turn, and right before the apex let the rear float around to the outside to reduce the radius. Then voila, let off the brakes, drop the rear wheel back down, pedal through the turn, let yourself just roll back up to speed, and repeat about 500m later at the next turn. I should say though, there’s no pain quite like 180rpm after a few hours of climbing a 50rpm.
My playlist was just shy of ending, but when I got back to Nice I’d ridden 4:45 and it was 19C (66F) in the shade so after lunch I went to the beach for a nap then read until the sun set. Tomorrow it’s Saint Tropez or bust… I mean, the mountains are great, but a guy’s gotta get a tan.
I was shooting for a solid 5 hours with tempo climbing, and made a nice playlist for the ride of some old school favorites like Grandmaster Flash, Biggie, and Talib Kweli. It was about 5hrs straight of music and the idea was I couldn’t go home until it was over. It takes about 15min to get out of town going north, but when you’re out you’re definitely OUT. The climbing begins a few km’s after that, and lasts 25km to the Col de Levens, which is only about 600m (1970ft) high but of course you’re coming from about as sea level as it gets. That was a nice climb, very steady highway grade in the sun. After that is a long twisty descent for about 15km, which was GNARLY and super cold. All the north-facing hills were a solid 10 degrees colder than their south-facing colleagues. There was also a big temperature inversion, so the valleys had ice on the sides of the roads (which are salted) and my hands and feet went totally numb, but on all the Cols I was nice and toasty.
The descent takes you all the way down to about 200m (650ft) at the north-most point of the ride, just shy of a town called Roqubilliere. At that point you turn onto a one-lane road and begin the hardest part of the ride, the climb to the Col de Turini. It’s a switchbacking ascent of 17km, and the summit is 1767m (5800ft). That comes out to just over a 9% average grade for those who slept through math class. The first half I was happy to be getting warm again, the second half I was perhaps less happy about the whole thing but occupied by the incredible road. The road skirts a deep canyon, and at times the road is just etched into the side of a rock face and as you ride you can look over the edge to the floor a few thousand feet below.
That climb seemed to take forever, and I saw maybe three cars the whole time since there’s not much going on up there. The descent to town starts almost immediately, and was even better than the last. From Turini it’s about 50km back home, and except for a brief climb over the Col de Nice about halfway, it’s downhill the whole way. The first 20km or so are all one-lane, super-twisty with switchbacks and cliffs and such. I really wanted a road bike at that point to rail it, but it’s probably for the best I didn’t have one because I probably would have ridden off a cliff going to fast and giggling.
In all, a track bike is far from ideal for jaunts through the Pyrenees, but today I think I really nailed the fixie descending technique. It’s a lot better with switchbacks because you only get up to about 35mph on the straights no matter what bike you have. With just a front brake, the key is to let it rip on the straight-aways and spin your legs out (in the gear I’m riding that’s about 180rpm), then jam HARD on the brake before the hairpins but modulate it so that you’re doing a rolling stopie and the rear wheel lifts just a bit so you can skip into the turn, and right before the apex let the rear float around to the outside to reduce the radius. Then voila, let off the brakes, drop the rear wheel back down, pedal through the turn, let yourself just roll back up to speed, and repeat about 500m later at the next turn. I should say though, there’s no pain quite like 180rpm after a few hours of climbing a 50rpm.
My playlist was just shy of ending, but when I got back to Nice I’d ridden 4:45 and it was 19C (66F) in the shade so after lunch I went to the beach for a nap then read until the sun set. Tomorrow it’s Saint Tropez or bust… I mean, the mountains are great, but a guy’s gotta get a tan.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Updates!
Got some new pics in from Munich, as well some photos of Nice and the debut of video number 3 below.
Second video... at long last
It's been a while since I've updated anything, but I can assure you it's for reasons other than laziness or lack of want. I finished this video a few weeks ago but haven't been able to upload it, but here it is now for your viewing pleasure. All the pictures are new, the red jerseys are from Munich and the green are new pics from Dortmund. I just today found a few new photos from Geneva, so I'll put those up in the coming days.
Riding has been really good, I've found some great rides including to San Remo (like Milan-San Remo), Saint Tropez (clandestine wedding site of Kid Rock and Pamela Anderson, among others), and the Col d' Eze, a 20km climb just outside of town with views of the ocean and mountains the whole way. The rest of my time has been occupied with learning French and running about with buddies here. I also finished my first book in French, Le Vieil Homme et le Mer, and started on a collection of short stories by Stephen King in French. BUT, somehow I didn't know that he writes scary stories and the one I'm reading now is about one of those mechanical monkeys that plays the cymbals and goes crazy kind of like Chucky. So I think I'm going to put that on hold and work on a Jack Kerouac book called Satori in Paris.
I'm already starting to get a bick sick of the fixie, but have some tricks to make it better. Mostly it's descending that gets old, because along with the 20km climb is an amazing, twisty 20km descent that I would love to drill a bit. But it's tough to take corners at 150rpm. There are lots of pro tour riders I've seen in this area, so far from Astana, FDJ, Saunier-Duval, and Cofidis, and quite a few other guys on smaller teams. I still haven't hooked up with any local cyclists to ride with, but I'm really enjoying exploring at my own pace so it's not a problem. Perhaps after seeing the same people a few times we'll start riding together though...
Not much to report on the racing front, I'm just getting ready for Zurich and trying to get invites to other events but without a partner I'm starting to think more about the road season. I actually just had a sudden burst of motivation and am look forward to training this winter... especially since I'll be in shorts most of the time... suckers!
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