Day 8 : Wet

Day 8 Ride Stats and Map

From Luxembourg to Belgium in one, not so easy, lesson. A grey overcast morning and it’s definitely going to rain at some point. Dan’s going to ride with Steve but I’m worried about spending too long in the saddle today with such a huge ride to come tomorrow, so I’m going to ride with Lenny and some of the other Betfair team.

The card doesn’t look too scary, but I think we’ve all learnt the hard way that means nothing so we’re ready for a few climbs. It starts to rain almost straight away, rain jackets go on, and Evan, Nick, Chris and I start the climb out of Steinsel, with Lenny not too far behind.

From minute one my bike doesn’t feel right – the gears aren’t working smoothly and I’m having to not use the ones I would use the most. Talking it through with Evan, it’s probably nothing serious but it’s frustrating and things like that play on your mind when you have nothing else to think about. We agree to look at it at the checkpoint. 20km with a clunky chain. Not happy.

Alan talks about “conceptualization” – where something will happen / go wrong and, because of your mental and physical state you will start to allocate blame anywhere other than to yourself, or the real cause. I can see how it can happen in a situation of heightened stress like this.

It’s hot and humid. Wearing a rain jacket in these conditions is like riding in your very own personal sauna – it’s ridiculously hot and I can feel the sweat on my bare arms on the jacket sleeve. Uncomfortable isn’t the word. We get to the top of the climb – a 12% for 2km – the tops come off. It’s either that or fade away.

The weather is raining stop and start so the only answer is to keep the jackets on and bear the heat that goes with keeping partially dry at least. The four of us ride comfortably together for the first 40km and after 2 hours we hit the checkpoint. Lenny has been behind us all morning, over taking just before the checkpoint when we’d stopped for a comfort break. He’s about to go, and asks if I’m coming. I need to fix the bike so he goes on alone. Would have been nice if he’d waited, or at least offered. I know why he didn’t, and it’s perfectly sensible not to wait when I am in a group already, but it plays on my mind.

No obvious fix to the bike so it’s a case of putting up with it. More to play on my mind. And it gets worse. The four of us set off, and the pace is far quicker than the first session. The weather worsens too – the wind has really picked up and we’re riding right into it. The rain is sheeting down across us and we’re drenched.

I can’t keep up with the pace in this wind, on the hills. Our group is now spread out – Evan is pushing on as if he’ll dissolve like the Wicked Witch of The West if he stays out any longer. Nick is 20 metres behind, trying to keep up. He does, and then falls behind again. Ad nauseum. Chris is aware that the group has splintered and is in two minds. He catches Nick, falls behind, in some kind of no mans land, and then pushes on again.

It takes all I have to catch them every now and again, and then they move away again. The weather is awful and my bike is not in good shape. I can’t understand why we aren’t all saving energy by drafting together in one group. Instead we are all working as hard as we can to keep the speed up, with no support or respite from each other, as we were trained to do.

I try my best not to let the negative thoughts get to me. I try and be positive – I spend a long time thinking through why we’re so spread out. Why it may be because I’m slower and should have gone with Lenny when offered. He’s still ahead on his own too, after all. I plan a positive way to discuss it when we all get to checkpoint two, and how best to propose we could work better together as a team for the remainder of the day. Linda, and the many people who have helped coach me over the years would have been proud of my logical, structured, well thought through approach and plan.

We past 20km in the worst conditions I’ve ridden in, for 2 hours, before we reached the lunch stop. I’d ridden it largely by myself, as had the others, although they’d managed to group together. By that time we’d also overtaken Lenny who took a good 5 minutes to arrive after I did.

Nick asks how I’m doing. Here’s my chance to put my well though through plan into action.

“F**king Rubbish to be honest! Where the F**k is our team? Lenny’s riding all on his own. Evan’s trying to get home before 3. You’re desperately trying to hold on to him. Chris is the only one aware of what’s happening and doesn’t know what to do! That was the worst 2 hours I’ve had on a bike and we’re all killing ourselves when we could be working together and saving energy ahead of tomorrow! What the F**k is going on?????”

“If you guys want to go that fast then, no problem but tell me, and I’ll ride with Lenny and go at a normal pace. Don’t let me turn down that opportunity then up the pace so much without saying you’re going to!”

Ok, so not quite what I rehearsed, but I think I made my point! :)

Evan looked like I’d just taken a gun out and shot him. Speechless. Chris saw what was coming and walked as far away as possible. Nick, ever the diplomat, said he felt the pace was fine actually. But agreed we should be saving energy for tomorrow.

Lenny caught the back end of the tirade/well thought through motivational half time team talk and found it all quite funny.

We agreed to pace ourselves more sensibly this afternoon. Evan invited me to lead off and set the pace. I did, looked round and saw no one there at all! Payback? No – just he’d been called back at the last minute, but it would have been funny if it was :)

The weather was miserable, but my mood had lifted. It’s amazing what it can do to get things off your chest. The mood of the group was probably a bit off for a while but I think it was soon forgotten as the common enemy became the elements again. And the lorries. Each one that screamed past sent a sheet of water our way as well as buffeting us with the slip stream. It was like some kind of white knuckle ride at the Water Park. Amazingly I actually found that the best part of the ride, I’m not sure why.

A comedy fall at a brief stop from the rain and my gears were now playing up even more, skipping and jumping without me touching the changers. Not helping at all as I found it hard to get the right pace to join a draft when the gears weren’t playing ball.

We reached checkpoint 3 at 120km after the worst of the rain had hit us (although we didn’t know that then. We were soaked and cold and I, personally, wasn’t sure whether to crack on or stop. Lenny decided it for me. The best plate of chips , with coffee, that I have EVER had made a huge difference. Nick, Dave and Chris carried on. Lenny, Evan and I ate heartily, and warmed a little.

A happy half hour down and time to get back out. No fun putting on wet jackets on wet skin and shirts. Sticky and clammy. Putting a soaking wet helmet back on was even worse. I rang out my gloves and about a pint of water fell from each before I could put them on again.

Paul joined us, and the four of us headed for home. The weather began to lift and so did our moods. All the wet stuff came off and we dried out as we rode the last hour home. It was like two different days – both weather wise and emotionally. We even had the joy of expecting another 8km and then finding we arrived. The cards were wrong, in our favour for once!

Without a doubt my least comfortable day. Physically no worse, but the issues with the rain and the bike, together with my tiredness clearly affected me today in ways I didn’t expect. Even planning for the worst didn’t help.

We’re staying in an army barracks, now some kind of refugee camp. Shower and wash, and then on to the bikes. I dented my drop out when I fell, and thats caused my gears to not work. Luckily Evan has the same bike as me and has a spare, so we change it over and all is good with my gears again. Another notch up on the mood-ometer. The soup and pasta take it up even further.

Over dinner the team all discuss just how good my motivational chat was. Not very! Maybe I should have stuck with the one I planned out after all. A humble apology to Evan if it came out a little negatively.

We’re all looking ahead to tomorrow now. It’s a huge day and we’re going to leave at 7am instead of 8am to give us a bit more time. So we should be back by 9pm now – result!

I’m praying to Lance, the Bike God, for no more rain or wind – we’ll need all the help we can get to make the distance tomorrow. I have no idea how I’m going to do such a distance and I think quite a few of the guys are in the same boat. Early nights all round, and left alone with our own thoughts and ways of preparing for the day to come.

And Team Betfair will be United on the road again once more I’m sure!!