We had another one of those eventful days yesterday! In between saying goodbye to Colette, Grace and Ronnie (sister and children) and welcoming new guests we had a knock at the door from a guy who is a journalist from CycloPassion – one of France’s best selling cycling magazines – who had been given our address by the office of tourism. Turns out he’s doing a feature on the Combe Laval and wanted Roger to feature in his photos. We called upon the wonderful Stephan – our neighbour, organic trout farmer and ex-cyclist to assist with a bit of translation and he got very excited. So this morning at 10am Roger and Stephan set off up the Combe Laval – by the way, its one of France’s most important engineered roads built over 100 years ago which runs through Europes biggest and probably most spectacular gorges and the wonderful thing is its on our door step. All the details not yet known but we expect to be featured in the 4 page cyclopassion feature very soon.
Glendene Junior Team Training on the Combe Laval. August 2010
The Glendene Junior Team training at Velo Vercors
Last week we had the junior Glendene boys team with us for a week of training in preparation for the Tour of Wales. Conor, Al and Paul together with their coach, Bob Downs arrived on Saturday evening with Tom Moses arriving on Tuesday after representing GB in the Junior World Championships in Italy finishing 17th.
Roger and Bob discussed the aim of the week bearing in mind that they were here to train for the forthcoming Tour of Wales at the end of August with Roger putting together a weeks programme of rides incorporating climbing and speed work.
Chris Sidwells, author and journalist then visited us on Friday to do a feature on the boys for Cycling Weekly. We took him up the spectacular Combe Lavel for the photoshoot and although a little overcast he was more than happy with the shots.
To cap it all the Boys and bob left us on Sunday morning at 5am heading for Lauwe in Belgium for a race. They blew the field apart with Conor winning and Tom coming 2nd which really sums up the success of the week.
Good luck in the Tour of Wales….
Tour de France riders 10kms from the finish
What an excellent day we all had yesterday seeing the Tour de France as it visited the Drome and Isere region. The stage was finishing in Valence, our nearest city some 40kms away, but knowing it would be very busy and the likelihood of seeing very little of the riders, we opted to see it 10kms from the end, on a little incline at Chateau-Sur-Isere. We set off with 3 of our guests, Niall, Brig and Gerard, who are all from various parts of Ireland and were about to experience the tour for the first time. Gerard’s girlfriend, Sarah didn’t fancy the long ride so our lovely Aussi friend, Elaine suggested they would drive and meet us at Romans-Sur-isere for lunch. The 40km ride from home was mainly flat with twists and turns through village back roads along the Isere Valley. Thank goodness, we had Roger as our guide and map reader as it would be very easy to get lost and end up in the middle of no where. As we road into Romans, along the Isere Valley, the sun was shining and we felt we derserved a good lunch. 2 mins behind us was Sarah and Elaine in the car, so no hassle and no crowds.
The Irish/Aussi invasion at the Tour de France
After lunch we set off for the last 14 kms to Chateau-Sur-Isere, parked the bikes up, found a spot in the shade and waited for the crowds to build and the fun to commence. 2 hours prior to the race coming through the Cavalcade consisting of 169 vehicles whizzed past us throwing various caps, key rings, food, bags and other freebies at the crowds lining the roads. Its funny how some people will risk life and limb to get a free packet of sweets!
Finally, we could see the lead car in the distance and very soon the peleton was upon us… as usual it was all a blur of colour and within a minute it was all over, but the anticipation,excitement. atmosphere and chance just to be part of the wonderful world that is the tour made it all worth it.
I’ve been doing plumbing this week on the main house. I had the help of my childhood next door neighbour, Tom Tracey of Taps and Traps. I got him down on the TGVEurostar which stops outside Valence only 35 mins away. Anyway, the news of the week was dominated by my brother emailing me to tell me that my nephew, Conor Dunne is now the UK Junior National RTTC 25 mile Time Trial Champion following in the footsteps of Chris Boardman, David Millar and Bradley Wiggins.
It reminded me of my RTTC title in the 1984 100km TTT with Anglia Sport. I think its looking good now for Conor in developing his road skills, particularly today riding with the Glendene Junior Team and under the coaching of Bob Downs. I remember Bob extremely well in my formative year of 1979 when riding as a 1st Cat and in the opening seasons road race of Folkestone-London when I got involved in the break and how when you were lucky to be in his company how hard you had to work.
We’re looking forward to welcoming Conor and 4 of his team members to Velo Vercors to do a weeks training. Hopefully Bob will be able to make it as well. Its not the first time Conor has been – I brought him over to the Vercors back in 2007 to show him my old stomping ground and he’s been coming ever since.
I can hear Teresa calling so better get back to work. Until the next time, signing off…
