Bike Force Triathlete’s Paul Laver and Jeremy Drake continue to excel as they take us on their journey as part of the French Triathlon Club, Ploemeur. Enjoy their updates and photos along with their skilful use of the French vocabulary.
Tuesday 22nd July 2008
Hi there
So its been a while and I suppose a fair bit has happened since we last spoke.
First off Tarryn and I went to Paris which absolutely rocked the house! I know a lot of you have been before and everyone knows what the Eiffel tower looks like so I won’t bother with all that generic crap and I’ll talk about some stuff that we reckon was unique to our trip.
First was the bike tour we did on the first night (sat). Run by an American company Fat Bike Tours, it took four hours and included a stop for Berthilion ice cream (those who've had it know what I’m talking bout!!) a river cruise and free wine!! it was four hours all up and was great fun and value plus drinking was encouraged even during this tour that saw us ride on dodgy Paris roads with no helmets which made for more fun although I was abstaining it was nice to see the other aussie tourist riding one handed using the other hand to hold a Heineken. Can’t recommend one of these tours highly enough!!
Secondly we saw the Bastille day parade where the French display their military 'might' and celebrate the last time they truly won a war…. albeit against themselves. Pretty cool parade with all the police and firemen dressed in their finery singing little ditties as they marched. The planes flying overhead were cool too.
And finally we were lucky enough to travel during 'Soldes' time which is sales like you'd never believe. I got two T's, jeans, pants and a jacket for less than 50euro!! Was great, could've spent all my cash in a few hours but we had a train to catch up to lovely brittany that arvo.
Since then I’ve been training the house down and feeling buggered from it but that’s the game. Tarryn left yesterday which sucks but next week we're going to the alps after our D2 race and have got a start in the alpe d'huez tri on Thursday week so that'll be a great change up and good training. We will be staying near the Cesson boys and have pool access every day so should make some good progress there!
I could write heaps more about paris and france in general, this place gets quirkier the longer you stay, but I may have to save it for another time as gotta be off. The pics i've attached though are from the tour and paris, and also of eating waffles at the night market, our bakery ladies and dinner with the boys before tarryn left
stay safe all
Paul Laver
Monday, 09 June 2008
Howdy
Today we picked up Mr Price, who is very tired but good to have him back! Not much has happened, with rest my foot seems to have righted itself but yet to do a hard run on it so will see Sunday!!
The week after is Bretagne team time trial champs. Ploemeur will have 2 strong teams each with four guys. Unfort they don’t want to have the top team all foreigners so our first team is not the best team we could have. At the mo looks like me Jez, Mr P and Pierre marc will be in the top team and James in team two. Basically the deal is me and Mr p and Jez will swim out front and get Pierre marc through as quick as we can, then on the bike it'll be me absolutely toasting myself as only three teams members need to cross the finish line at once. If all goes well I’ll max out on the velo and not finish the race but our 3 runners should feel rested up and ready to run for the win!! James is a faster swimmer (and runner) than Pierre marc so I would rather him in the team but the second team has a guy who has ridden the tour de France twice so they should do pretty well on the bike!
Before I go and find me some glace (ice-cream) I’ll let you know that all three of us have made a dumb French comment each so far. Hooray!!!
I was the first, in the bike shop I needed a tube which is chambrere (spelling may not be correct) I believe. I had just learnt this word in preparation and fronted up to the counter and mispronounced!!! 'je voudrais trois CHAMBRE sil vous plait'.....that’s right I just asked for three bedrooms thanks.
Jez also had his brain melt at the bike shop on a different occasion. They returned his re taped wheel to him with a polite 'voila', one would imagine that the obvious reply in this situation would be merci or merci beacoup even but no apparently you say 'bonjour'. And this from Jeremy the TEE French student and the only one of us that had lessons before coming here.
James was in the line of the local deli waiting to part with lots of euro in return for not that many sugary treats when a man, a local man, who wants to start a convo asks 'parle vous francais?' James desired to reply that he speaks a little French, 'un petit peu monsieur', but his desires were not realised and replied to this man's question with another, 'do YOU speak a little French?' The man replied with a puzzled look and 'ouais'...needless to say the conversation ended there.
Just found out Audrey Vassiliev (spelling might be a bit off the mark there) is racing against me on Sunday.....he came 8th I think at the world champs last week so may be a tough day at the office. The boys believe I should come of the water with him and suck wheel on the bike, it’s possible so I’ll give it a crack!!!
And Holland is currently beating France in the soccer....hooray!!!
Time to go ciao!! (you say ciao in Brittany apparently, and 'ci ci' like in spanish but only in certain circumstances)
Hooray Holland just scored again!!!
Paul Laver
Le domestique du Pierrelatte
Salut
Time to get a drink and strap yourselves in because i can promise this will be a big one. I know this because I wrote a draft but in spite of this fact i can also promise the spelling and grammar will still be crap so deal with it.
Our journey begins about 1630 Friday. James, Jez, David and Chris jumped into the can piloted by Greg; whilst Tarryn, myself and Pierre-Marc took up positions in a Peugot 406 owned by Yvon, the cheese, jazz and speed-limit loving club secretary.
It became instantly evident that the van would have been a better option for me given the propensity of European cars to be spatially challenged. But I said nothing and eventually my numb ass and shrinking hamstrings were put at ease with a stop for dinner at Lengeais.
A small town on the cusp of Britanny, Lengeais has the sweetest smelling air I have ever savoured. Whilst Yvon and PM dined at a local restaurant (we had a packed dinner) Tarryn and I strolled around and enjoyed the sight of the 9th century church and chateau that dominated the centre ville. The atmosphere in the perfectly still twilight (9.30pm!!!) wont be easily forgotten and i cant recommend this place enough to any prospective French travellers.
We reached our overnight stay, literrally a hotel in the middle of no where next to the autoroute, at about 11ish to discover the boys in the van didnt even stop for toilet let alone dinner but were repaid this inconvenience in the currency of knowledge. Namely a new repotoire of crude French phrases and expressions.
The next morning we set off in the same seats (as good as French lessons with Proffeseur David Dupuy sounded I opted for guarenteed toilet stops with Yvon) and found the Peugot in Vienne for lunch. Again Tarryn and I had a packed lunch so we wandered. Vienne is an old (really old) roman city and is OK but I wouldn't go out of my way to see it. It's saving grace is a stunning cathederal that has 3rd or 4th century roots but was mostly completed between the 14th and 16th centuries.
The final push south to Pierelatte was marked by thick holiday traffic, views of the Massif Central and distant glimpes of the alps. Upon arrival the weather was warm but not super hot and bloody windy. After settling in we did some bog laps of the course on our bikes. 1 lap swim in a really nice man made lake used for public bathing. 3 lap bike on crappy, narrow roads ( a really worry given intelligence on this race points to one big bike pack, thats up to 100 guys battling for position) that promised to be windy. And a two lap run on a path around the lake. After that, shower; dinner at a restaurant and bed.
Just quickly in Pierrelatte, very small and having seen ALL of it (took about 30min by bike) I can say its most endearing feature is the nuclear power plant, the moral here-leave it off you itinerary.
Race day was hot again but not as windy. The D2 girls wenyt off at 10 followed by us at 1130. No wetsuits meant the swim was really streched out and after a bit of bad luck I was left trailing a pack of 5 (including Chris) by 10sec. Our posse of 10 quickly caught up though ane were relieved to have so few on roads so narrow. My job was now to protect chris by working up front (which i did with three guys from another team, two english and one French), chasing break-aways and keeping our group in front of the 2nd group which became 60 strong by the end and only gained 20sec on us (12sec on the last lap-we got lazy) despite its size. Jez and PM were in this group and later informed us that guys were running off the road left right and centre because of the large numbers and speed. David, meanwhile, was with some other straglers trying to chase the 2nd group.
Coming off the bike into transition i'd discovered my legs were either numb or no longer attached and i knew that i'd spent all my money on the bike so to speak. Chris went on to run 5th however so my work wasn't in vain at I did my job to a tea (the 23minute run time was worth it in otherwords) Jez came in 44th, david 69th and eventually I reached the end in 76th. PM blew up on the bike trying to catch the second pack and didn't finish.
The race was very hard indicated by the amount of DNF's with people mostly pulling out on the run. Jez even say a guy collapse, foaming at the mouth (seriously!!). It wasn't really hot but you must remember that these guys are French. Even the best run times were slow with Chris running 18.02 so suddenly my 23 doesn't look so bad. Our team finished 13th, 3 places better than last time so good stuff.
After the race I drank and ate my weight in coke, oranges and sweet bread before lounging about for the rest of the afternoon. Then it was dinner and debrief at a different restaurant (which, like the first, had perfectly passable food but better service could be obtained by going to the zoo, finding some monkey's who only moments earlier were throwing their own faeces about and training them to serve food and interact with customers for approximately 2 hours) followed by a beer in a pub watching the last 15min of the euro final.
The next morning we were up early enough to be packed, fed, watered and on the road by 730 to our next stop Mt Ventoux. At 830 we set of from some town not worth remembering to the other side of the mountain then started the 21km ascent to 1910m (or 1909m, 1912m or 1903m...depending on which sign you read) I was content to go at my own pace and enjoy the climb, which I did!! smiles all the way up. the others made a games of it and finished about 6min in front but i managed to catch up jez, who was of the same mind as me and we were tracking james but ran out of mountain to make the catch. Even taking it easy is hard yakka with no flat sections or downhills for the whole 21k. In spite of my low heartrate i was soaked in sweat but this is not a supremely difficult achievment, plenty of people were there doing it, all shapes and sizes, some even on mountain bikes!!! The views near the summit, at Tom Simpson's memorial (don't know? google it) and up top were stunning. Whilst standing at the summit we were treated to a fighter jet banking around us at EYE LEVEL then hurtling down into the valley below....awesome.
Whilst it took me 1hr 30ish to get up ( the record is 55min i'm told-doping!!!!) the 21km descent down the other side lasted on 22 very crazy and often scary minutes. The can, though, took much longer and after arriving, with its brakes absolutely reeking, we packed it by 1220. Great time for lunch but chris had to be in Lyon (3hrs away) to catch a train to Amsterdam for one of his final prepatory stages before Beijing at 1526. Greg was up to the task and us four, Greg, Jez, Chris and myself left the others to lunch with yvon and made good time until we ran into a favourite French past time-manifestation.
Apparently French truckies are pissed off at the price of fuel so they all congregate on major highways and drive real slow in both directions. The line of trucks blocking our way was 8km long.
I wont go into detail aobut how we got through but i can say that it involved a lot of broken road rules, pissed off truckies and emergency lane driving. Once at the front of the convoy we passed two union cars doing about 10kph, waved an apologetic hand at them then zoomed up the autoroute which was deserted of cars until Lyon.
The madness did not stop here though as we were still behind time so with the breaking of a few hundred more road rules (culminating in driving across a pedestrial mall to park literally at the front door of the train station) we arrived at 1516. Chris was on his train with a minute or two to spare. Greg in the meantime had become a living legend by in my opinion has substantially reduced his lifespan. Later we learned that after dropping of Yvon at another train station James was treated to some more freaky french driving at the hands of PM and David who took it upon thmeselves to see how fast they could make Yvons car go on the Autoroute.
From here we went to St Etienne to stop at a supermarket for food....1700hrs, that's five hours after finishing Ventoux to get 'lunch'. I thought Jez was gonna shrivel up like that guy on Raiders of the Lost Ark. The rest of the journey home (all 9 hours of it) passed without incident and we were back in bed at 0230 tuesday.
All up a bloody good weekend and i bet you're wondering if you can see photos, well i forgot my camera so all relevant photos are on Tarryn's, Yvon's and David's but i'll get them in time. the photo attached was sent to me by Yvon and depicts me kicking ass near the front of the first pack.
Cheers for hanging in there, chat soon.
Paul Laver
Monday, 26 May 2008
Howdy!
Not much changes round here but after a week of training and recovering the weekend held a bit more interest. Friday arvo we went to the pool to have a photo with the little tackers in the club for the local paper (see club website) and after that is was off to Yvon’s for a meal. This was perhaps the most interesting part of our week, a meal consisting of lovely pasta in an alfredo sauce complete with large chunks of fois grois....I ate it (remembing the words of Mr Bowen) but I wont eat it again. But with that ordeal over it was time to take a stroll in the delightfully oppressive weather to a cafe for a local beer 'Lancelot'.
Saturday brought more rain than I have ever seen in a 24hr period but that worked for me as after our swim doing nothing was on the cards for Sunday’s race.
We awoke on Sunday morn to a miracle...sun and almost dry roads, inconceivable after sat and I was no longer afraid of dying during the bike leg of the race. So off to Laval (2.5hrs east of Lorient) with Jez driving as he wasn’t racing.
This was an olympic distance non drafting starting at 2pm (which means whenever they want here in France...today 2.30ish). Swim in a river (an actual flowing river unlike the swan which was weird), ride over a VERY VERY hilly course (two laps) and run around the river (3laps). The swim was great, water very cold and containing some objects unidentified (I didn’t want to know what they were really) and I found myself swiftly out the front by myself in familiar territory. Only problem with this is I didn’t know where to go but there was a kayaker who appeared from nowhere to lead me around.
I got out with a 10 sec lead on a bunch of Cesson and St Jean De Monts athletes (these clubs are powerhouses in D2 and had about 6 athletes each in this race) including a few aussies and a kiwi. I quickly lost my lead 2k in when a lollypop man was talking to some local and forgot to point me in the right direction so there I lost about 30 sec and SIX places, not happy Jan. that also happened to be the beginning of the climb where i continued to lose ground cursing every one of my 80kilograms. I was a lot stronger on the flats however. had a run in with an official on lap two, dunno what he said but they blow their whistles and yell at literally everyone so I hope all is good.
Got off the bike in about 12th position and ran as well as I could losing a couple of places but also gaining a few as two cesson guys blew up on account of the tough bike. there are no results yet and I didn’t hang around for pressos so don’t know places or times but based on gaps Jez was giving me I was 7min down on winner (who was top three at world long course champs last yr and can ride a bike like a freak!!) in 15th place and apparently only lost 4min on the run to the leaders which could mean a nice time for me! This also means a few euros in the pocket which is very nice!!
Pulled up a bit sore today and expect to be more so tomo but that’s what you get!!
This week take pretty easy before racing in jar sur mer on Sunday a draft legal sprint distance which shall be good practice for me.
Paul Laver
Date: Mon, 19 May 2008
First D2 race yesterday in Charleville-Mezieres right on the Belgian border. 5am in the van (crammed!!!) Sat morn and arrived at 3pm at our hotel. Unpack, then ride and run on the course. It was raining and the road for the bike was real dodgy...like really dodgy so we were praying for no rain come the race. Then shower and dinner at a restaurant where I ate some great pizza and even better pasta...so glad I wasn't paying!!!
Race morning was breaky at 9.30 then pack the van and ride to race site for warmup and prep. Weather was cold (14degrees) and looked like it could rain any moment but thank god it didn't. Water was warm but still wetsuit swim but nice and fresh!!
This comp is big with 105 in our field and teams with budgets of 50.000€ per annum. It was a worry to see an entire team walk by with matching white Look bikes all with deep dish carbon wheels...far better than our 'Commençal' bikes that have 105 gear on them but u do with what you got.
My race was extremely disappointing 93rd out of 96 finishers. Basically I was not aggressive enough in the swim and came out 50th(!!!!!!!) then just could not get on the front pack on the bike, got away from me on the big hill in the middle, then obviously run over by everyone in the run. Pretty embarrassing, especially in the swim but it was my first drafting race and first race outside of WA so I need to learn some things. Jez came 16th which was awesome and our team 16th too (out of 20).
The rest of the trip was awesome, Greg drove us through the centre of Paris, we saw everything!!!! It was the best experience and I’m real glad I wasn't driving...insane!!!! (refer pics)!
We arrived home 3am on Monday morn so hard yakka!! But good weekend apart from race and we were well looked after but Greg (club president) and Yvon (secretary).
For now I have to look at my training and will race the next 3 weekends, have one off then the following 3 to try get some form, am actually really looking forward!!!!
Paul Laver
Sunday, 11 May 2008
First off I gotta say life as a pro athlete is pretty good!!!! We train hard and sleep lots plus eat heaps of bakery delights!!!
Starting to settle in a bit now. Weather is good, only two bad days really and have felt no effects of jet lag. Everyone here is really friendly and there was a BBQ at our place on Friday night to meet everyone. You can see pics on the club. website.http://ploemeurtriathlon.blogspot.com/
France is an odd place with maniac drivers and bizarre road rules, not to mention dog crap everywhere you step even in the middle of town. But in the end I’m really enjoying it and the countryside is really really nice.
Our first race is next Sunday 18th and is will be interesting. Our club is new to this division so the manager is not putting any pressure on us and we shall just race without tactics. In saying that though its a pretty big deal here with a lot of money invested (even in D2) so were keen to race well and should be nervous enough come race day!!!
Got to go now, have the rest of the arvo off before a few more hard days then taper and a 7hr drive to race site on sat!!
Paul Laver
