Sunday, April 30 2006, Cortina d'Ampezzo Hello from snowy Italy, yes, we woke up this morning to a snow covered view, not really what we want when we were planning to go over climbs that are over 2,000 meters high, it should be an interesting day. I am down here in Italy with Tom Danielson looking at all the climbs that come in the last week of this year's Giro, it's been a lot of work, because there are a lot of them, in fact its nigh on crazy. Yesterday we went to look at the finish on Plan de Corones.You can see from the pictures that they are still building the road, if that's what you could call it, it is really bad, we are going to use 33-28. It will be interesting to see how they manage to get up it, not so much the leaders, it's the rest of the peloton that I am worried about. The stage is only 130 kms long, it also climbs the 30km long Passo di Erbe, that means that the non climbers are really going to suffer big time if they want to get to the finish inside the time limit. Mind you the Giro is not the Tour, and pushing riders is rife, plus hanging on cars, motorbikes, in fact anything that is going faster than themselves. Tom is really excited by all this, and is looking forward to it all going off in that last week. He can climb fast, really fast, it's amazing to watch him when I am following in the car. I will give you an example, stage 16 finishes just outside Trento on top of an 17.6 km climb, the Monte Bondone. The average gradient for the climb is 7.7%. There is an altitude gain of around 1,300 meters. In training riding at around 170 beats per minute which for him is a medium tempo he got up it in one hour dead. I rode it early in the morning, using the 39x27 virtually the whole way and did the climb in one hour and eighteen minutes. That was with an average power output of 294 watts. OK, I am not the world's best climber as David Duffield would say but it does give you an idea of what these climbers are capable of. Before I left I had a couple of races, the East Sussex CA 10 where I recorded a personal worst of 22.03 for 4th place, not good let me tell you. The truth is I was still really suffering from the injury I got while playing football the week before, in fact I am still suffering a bit, plus I had a cold which is still also hanging around. You see, I am human after all. On the Sunday me and my brother rode the Sydenham Wheelers '25' on a tandem that we had put together. The frame was lent to us by Vic Haines, ex tandem maestro, I broke the tandem 30 record with him on the same bike in 1998. Anyway it turned out to be quite fun, even though the course was not ideal for tandems, a bit lumpy, and we managed to drop the chain which meant we lost a bit of time because we had to stop. We did a long 51, the winner of the solo event did a 54 so I think we did ok. The 64 ring is now on order ready for some fast rides, in fact I think I am going to persuade The Hutch to get on the back so we can have a go at that 25 record. OK, I had better get down the shop to buy some snow chains then. I will let you know how we get on. One last thing - I'm afraid I'm fully booked this summer for day rides and as this is the first year that I've tried anything like this I'm not sure how far into the autumn we can go. If you want to ride with me this year by all means drop me a line but you might need to be flexible re the ride format as we go into the shorter days and dodgier weather. 21 April, Forest Row I had a great time on Good Friday up at Herne Hill for the annual track meeting, although when we turned up it looked as if the meeting would be called off, the one day when it was not supposed to rain it was, and we have a hose pipe ban in the South East, typical. But, mid afternoon it cleared up, which was good news for all concerned, and on to the track we went. It was a couple of years ago that I last rode the track, it is something that I love doing, but although Herne Hill is not that far away for me with the traffic we have these days it is just too much aggro to get up there on a regular basis, the problem is that when you don't ride once in a while you really feel it, and I certainly did, because although I consider myself to be reasonably fit, when it comes to pedalling what I would call those small gears I have real problems. However, it did not stop me from enjoying myself. I also had a chance to meet up with a few old friends, including Malcom Elliott, now there is a fit guy, he looked the picture of health, and was riding really well, winning the last event, the Golden Wheel, amazing. I knew that he had been training hard because Tom Danielson had emailed me from Majorca to say that he had been riding with Malcom, and that he was flying. Tom himself is not doing too bad either, yesterday he finished second in the TT at the Tour of Georgia, just four seconds behind Floyd Landis and in front of Dave Z, that is the ride of his life so far I think. I will have plenty of chances to quiz him on it next week when I spend eight days training with him down in Italy, in preparation for the Giro. I will send my next report from there. Oh, I forgot about the rest of the weekend. On the Saturday we had a crunch match, the we being Nutley FC 2nds. We had to win if we wanted to stay up in division four. For the first time in two seasons it was actually raining for the match, that gives you an indication of what the weather has been like here in the South East, where we have a hose pipe ban, normally I am cursing the sun as it gets in my eyes. Anyway, to cut a long story short we lost, 5-3, disaster, plus, I got injured, it was a 50-50 ball and I got it, but not without taking the full weight of the opposing team's attacker in my side. My arm is now a strange colour, a mix between blue and yellow, and my ribs took a bit of a caning to. Consequently I was not in a fit state to ride the Brighton mitre hilly 25 on the Bank Holiday Monday, or the match which I was down to play directly afterwards, this one they lost 8-1. Division five it is then. I am fed up with this losing lark and have requested a free transfer to the Gunners. Tomorrow I am riding a 10, and on Sunday I am riding a Tandem with my brother Chris, we went for a try-out today, bit wobbly, see how we go. Watch this space. Friday April 14, Forest Row Its been a while. The last time I wrote I was down in the Basque country for their Tour, I remember on my report I said that Contador of Liberty had the jersey after the second stage. Not sure why I said that, it was in fact Samuel Sanchez of the Euskaltel team that took the jersey. He in fact won the next stage as well, which finished on top of a wickedly steep little climb. His team controlled the race for the next two days so that he held on to the lead. The last day was a tough TT were everything was turned upside down. The favourite in everybody's eyes was Contador, an excellent TT rider. But it was not to be his day, maybe Sainz screaming in his ear did not agree with him. The winner was Gomez Marchante from the Saunier Duval team, he had shown his strength on several occasions during the week by attacking on the climbs, but no one expected him to turn in such a great TT. To be fair I think the wind did get up a fair bit for the last riders which I think played a part. Although I know that Marchante was in San Diego with Dave Millar and Simoni at the wind tunnel, maybe that's the answer. The Discovery boys did OK, with Jose the 'Ace' Azevedo scraping into the top ten overall despite feeling pretty ill on the last day. Janez Brajkovic was our best in the TT with a sixth place finish. So, another race down, on to the next. Paris-Roubaix, 1,000 km away. Me and Craig the mechanic hopped into the car and away we went. Eight hours or so later we rolled into Compiegne. We did have an extra passenger, that was Johan the Boss, he joined us at Bilboa, after a mix up on the ticket front meant he had to settle for second best, a ride chez Yates. Four hours sleep and we were ready for the Big one. As we all know the signs were good coming into the race, second and third at Flanders, winning the 3 Days of De Panne etc. So naturally everybody is fired up. Me and Craig were set to just cover six sections of pave, with other members of the team covering the rest, we also aimed to hand up a few bidons. All that went smoothly, as did the race up until a certain point, I can't remember exactly. it was on a section just after one that we had been on. There were three from out team in the first group, Boonen was on his own, when George's fork steerer broke, and that was it, over and out, we were gutted. Boonen immediately put the hammer down, not exactly sporting, but that's life. This split the group with our remaining two in the second half, they had hesitated a second when George had come down and had been caught out. But they made it back. Da Goose as I call him was on a good ride, and after a bit of a spill took off. Only to be caught by Cancellara who was on one of those days. He had already shown that he was on song by pulling virtually the whole length of the Arenburg Forest. With just one bad section to go it looked like it would be a two-up sprint at the velodrome at Roubaix, But Cancellara had other ideas and blasted Goose away, too bad. That was it. Hoste was free to attack behind which he did, dropping Boonen, and the result was there for all to see. Cancellara was clearly the strongest on the day and deserved the win, whether it would have been like that if George had not had his problem we shall never know. As for what happened after the race finished, the less said about that the better. The day was not over though, coming back home at three am I was caught up in a snowstorm, it was unreal, nobody about, just five inches of snow and a Discovery car. As you can imagine I was in need of a few hours sleep after that episode. Because on Tuesday I was off down to Basingstoke to meet Alastair Jack for a day ride. The legs were a bit ropey to say the least, but I survived and we had a good day, the weather just about being kind to us. I will have ridden the Good Friday meeting by the time you read this. I first rode there in 1979, and I always try and make the trip, it always brings out the faces of the past. Got a couple of footie matches as well as a TT on Monday, busy. I will let you know the results, will it be Division 5 next year? Fingers crossed. April 3, Tour of the Basque Country Hi all. I am writing today's entry down in sunny Spain. I am here at the Vuelta al Pais Vasco, today was the second stage, it was a day when I was really glad that I was not a pro bike rider any more, not one metre of flat, up down left right, nightmare. The stage was won by Samuel Sanchez from the local Euskaltel-Euskadi team, who after a rough couple of years seem to be back on track, although Iban Mayo is still just a shadow of his former self. Sanchez and Alberto Contador from Liberty just held off the remnants of the bunch and a flying Valverde after having made a very late attack. Valverde was the winner of yesterday's stage which was a bunch gallop, so with the bonuses he is still the race leader. The weather has been great, 28 degrees today, although the forecast for the upcoming days is pretty bad, which is about par for this race. The Discovery boys are hanging in there, with Jose Acevedo our best rider at the moment in 11th place overall. I arrived here yesterday morning after an all night drive from England, where on Sunday morning I rode a three-up TT on the A3 with my brother Chris and former multiple 25 mile champ Eddy Atkins. As I said in my last entry Eddy used to be my hero, he was the King when I first started racing, and I had pictures of him on my wall. At 57 years of age he is still in fantastic shape, and his class really showed on the day. He did not miss one turn - awesome as the yanks would say. My brother also rode really well. Together we knocked out a 51.33 on a far from ideal day, that was enough to take the top prize, fastest on the day, and the handicap prize, with a plus of 18 minutes something. I felt pretty good, and my power metre confirmed that, so things are looking up. I know I need to improve my top end, and am intending to do more specific training from now on. That result and the boys' ride in Flanders made for a good weekend. Boonen once again showed that he is a class above everybody else, and that unless he falls off it is going to be pretty tough to beat him next weekend in Paris-Roubaix, but we will try, that's for sure. OK, till next time. Sean Back

 

Professional cyclist for 15 years
12 Tours de France
Tour de France yellow jersey
Tour de France stage winner
Fifth in Paris-Roubaix
Tour of Belgium winner
UK pro road race champion
UK 25 and 50-mile TT champion