SB Nation User Blog: Albertina

Bennati injured again...but starting

Albertina — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:39:59 -0000

Bennati injured again...but starting

Is anyone more injury prone?!

Apparently he's starting but may not figure in too many finishes for the moment....

A little race report: Tour Series Finale, Southend

Albertina — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 19:51:09 -0000

Last night saw the final round of the Tour Series, a ten round extravaganza of the best in British racing. 50 riders from 10 teams drove the length and breadth of the land to compete in a series of town centre crits, culminating in a showdown on the seafront in Southend (which conveniently is about half an hour down the rail line from my house). The Tour Series is a team competition, in which each team of five must attempt to place their top three finishers as highly as possible to win maximum points in each round, a format which has led to some highly tactical and enthralling racing. Three teams had emerged at the head of the pack as we enetered the final rounds; Halfords Bikehut, containing some well known trackies, CandiTV-Marshalls Pasta, twitchy and sprinter strong, and the suave attackers in black, Rapha Condor. On the night, one point separated these three; the winner would therefore take it all.

Having absconded (with permission!) from work at the blissfully early hour of 3pm, I headed to the seaside early, with my camera but without my suncream. It was rather sunny. My tanlines look quite odd now. These races are pretty fan friendly, with a pit area fully accessible. First stop, the Rapha Condor car to photograph some bling:

I marvelled at Chris Newton's power on the rollers:

Next door were the CandiTV crew, including former national champ and current Premier Calendar champ Russell Downing, always a chirpy chappie both on the bike and off. As I attempted to take his picture he began to walk away but when I emitted a despairing squeak, he turned back and posed for me. Thank you Russ :-)

I might also point out that they ride pink and white Pinarello Princes. Are you looking Jimbo? Sadly they wouldn't let me take one away as a souvenir....

The third big team, Halfords, were warming up with intent. Here is Rob Hayles, sporting the backwards casquette with some aplomb:

Ed Clancy was chatty and relaxed:

Only BMC UK had provided a shady canopy for their troops on the sun drenched esplanade:

Sport Beans always look bright....

A puzzle for you: what is that thing under his rear?!

And more Rapha bike porn, because I feel like it....

And so on to the action. I positioned myself on what was imaginitively titled 'Pier Bend', it being just at the top of The World's Longest Pier, and readied myself to cheer Rapha Condor to victory. Or so I hoped. Apologies if this becomes a rather Rapha-centric report from now on! The circuit was flat flat flat and consisted of two long straights connected by two sharp bends. This was a course which would undoubtedly suit the big pursuiter types (read Halfords) and Rapha's best chance was to break the race up and make it as tough as possible, out-positioning Halfords and attempting to nullify CandiTV's fast men.

The early laps were cagey as the top teams joined each other in a succession of attempted breaks, only to be pulled back on each occasion. Rapha did their job and attacked at every turn, with Tom Southam, Chris Newton and Kristian House,with whom I had had a nice chat earlier, all looking strong and alert. House, known to some as The House of Pain (!) eventually attacked alone and built up a sizeable advantage, but the rival teams were not in a mood to risk a breakway winner shovelling up too many points, and he was brought back. After more attempts at breaking the pack from all quarters, a group of ten slipped off the front to form the winning move, containing two riders from each of the three top teams. Much cat and mouse carry on ensued as everyone looked at everyone else before Wouter Sybrandy, the Dutch rider from Sigma Sport made a lone bid for glory. His gallant effort was cut agonisigly short by the charge to the line from behind, which was taken by Rob Hayles ahead of Malcolm Elliot, with Sybrandy third. Halfords, victorious on the night, took the overall spoils too, by one point from CandiTV. Rapha Condor, who threw the kitchen sink at the field, were third. Tactics worked against them in the final analysis; it was not their circuit and not their night. I left disappointed in the result but it was a great night of racing to cap off a great series. It was fitting that it came right down to the wire, or precisely, the rim of a Halfords wheel.

A humble little report from the Smithfield Nocturne

Albertina — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:22:51 -0000

[Update: Moved to the front page because PodiumCafe heartily approves of reports of domestic pro racing from around the world.]

On Saturday evening, after a nice long ride through the wilds of south Essex, my friend and I high tailed it into London for the Smithfield Nocturne, an elite criterium around the perimeter of Smithfield market (which sells meat) in the City. It featured several well known names in its field of 60, including trackies Rob Hayles and Ed Clancy, national crit champion Dean Downing and Katusha's Ben Swift, (also of Team Red Shorts ;) who proved very popular. All the top domestic teams were in attendance, including the ever suave Rapha Condor, Halfords, Candi TV (on Pinarello Princes in white and pink :O~......) and Plowman Craven.

Before the pros had their turn, there was an amateur support race, which was blitzed by local team London Dynamo. I must say I was very impressed by the turn of speed winner Cam Austin deployed to crack his breakaway partner. Chapeau to him. Here is a photo (none of the photos are great owing to my small and ineffective camera, which is bad in the dark and with moving objects...).

CIMG3345 (via Albertina2008)

There was also a women's race, the watching of which made me feel pretty inadequate. As a point of interest, one of the competitors in this was none other than our sometime contributor Rebecca from ctv. If you're reading this Rebecca, the crazy people shouting for you about 20 metres past the start-finish line were my friend and me.

And so we came to the folding bike race. Hilarious. Competitors, who are supposed to wear office attire, do a le mans start, running to their bikes and unfolding them before setting off on five laps of the course. Some of them were scarily fast actually, but some, like this gentleman, took things at a rather more relaxed pace...

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The meat of the evening came at the end, after further capers such as a fixie 'longest skid' contest (several wipeouts here) and a inter-city firm relay challenge. My photos of the main event are all speed blurs. The average speed must have been whopping as they went totally hell for leather for an hour plus five laps. There were various breakaway attempts, notably by Ben Swift and also Dean Downing, who is on fire at the moment in the Tour Series that's taking place across the UK at the moment. Rapha were also very active with Kristian House, who was fairly prominent in the Tour of Britain last year, and others looking very frisky. Ultimately though, it came down to a sprint from a whittled down pack, which was won by Russell Downing, Dean's brother, ahead of Tony Gibb and Ben Swift.

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I managed to get to the front at the podium ceremony through some skilful elbow deployment. My closeness did mean I got totally drenched in champagne but at least I could finally get some half decent piccies! Geraint Thomas of Barloworld (who won last year) was on hand to present the prizes:

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Grrr, why won't this bottle open?!

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All in all, this was enormously good fun, but I might add the weather was FREEZING! June in Britain...so not nice.

Giro (minus Benna) Hottitude Thread

Albertina — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 21:26:15 -0000

Dear readers, today the ladies of Podium Cafe are dressed in black. We are wailing in unquenchable misery. We have run out of tissues. Our over-used hankies are in the wash. We have red eyes and red noses. We are wondering how we will face the month of May. The uninitiated might question our mourning, for the Giro is nearly upon us, and what can be better than bikes, sun, mountains, fashion, wine and gnocchi? But today we heard a piece of news so distressing that our worlds stood still: Benna, that paragon of hottitude, is, baring a miracle, out of the Giro. We hope that our PdC group prayer sessions may result in this miracle, and yes majope, laying on of hands is in this case imperative. But we are not optimistic.

So, what are we to do? Shut ourselves away in our distress and wish it was June already? No! For there is more hottitude out there! We will find it! We will strive unceasingly until it is uncovered! We will overcome! A thorough examination of the start list, and the contents thereof, has been mooted. I will begin. Someone has to.

Now the startlist we have presently is not all that complete, but we will try. Please add more, and more!

I give you Signor Eros Capecchi. With hair gel like this he really should be at Leaky still, but he's gone off to Fuji-Servetto:

via www.uciprotour.com

And of course, at Leaky, well, how could we forget?

via cache.daylife.com

Ignore the hair (ie lack thereof) and look at the eyelashes.....

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There's lil' Tommy Voeckler, who is certainly beloved of French housewives:

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J-Rod, anyone?

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"Killer" charm?

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This chap won't mind Benna's absence...

via ridemybicycle.myblog.it

Dario Cataldo (left) has some promise, no?

via www.wielernieuws.be

We like Thomas Lovkvist:

via www.cyclismactu.net

Filippo "legend in his own mirror" Pozzato (quote courtesy of Filippo Simeoni)

via www.pedalmag.com

I feel certain there's more undiscovered talent out there. It is your mission to find it!

Albertina's post Paris-Roubaix sojourn into Flanders

Albertina — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 11:45:19 -0000

I'm not trying to induce more jealousy, really I'm not, but I feel compelled to share with you all my experience of cycling in Belgium. If anyone ever tries to tell me that Belgium is the most boring country in the world ever again, there will be hell to pay for the poor soul; Belgium is paradise, utopia, Heaven on Earth. Everywhere you look there are cyclists, on their own, in big groups, serious ones, recreational ones, and they are all so friendly! We stopped at a cafe and everyone in it was wearing lycra. There is bike porn at every turn. The general public actually know about more than just the Tour de France! Even the old grannies in the hotel lift went all giggly at the mention of Tom Boonen. And, they have CYCLE LANES! Like, proper ones, miles away from the road, and when you have to cross a road, cars give way to you! As a Londoner, this is the most amazing thing I have experienced all year! I'm sold. I want to move to Oudenaarde. Like, now.

But before the cycling could begin, there was Podium Cafe socialising to be done. Enter CycleGirl! There was food, there was wine, and there was gossip. Seriously, what could be better?

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The following morning, off we went to an innocuous little village called Melden. Here it is. But you see that thing in the background, that big hill? That is called the Koppenberg. You may have heard of it.

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Surely this thing can't be hard? I mean, it's only, what, 22%, on frickin' cobbles!!

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My (male) friend made it up at the second attempt:

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I made it up too. On foot. I felt fine for a while, and was rather impressed with myself, and then, l'ouch. Stupid gradient+cobbles=nemesis. And once you stop, you really really cannot get going again. Here I am reaching the top. It even looks as if I'm cycling!

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I was a little depressed that it beat me, but next year I'll be back and I'll do it if it kills me! Coming down the other side was much more fun :-)

We then headed into Oudenaarde, or the edge of it at any rate, and stopped for some tea (did I mention that we come from England?). A friendly cyclist, one of the many, took our picture. I apologise for the black socks. I accidentally didn't take enough white ones.....

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We then found this lovely cycle path which went on for miles and miles and miles:

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Who is this Tom Boonen character of whom the locals speak?

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As we know, all good things must come to an end. We had a train to catch and had to kiss goodbye to Utopia. We packed up with heavy hearts and went home.

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And so, here I am sitting at my desk. I feel lethargic. I don't want to be here. I think I might have left my heart, and my brain, in Oudenaarde.......

Albertina does Paris-Roubaix: Carrefour de l'Arbre

Albertina — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 21:49:07 -0000

Dear readers, you left us in the car, haring across northern France in search of some more cobbles. Well, I am happy to report that we arrived in the village of Camphin-en-Pevele about half an hour after leaving Arenberg, parked, and followed the crowd on foot towards the Carrefour de l'Arbre, with barely a hitch. I think we have already established that many Flemish fans are a little bonkers. Happily we didn't see any of the trouble described by Pippo and others from where we were, but gosh was it mad! These lion wielding souls danced for hours (we later learnt that in their midst was none other than CycleGirl, who is officially the Party Girl of the Pave).

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We heard on the radio that Tommeke was doing well. His fans awaited....

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In the distance, across the massive ploughed field, we spotted this chap. Question for you...where do you think he comes from? Scotland? Yes, so did we. But he was Belgian. We only discovered this after going up to him and declaring our excitement at finding someone else from the UK. Woops. How embarrassing. But what the heck is this flag?!

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And then came the riders. I'm afraid I didn't manage to get picture of any of the leaders as I was too busy jumping up and down in excitement. We had no idea of the carnage which had gone on earlier in the sector.

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The stragglers looked exhausted:

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We saw Tom Boonen win and collect his cobble on a TV in someone's campervan:

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And then, what must have been 20 minutes later, came Pablo Urtasun, he of the tongue sticking out incident in Arenberg. The broom wagon almost upon his wheel, he would not give up. Pablo, we salute you.

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All the photos are mine apart from the last one, which was taken by my friend PK

Albertina does Paris-Roubaix: Arenberg

Albertina — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 20:57:57 -0000

I'm sure it has not passed unnoticed that I went to France this weekend. I've gloated about it quite a bit, and for that I apologise, you poor people who were forced to watch from afar...but seeing as none of my friends, let alone my work colleagues, realise quite how exciting this all was, please indulge me while I tell you the tale of my little trip.....

On Saturday afternoon, after a muchly entertaining trip on the Eurotunnel where we just happened to be behind a bunch of amateur racers on their way to Wevelgem (with Zipp wheels and a gorgeous Willier :O~.....), we arrived in Valenciennes. Don't go there. It's, er, a dive. However, it's not far from Arenberg, which is Heaven, or Hell, depending on how you look at it. So, we dumped our luggage, changed and rode off with a woop of delight. Until we got lost. Exhibit A is Albertina trying to fathom an extremely unhelpful map. Note the pasty white English legs....why can't it be summer already?

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But we found it and OH. MY. WORD. Someone threw a pile of boulders into a forest and called it a road. Indescribable. I am still shaking, bouncing and vibrating and probably will be for the next year. I am pleased to report that both myself and my bike are still in one piece. I actually rather enjoyed it, though this photo may suggest otherwise. Strange how some common old stones can produce something akin to a religious experience......

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On race day, we got down to the forest good and early and went for a long ride, following some of the course through Arenberg, Wallers and the surrounding villages. The forest was quiet and serene but amidst the morning mist and the sound of birdsong, the first sign of what was to come appeared......

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But where was its owner? Look no further that the Leffe tent! What better at 10.15 on a Sunday morning than Belgian beer and frites? Mmmmmm.

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By lunchtime the place was heaving and every vantage point was taken:

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With every minute, the tension rose. As the drone of the helicopters grew louder and louder (in unison with the Flemish hordes) surges of excitement ripped through the crowd, standing several deep in places. The roar swept along the forest until we heard the unmistakable clatter of wheels on cobbles. Many of the favourites looked pretty contented:

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Tom Boonen looked like he was out on a gentle club run. Perhaps he is musing on the beauty of the trees....or could he have spotted me in the crowd perchance? I feel sure that must be it.

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Pablo Urtasun, on the other hand, was not a happy boy. Seeing his 'why did they send me here' expression, I shouted encouragingly in his direction, and seeing my Euskaltel top, he proceeded to look straight at me, roll his eyes, and stick his toungue out. I kid you not. My friend captured this fine moment of rider interaction:

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Barbie on his impressive surge:

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Some more rider pics for your perusal....

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L'ouch.....the Hell of the North claims another victim

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And so, Arenberg completed, more comfortably by some than by others, the scrum began. We ran back to the car, parked near the entrance to the motorway and along with several thousand other people, hit the road..... We only got momentarily lost on the way to the Carrefour de l'Arbre, and that was the fault of the GPS.

Pictures coming up, in part two!

All the pictures are mine, apart from numbers 1, 2, 7 and 8, which were taken by my friend PK (otherwise known as my Mechanic...I'm really not good at practical bikey stuff...).

Going to the Hell of the North: I need advice!

Albertina — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 12:52:25 -0000

Following on from CycleGirl's classics trip related post, I thought I'd ask the seasoned classics watchers among you for some guidance. My friend and I are going to Paris Roubaix (unfortunately the pesky thing called work means I can't go for the whole cobbles week...). We are Eurotunnelling from the UK and then staying the Saturday night on the Arenberg side of Valenciennes (after some riding in the afternoon of course :-) We will watch in Arenberg initially but then hope to rush off and see the race in at least one other location too, or as many as we can manage without too much stress. We have a car and bikes. So, my question is this: after hot footing it from Arenberg, which other sectors is it feasible to get to in good time before the riders get there? Could one make it to the Carrefour de l'Arbre? And how many times is it possible to see the race? Presumably many other people are trying the same thing so is the traffic a big issue? Any words of wisdom gratefully received!

There will of course be photographic evidence of myself and CycleGirl hitting Ghent in style ;-)

How to talk to a boy while cycling

Albertina — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 15:43:41 -0000

How to talk to a boy while cycling

I'd been wondering how to capture the attention of that fit guy in the Caisse d'Epargne kit who keeps passing me on a Saturday morning......

What Benna eats for Breakfast and more fascinating tales from Team Liquigas

Albertina — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 23:02:17 -0000

What Benna eats for Breakfast and more fascinating tales from Team Liquigas

Scroll down to the videos. Not the most extraordinarily revelatory stuff but it kept me happy for minutes on end ;-)