Having finished an intensive 4-day track camp at Newport Velodrome, I had a frantic day to unpack my bags, wash all my kit, and repack my bags. Due to financial constraints and a morbid fear of having to negotiate the streets of Heathrow to find the terminal, I opted to drive to Wales to catch up with GB Paracycling Podium athlete and double Gold Olympic medallist in Beijing, Simon Richardson.
I left my car on the secluded streets of Porthcawl and we, ably assisted by the lovely Mrs R, made our way to Heathrow en masse.
A trouble-free check-in saw us progress through the numerous security gates into the departure lounge. As a current Olympian, Simon has a snazzy Executive Club membership with British Airways, which we hoped might let us blag our way into the hallowed and secretive confines of the VIP Lounge- where food is plentiful and free, and the beverages alcoholic and also free. Alas, we were denied entrance to this Bacchus’ Utopia as we weren’t flying with BA; but you can’t have everything in life.
Upon arrival in the departure lounge (which included a large sign above the seats saying ‘Seating Area’. Yes, because I wouldn’t have had the intelligence to work that out. I thought the chairs were there for decoration only) we settled in and I was treated to my first experience of the life of an elite athlete. I too was seduced by the apparent glamour of just such a high-stakes, high-power lifestyle; but the sad and slightly anticlimatic reality is that you spend a mind-numbingly massive number of hours either sitting in airports, transport or hotels.
Undoubtedly the highlight of the Heathrow stage in our journey, however, was BC Development Coach and organiseur extraordinaire Jayne Ellis giving me a swag bag full of BC Leisure kit. A rather swift and hastily executed change of clothing in the toilets, and I re-emerged Lazarus-like in my rather pimp Sky-branded BC Paralympic Development Programme tracksuit. Mmmm, yes.
The rest of our journey passed without incident, and we arrived at our hotel in El Regato, on the outskirts of Bilbao, in one piece. A quick exploration of our surroundings revealed we were sheltering in a nice little hotel hidden away alongside a babbling brook, and had also been blessed with possibly the most high-tech power shower I have ever seen (visual evidence attached). So complex and damningly technical that I never really sussed out how to properly use all the different stream options, settling instead for the regular shower-head as my sole source of hygienic dousing.
We spent the first night uneventfully and rose early for breakfast and bike checks before driving out to recce the first stage; a flat 10k TT. I should mention two interesting things I learnt about the Basque people here. Firstly, their roads are all one-way. It is like negotiating spaghetti on a hillside. There is no flat. Flat is an illusion, a mythical terrain competely unheard of in this area of northern Spain. Which leads me to the second point; the Basque grasp of the meaning and appropriate definition of ‘flat’.
Our ‘flat’ (and I’ll just repeat that in capitals to rally belabour my point; FLAT) 10k TT consisted of a 5k descent down a mountainside, before turning at the bottom, and coming back up the same 5k route. When we questioned the organiser, he shrugged his shoulders with a gesture of Gallic insouciance (admittedly he was not French, but go with it) and then amended his previous statement by suggesting it was, perhaps, a bit ‘rolling’.
Three ascents of the beast later I felt that I’d learnt all I could about how to pace it and take the corners at speed, and we returned on a slightly circuitous (thankyou irritable female SatNav voice) to the hotel.
A quick shower and change into leisure kit, and myself and Jayne were back in the van going to Bilbao city centre to have me ‘classified’. Naturally, in order to provide a more level playing field in Paralympic competition, The UCI have constructed out of the chaos a system of classification for different types of athlete and the severity of their condition(s). There are tricycles for athletes with impaired balance, handcycles for wheelchair users, tandems for visually-impaired athletes, and the ‘C’ class for people who ride normal bicycles but are affected by limb disabilities or cerebral palsy.
The C class is then further distributed into classes C1 to 5, with C5 being those with disabilities that have the least effect on cycling performance, and 1 being those issues which are the most debilitating. I’m C class, and having been examined by Kirstin the GB Head Physio it was expected I’d go into C2 or C3.
Jurgen, the head UCI classifier, however, had different ideas. Not having seen someone with the variety of issues I present before, he played it cautiously and placed me in the C4 class. Not a good turn of events for me, as naturally the C4s are a lot faster than the C2s. In addition to this, their events are often a bit longer. BC also have a number of C4 riders (many of whom are Olympic or soon-to-be Olympic standard) and the international body of riders in C4 class comprises many ex-pros who were injured on professional duty. So, not good. However, life’s not fair, and whilst I’m there I might as well have a decent crack at it.
Stage 1, and our ‘rolling’ TT. Carnage at the start due to the organisers being a bit, well,.. relaxed about such unimportant things as starting order and timing. It was pouring it down, visibility in the mist reducing to about 8-10 metres. An extremely cautious descent from young Mr. Staniford, and giving it both barrels on the way up, saw me place somewhere around 20th out of 23 C4 riders. Not bad, really, I was expecting worse, especially on a course which was not favourable to the non-climbers. If I’d raced as a C2, as we’d hoped, I’d have placed 8th.
Stage 2, and an 11k TT around the village of Mungia. Rolling flats and the odd good descent, much more my style. Or so I thought, until I came across a particularly vicious little 25% climb, followed by another long drag. This took the proverbial wind from my sails, but some careful pacing allowed me to recover to really hit the final few k hard.
I finished 19th in the C4 class, but interestingly for the C2s I’d have finished 5th. This course suited me a lot more, and 5th place would have been especially nice seeing as I raced it on my GB-issue Trek Madone with clip-ons and standard profile wheels. A TT bike, some deep-sections and an aero helmet, and who knows where I might have come.
The problem with a blog of this size is that there is so much more I’d like to tell you but I’m constrained by time and your attention span(s).
The above two stages saw us through the first day of the Paracycling Tour of the Basque County (Bizkaiko-Bira), and I will save stage 3, the RR, for a future ‘Delusions…’
Safe riding…
