When it seem to be going well....

When it seems to be going well.... Just wait a second...!

Todays view back down the Col de Braus.

Not much in the way of worthy excitement has happened recently to need a blog write up, but today was different. In both good and bad. I am in the warmth of Southern France again and spent yesterday doing my first piece of guided riding. We had an awesome day of full on sun, with mid 20 temperature and a great group to ride with.

After having a couple of torturous treatments via the hand of Laurence Plant, the muscles in my legs seem to be calming down reasonably well. So this morning I thought I would brave going up a proper climb so I can try to practise what I had learnt with Andrea in Italy a few weeks ago. I had selected the col de Braus to climb as it had a section of technical descending on its west face, then descend down the longer (10k) stretch of the col de Castillon and into Menton for a nice ride across the coast.

All was going surprisingly well, I had not felt anything bad in my knee and I was keeping to the very light easy spinning. This was a nice surprise, I arrived at the climb which I knew was around 10k long and started my very steady ascent. Almost as soon as it started a guy overtook me.... we exchanged bonjours and he went away, this annoyed me but I had to stick to what I was doing. Strangely he never got any further than 200m up the road (yes I was keeping an eye on him)! After what seemed like an age I got to the summit, it was a lovely climb and one of my favourites around here. So I set off with all the descending advice I had been given, everything was going well. I too a cut through and arrived at the longer Castillon descent. Again, I was feeling good and smooth with the weight transfer and faster without being risking anything.

Once at the coast I started to feel a bit empty of energy and thought this was the longest ride I had done in week and had not really eaten enough. So piled in some food I had. I rolled the 10k to Monaco, took the tunnels through the Principality and then out of nowhere bang something on the rear deraileur had gone to pot! I stopped pedalling immediately and looked down. The deraileur was hanging from the top of the chain and banging into the spokes... S**te..! Pulling over in a busy tunnel was the last of my worries as the spokes could end up smashed to pieces. Safely coming to a halt I looked at the damage, a definate non riding bike for the rest of the day. I had a quick think and thought I could train it back but being a sunday were there that many trains. I checked my phone and the train station was a couple of k behind me in the wrong direction.... great.

I decided at that point to walk to the nearest bus stop and get that back to Beaulieu. Five minutes of wandering and I was at one. I waited and waited, nothing. Getting impatient I started to walk again, I knew there was a couple of k to walk uphill then I could probably hop on the bike and roll it carefully downhill. Then I would have only 3-4k of flatter ground till I was home. So the walk of shame commenced. I saw many people looking at me with a wondering in their faces.. a guy walking his bike with his shoes in his hand. 20 minutes passed uneventfully and I crested the climb. Right, here we go some downhill.

I crossed the road and started to roll down, this was brilliant (the simple things eh)! After the hill ran out I thought “sod it, I look silly enough walking along the main road, why not pull out one of my previous idiot ideas!” This was a good one. Back in the UK last winter I snapped my chain 12 miles from home and deployed my, rolling along and using my hand pulled at trees, signs and the side of the banks to propel myself along. so along the coast road a lot of the time you have vast rocks climbing on the right hand side of you, ideal I thought to use! So there I was on a sunny day rolling away from one of the richest areas in the world pulling myself along on my bike with the read deraileur hanging in a mess. I really was past caring and was giving it the full beans of the rock and sign posts! Anything I could grab I used as an anchor.

So nearing the end of my rather interesting “ride” I was thinking about the 40-50 cyclists that had rode past me not even asking if I needed and hand or if I was ok. Then as I was thinking it, a small group of three girls rolled the opposite way and asked if I was ok. I was only a few hundred meters from home now so gave them a grin and said I was ok thanks! Thanks to that one person who asked if I was ok whipping my way down the Basse Corniche (bottom road).

So a positive in my knee seems to have taken a little step in the right direction, but then straight back down with the walk of shame and now trying to source a rear deraileur. Its not like Sram red are expensive eh....?! David Dearlove (if your reading) you would been wetting yourself today! :)

The road ahead.... and below, the road behind.