Trying to leave my Only Child ways behind and become a team player with the Rabobank boys is going to be fun this year. An Le at Giant and I agreed that it would be good to kick things off before the first World Cup (less than two months away!) by attending a Training/Racing Camp with the crew on the Island of Cyprus. Having not been there, all I knew about Cyprus was that it was in the Mediterranean somewhere (near Greece?) and had an early season race series called the Sunshine Cup. Sounded promising. Turns out it’s tucked in the far northeastern corner of the Med, between Turkey (which has upheld military occupation of the northern third of the island since 1974) and Israel. My decision to attend the camp came after the holidays but before all hell broke loose in North Africa, just a few hundred kilometers to the south. Cyprus has been essentially unaffected, so far, but it was strange to have the first billboard I saw promoting “Four Weekly Flights to Cairo!” I wonder if those flights have resumed…
Our home for the camp was the quiet little village of Kalavasos, nestled in a small valley about 5k from the southern coast. Which happened to have an extremely large factory, Vasilliko Concrete Works, next to an extremely large power plant, Vasilliko Power. Either direction along the coast was quite beautiful though, and it was kind of nice to see some of the infrastructure that makes Cyprus tick. Sometimes in traveling we get to see just the good stuff and don’t have to consider exactly what makes the lights turn on… I turned the lights off a lot in the last ten days…
The people of Kalavasos were super relaxed, as I suppose most islanders are wont to be. The same dozen or so older fellows would hang around the square in the sun, playing cards and smoking. Then in the evening the working age folks and younger crowd would come down to watch football and have a pint of Keo lager with their crew. The small streets encouraged a slow pace to moving about town and nobody was bothered when we’d block the way to load our bikes. Plus, the local bike shop had internet, so we’d inevitably end up mingling with the townsfolk in the square whilst looking for the end of the aforementioned internet. Cultures collide I suppose…
But, down to business. First I had to GET to Cyprus. It’s really far from Bend, Oregon. Fortunately, I had a 36-hour stopover scheduled for me in The Netherlands for some obligatory Rabobank Team testing. Fresh off the plane I was whisked over to a small Dutch Olympic center in the Amsterdam Suburbs for a Max Power test on the bike. An hour after I stepped off the plane I was pedaling for all I was worth. Which, shockingly, wasn’t much. That’ll keep the road teams from hassling me at least... A quick drive over the German border to Team Manager Leo Van Zeeland’s flat in Keeken for some serious sleep brought me to my next appointment. Medical testing at a hospital in Eindhoven. Teammate Jelmer Jubbega picked me up in his sweet little Mitsubishi Colt and we there in no time. EKG, Ultrasound of our hearts, a physical exam and full blood test were done efficiently and, after a chat with a doctor to go over the results and confirm our health, that of twenty-something professional athletes, we were on our way back to Keeken. Whew. A quick (but careful) bike packing job on my new Anthem Advanced took up the remaining time until Marco and Micheil showed up and it was back in the car for the trip to Dusseldorf to catch our flight to Larnaka at the crack the next day.
I’m not sure if it was the Trans-Atlantic flight, the Max Test, the day at the hospital, the 4 hours of sleep or the steak and prawns dinner on the way to Dusseldorf, but my first order of business after clearing security quite hurriedly in the morning was to barge into the men’s room and forcibly vacate a urinal so I could throw up quite violently. Nice. Nothing like sitting down next to an attractive young lady on a 4-hour flight and saying, ashen faced “Hello, um, I’m feeling ill so if I say I need to get up, I’m probably in a hurry, thanks.” Welcome to Air Berlin flight 6673 to Larnaca, Cyprus…
It was worth it though. After 24 hours of illness I came around and set about riding some bikes in the sun. The boys were racing in the first round of the Sunshine Cup on the Sunday, which I’d already planned on skipping, so Micheil and I were delegated to tech zone duty, which meant sitting in the sun and watching Emil jump over a muddy rut that everyone else rode through for no reason other than the lemmings before them did it. He was also winning until the last lap, which is the one that counts. Austrian Karl Markt(??) took advantage of a bobble on Emil’s part and took the win with our obligatory Swiss teammate, Fabien Giger, in third. Stacking the podium, I like it. Michiel and I rode home, getting a handle on the scale of our Cyprus tourist map. It’s not THAT big of an island…
I rode past this ancient Tenta settlement on day, it was all set up with interpretive kiosks. Pretty cool to see how they lived a few thousand years ago on this island...
The next week went by quickly, a big solo road ride on Monday softened me up for a team training ride around the upcoming weekend’s Point to Point racecourse in the Macharias forest on Tuesday. Fortunately, a Swede kicked a rock up into my rotor halfway up the hour-long climb so I had an excuse to “stop” (not get dropped) and straighten it. Thank God… We were rewarded for our pedaling with a shuttle back up to ride the (epic) descent of the course again, this time under the direction of retired World Cup DH honch Oscar Saiz. Oscar has been teaching the Rabo guys how to shred this winter and I can say first hand that it’s paying off. We had lots of fun.
Oscar Dropping some knowledge before we drop in.
Some resting and some more riding, and lots of eating and sleeping, and it was Friday morning and time for the first day of the Axflentia Stage Race, which happened to be a UCI Hors Categorie event. Big points and money for the fast guys. Which, after the day one Time Trial, it appeared that there were 25 or so who were faster than me… Marco and I tied at 17:37 for one lap of the Cross Country Circuit loop, which would be used again on Sunday for the final stage. At least I’d gotten the first race effort of the year out of my system and could start to remember how to dig.
Turns out I really, really needed to accelerate that ability to dig’s progression for Saturday’s 44k Point to Point race. The “neutral” start in a small village on the edge of the forest already had me on the limit and, after 5k of climbing pavement I was the last guy in a group that looked to be 60 or 70 strong turning onto the dirt. Which was all I could muster. Ouch. Settling into working with groups for the next hour of fireroad climbing and descending was also more than my legs and brain could handle. Fortunately, after some seriously negative minutes (tens of minutes) alone and watching the race ride away, we got on the trails that I didn’t lightly give the descriptor “epic” in a previous paragraph. The E4 trekking route along the spine of Cyprus is easily as good as any trail I’ve ever ridden. Climbing beautiful limestone ridges connected with burbling creeks and dense thickets is my kind of mountain biking. And evidently guys who can slay dirt road climbs aren’t into pushing it up proper trail. I kept up my pathetic pace but somehow passed a whole bunch of guys over the final 6k of climbing the E4. This set me up to pass another dozen or so shredding back town a spur trail toward the finish. Still, I was at least 10:00 down and had no idea of my position. Coulda been 50, coulda been 70. Kind of bummed to feel that small all day. Turns out it was 41st, what a relief… Kind of. Not really.
Here's current Junior World Champ Micheil Van Der Heijden shredding the descent. Kid is legit.
The relief came after the gun went off for Sunday’s standard cross country race. 6 laps of a 6k loop, that’s something I know how to do! I rode sorta respectably, with guys I recognized at least, and ended up finishing 25th on the day. I was really hoping Emil would get the win he clearly deserved before flatting (while leading with 4k to go) in the previous day’s Point to Point but it was not to be. He ended up 3rd on the day and 4th for the overall stage race. Fabian was 5th to keep our podium flanking ways alive. The rest of the team was solid, Marco 11th, Nils 13th, Tim 26th and the token American bringing up the rear in 29th. I still get a decent chunk of UCI points for even that level of effort, so, mission accomplished, I guess? Or, maybe, confirmation that February is a bit early for a guy like me to be racing bikes. Either way, it was a fun weekend and I’m glad to have the first effort under my belt. Now I know there’s some work to be done before the World Cup opens in South Africa. Plenty of time…
After a week of cooking at our apartments as a group of 13, we elected to dine out on Sunday night. Emil used his seven years of Sunshine Cup attendance to direct us to The Captain’s Quarters fish house in the seaside village of Zygi. Once we received the menu the choice became obvious to all but a few of us. Let the Chef prepare a classic Cyprean Fish Meze for us to sample the fruits of the Mediterranean. It was delicious, even the fried whole softshell crab. The platters kept coming and the few teammates who stuck to their Dutch ways even tried a thing or two, in exchange for Frites that we didn’t have room for after all the delicious fish…
After a pleasant Monday morning ride along the coast with Tim Lemmers and another quick bike packing job, I’m on my way home. Although that was yesterday, it’s two days, five flights, and a drive to and from Leo’s brother Karel’s house to get from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Bend, Oregon on this particular itinerary. Good thing it’s still the off-season…
Looks like a nice place for a private dip, eh?
Thanks for reading, hope your winter is going well.
P.S. I’ve joined the 21st century and am on Facebook (adam craig) and twitter (@A_Craig) if you want to receive more regular babblings…
Armand wanted "action" photos so Emil Lindgren obliged by taking it to 11... Awesome
