Martin's Return to The Ronde Picarde 2007

8th September 2007

The Ronde Picarde was my first cyclosportive back in 2004 and it remains my favourite.  For the fourth successive year the second weekend in September saw me travelling the sclerotic motorways of Kent followed by the blissfully free-flowing Motorway between Calais and Abbeville.

The ride begins in Abbeville town centre, in the Somme Valley, and arcs around the town first heading inland then out to the coast with a shortcut back to Abbeville for the Senior (134 km) course, while the Master continues up through the Forest of Crecy to make up 187 km.

My first bash at the longer route had been in 2006 when a strong head wind had sapped my will to live and left me with a ‘Brevet d’Argent’.  In contrast the conditions as I registered at the start this year were perfect.  A very light wind and the sun just beginning to make its presence felt above an early morning mist augured well.  I was going to go for Gold and told my wife to expect me over the finish line at about 2pm.

At the somewhat after 8am off, the pace was pretty frisky for the first 5 miles until we hit the first climb of the day.  I attacked the climb bringing myself up towards the front of the field.  For the next 20 miles I was in a group that devoured the essentially flat Picardy countryside at dizzying speed.  When in the middle of this peleton it was not too hard to spin along and I was amazed that my computer was registering 30 mph.  The jostling for position within the group though was intense and my instinct when somebody’s left foot is spinning within a centimetre of my spinning right foot at 30 mph is to back off.  “Aprez-vous monsieur”.  I was playing with the big boys and it couldn’t last.  I am a road race virgin and in the end I was spat unceremoniously out of the back but not before I had had an exhilarating ride.

The gap between this group of boy racers and the next peleton was very long.  I dawdled along, ate a banana and a cereal bar, drank loads and got a bit bored.  In the maze of roads between Limeux and Huppy, I managed to take a wrong turn.  Nearly every turn on this ride is brilliantly marshalled as well as clearly marked so this was no mean achievement.  Just after one marshalled turn the road forked, I decided it couldn’t be the left fork or there would be a marshal for the turn so I carried on up a hill.  Nothing looked familiar although I had now done this route four times so I turned back down the hill just in time to see the flash of colour which was finally the next group taking the left fork.  I was 100 yds behind the last of them when I got onto the right road.  This was the group I should be in so I would not let them go.  Fortunately there was a climb so I stayed in the big ring and did my best impersonation of Robbie McEwan pulling up on the bars until I passed the tail enders then chugged on up toward the middle of the group.  The effort got me what I wanted but left me unable to do another climb without my legs protesting.

It may have been my good fortune to have taken the wrong turn.  Had I been at the front of this group as it headed to the coast at Ault, I might have been the one to have gone over the bonnet of a Citroen.  The driver had incredibly been oblivious to the motorcycle escort and pulled out of a side road into the path of not one but about forty cyclists travelling at 25 mph.  The first I heard was the screeching of dozens of cycle brakes, followed by shouting and the loud thud of a collision.  This could easily have become one of those Tour type pile ups, only worse because of the added ingredient of a motor car.  I was on the outside so conscious of those barrelling along behind me I swerved out and braked as gently as I could get away with.  As I swerved I saw a cyclist lying on his back in the road  looking more surprised than pained.  Loads of people to my right had stopped and I could tell from the unmistakable sound of fist against metal plate that the driver was in receipt of advice about his driving skills.  The motorcycle escort was alerted and turned around to attend the scene.  I hope that the cyclists were ok and that the French prosecutors and Courts share my view that anyone who can pull into the path of a cycling peleton should not be permitted to control a vehicle.

The group was obviously disrupted but regrouped before Ault.  The Swindon Wheelers were out in force and indicated that one of the cyclists brought down was theirs and that he was alright.  We carried on to, and then along, the coast to the first feed at Le Hourdel.  The food on these stops is so much better than on the etape.  I lingered perhaps a bit too long and headed out on my own towards St Valery where the two routes divide. 

I caught up with, and then butted into, a two-up whose jerseys revealed them to be from Amiens.  Conscious that I was the gate crasher I was happy to spend half the time at the front (I passed the time by counting it out in pedal strokes) in return for equal time behind them.  They had remarkably steady wheels and it was easy to stay 1 cm behind them for a virtually free ride.  After a while one of them shouted a warning that the express train was coming.  I quickened the pace a bit to ensure we were absorbed, rather than overtaken, by this group.  At the bifurcation our ranks thinned a bit and I was third in line, then second and then it was my turn to do a bit of work.   Once I had my fill of that I dropped towards the back feeling I had earned a bit of a rest.  We had gathered up a lot more people on the way by now.  As we went through the Forest of Crecy the group strung into a long line that for some reason was going straight down the middle of the road.  I was too near the back but was unable to move up as I could not find a gap in this single line.  After resuming my place following a few aborted efforts the guy behind advised wearily that I just stay where I was.  So I did.

Unfortunately I was not quick enough to respond to the gap that opened up a few places ahead of me.  A French rider in white came to the front of our beleagued splinter group.  I followed him up and described a circle with my finger in an attempt to indicate that I thought a through and off might be a good idea as I optimistically went ahead of him.  Nothing happened and the gap was widening so I tried a different strategy and just started to push hard on the peddles.  At last the gap was narrowing but when I looked back I saw no-one had come with me and I was marooned in the middle of a 200 yd gap.  Time to have a long drink and my last banana.  I dropped back but this small group was not going to work.  The white Frenchman and I followed each other about a bit and sort of travelled together to the next feed.  When in front he would periodically stand up and his wheel would snap back towards mine before shooting off ahead.  When behind, he liked to overlap his wheel with mine despite the absence of any cross wind.  My tentatively offered ‘bonjours’ and ‘ca va?’s were resolutely ignored and the only time I hear him speak was to a loose dog on the road.

He stopped for the feed at Domart.  I didn’t need to, so pressed on alone.  At the 100 mile point, I saw a Border City rider (they were also out en masse) grimacing by the side of the road.  When I asked him if he was ok he explained that he had cramp.  I thought “poor chap that must be awful” before within a few hundred yards on the next climb my body demonstrated its remarkable powers of psychosomatic and auto suggestive disorder with an agonising attack of cramp in the left calf.  I should explain that I have not had cramp on a bicycle for years before this.  I always always unclip my left foot first so I nearly fell off as I ground to a halt.  As I stood there massaging myself I recognised some of the riders from the Forest of Crecy passing by.  I got back on just in time before a group of half a dozen reached me and I had some badly needed company for the next 12 miles.  As the 5km to go sign appeared they wound up and I got idle.  It was 1.50pm so I let them go and tootled in at my own pace.

I got to the finish at spot on 2pm with a time of 5:52:39 where the family were waiting for me.

Time to retire back to the chalet overlooking the golf course for some champagne to celebrate the ‘Brevet d’Or’.

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