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One Giant leap: Ben Atkins' Giant Tour 2004
From his desk job in Brighton to the Tour of Germany. It's quite a leap for Gran Fondo lover Ben Atkins, who is one of a very lucky group of journos riding the Giant Tour, a toned-down version of the pro event as a guest of Giant Bicycles. Over the course of the next seven days, Ben will live and breathe the life of a professional cyclist, so follow him (albeit with a touch of envy) as he embarks on the experience of a lifetime.
Giant Tour 2004
Day 3 - Stage 1 - May 31: Karlsruhe - Karlsruhe ITT, 23 km
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This is it! The Giant Tour starts here...
All the clichés about it being the race of truth, there being no hiding place etc., etc. suddenly were all coming to haunt me. As an Englishman, I should be a good time triallist, right? From Boardman to Millar, that's what we do best isn't it?
The course, that we'd checked out yesterday, was based on the wide boulevards and dual carriageways around Karlsruhe, so I suppose was very similar to most British TT courses, but for a few subtle differences. One large difference was the presence of spectators along many parts of the route, offering encouragement in equal measure to the fastest and slowest alike. The biggest distinction between this and any British course I've ever ridden though was the total absence of traffic! The roads were closed first thing this morning, and would remain so until the last pro rider finished this afternoon.
Oh yes, the pros. This is the only one of the seven stages that is exactly the same as the one that the pros will ride, and so it was possible for everyone to compare themselves directly against the elite time triallists like Ullrich, Rich, Voight et al.
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The first thing that occurred to me was that I wish I had brought my TT bike with me. Being a bit of what the British call a dragstrip, aerodynamics were going to be a real issue here, so the absence of tri bars on my bike was going to slow me down. I wished I could be doing the race on one of the Giant TT bikes like Ullrich would be riding, but never mind, I'd just concentrate on staying as flat as possible and try to look thin into the wind.
Because we were riding the same course as the pros would ride a few hours later, we also got to use their start ramp. There were over two thousand riders entered into this stage (you can enter as many or as few stages as you like) so riders were being dispatched at ten second intervals. This was where you had to admire their German efficiency; they had three men pushing off and a real production line going. No sooner had they pushed one rider off that they were reaching for the next.
At exactly 10:57 it was my turn to go, the announcer read out my name to the crowd, and the fact that I was English, but I'm not sure if anyone noticed. It sounded good to me though. The starter seemed interested in the fact that I was from Brighton, but there wasn't time to chat as the beeps counted me off - just like they do for the pros!
Flying round that first bend on to the main road, past a pretty sizeable crowd was really exhilarating, and with a slight tailwind I was soon moving up through the gears and settling as low and stretched out as possible. This would e a good time to mention that, apart from mountain biking, this is my first ever experience with Shimano. Dura-Ace isn't a bad place to start, but as the levers work in completely different ways to Campagnolo, I was sure I'd be going up instead of down and throwing it into the little ring all over the place. This would be a really tough testbed for the new 10 speed groupset, if it could stand up to my clumsy mashings without skipping and crunching, then it could pretty much stand up to anything!
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I'd like to say that the kilometres flew by and I hardly felt the pedals, but the truth is that with my relatively high experience at time trials, I kind of know how to push myself pretty hard, so the whole experience was really painful. It was that usual case of feeling like you're battling a headwind, only to turn around to realise that you had quite a strong tailwind. The course was almost entirely flat, so it was possible to maintain pretty good rhythm for very long periods. Neither were there many tight corners, so the power could be laid down pretty constantly.
Turning into the last few kilometres, the road tilted upwards slightly in that surprising "I don't remember this being downhill on the way out" kind of way, and the wind seemed to be really getting strong, but I knew it was nearly over and kept the pressure on until the course turned off the main road and the wind was in my favour. I climbed up through the gears and gave it every last ounce of my strength and flew over the line for a finishing time of 40:39.4, not bad by my standards, but I was a bit disappointed not to get under 40 minutes, maybe if I'd had tri bars...
The winner of the amateur race did it in a time of 30:45.2, the fastest member of the Giant Media Team was Roderick de Munnick (36:05.7) of the Dutch Magazine "Fiets", and the slowest, well the honour went to Dirk Spiers (45:34.3), Giant Europe's Communications Director, but he had the rather dubious excuse of having received a call on his mobile phone during his ride! He never stops working!
Having finished our ride we could really enjoy the pasta laid on by the Giant Tour organisation; then mingle with the pro riders as they warmed up. The biggest crowds by far were those around the T-Mobile coach, of course, waiting to see the newly slimmed down Jan Ullrich to appear. The other teams were easier to get close to though, but many of them were resting in their vans until the last minute after a tiring Tour of Luxembourg.
Sadly, the pressures of being a pro team for the week meant that we didn't have time to stay and watch the race, we had to move on to our next hotel near the start of the next stage. Just like a proper pro cyclist I have no idea where we are, but there is plenty of pasta to eat and a bed to sleep in, which I must go and do now...
Oh, the pro race, was won by Michael Rich, in 27 minutes something... thirteen minutes faster than me!
Photography
Images by Starshot Design Agency
- Some nice purdy shoes.
- Plenty of fluids are essential.
- A passing glance.
- Gadget man.
- Rollin' out.
- The fields are alive.
- On the start ramp.
- And I'm away!
- Interested onlookers.
- Flying down the home straight.
- A finishing time of 40:39.4 was I little more than I had hoped for. Oh, the pro race, was won by Michael Rich, in 27 minutes something... thirteen minutes faster than me!
