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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 7 - Stage 5 - June 4: Hersbruck - Kulmbach, 98.6km
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Just as my good day on Tuesday was followed by a bad one on Wednesday, Thursday's triumphs were followed by some pretty heavy defeats on Friday. Don't get me wrong, it was a good day, I didn't get into the broom wagon again or anything, but the legs I had yesterday were well and truly gone today!
One day I'd like to see Germany. I've been here a week and all we've seen so far are autobahns, hotel rooms and hundreds of thin rubber tyres as we follow the wheels all day. Just like airline cabin crew, this must be the life of the pro cyclist, visiting some really beautiful parts of the world but never actually seeing any of them. Last night we stayed in Nuremberg, which looks like it's probably a really nice city, with an old walled part and some great buildings. All of this we glimpsed from the coach as we pulled in the evening and pulled out again in the morning.
Yesterday's rain had passed and the morning was slightly overcast and warm as we rolled out of Hersbruck, but not as warm as the pace that was set right from the gun! My body never responds to demands to go from a standing start to 50kph, and so was very soon struggling to keep pace with the flying bunch. Most of the Giant Media Team were with me and so we joined up with some local riders and made the best efforts we could to consolidate and limit our losses.
The roads today were very much like the roads at home around Sussex, which is probably why my legs just refused to respond in the way I asked them to every time the road tilted up on the many small steep drags that punctuated the course. All of our legs were feeling the effects of the previous four stages, but we helped each other as best we could, wheels and encouragement, and the occasional subtle push from the stronger riders.
As the pace settled and the usual groups began to form, there were six of us from the Giant Media Team in a group near the back. This was where teamwork really started to show itself; Tom and Philippe have been two of the strongest riders we have this week (Tom is ridiculously strong but usually prefers to help his less superhuman team mates), and while I wasn't feeling as good as I have done earlier in the week, the three of us were able to help and support Taufig and Dirk Schlickmann on the small climbs that regularly punctuated the course.
We tapped along fairly comfortably, scattered around in a group of around 30 when suddenly disaster struck. Taufig, who wasn't a road cyclist until this week was riding a few riders from the front when he touched a wheel and went down, ending up landing in the field at the side of the road. Philippe and I slowed down to look after him, but were waved on by Tom, who was already on the case. Philippe and I rejoined he group while Tom and a thankfully unhurt Taufig chased us for the next 30km, Tom doing the majority of the work.
After around 45km there was a crash that made Taufig's spill look pretty insignificant. There was a long steep descent of around 2km - where I managed to lift my own personal speed record to 88kmh - with a sharp left hand bend at the bottom. Some of the riders ahead of us must have been concentrating harder on going as fast as possible than what the road ahead looked like and three or four of them came down. Most of the riders seemed to get away with fairly minor injuries, but one man was lying just off the road making noises that I've not heard since Joseba Beloki crashed last year; it turned out that he'd broken his pelvis. Having to ride past this incident was petty sobering, and had quite an effect on the more nervous descenders among us for the rest of the stage.
Between us, we managed to stay with the group for the remainder of the stage, Philippe doing loads of work to drive the pace. As we sped into the town and the kilometres ticked by, Tom began to move forward through the group. With just over a kilometre to go, he kicked and no one could offer any sort of response. The rest of us followed our captain in very high spirits, I sat up at the back and rolled up the finishing straight clapping my hands above my head as Tom turned to salute us in his "victory".
Today's stage really took its toll on our tired legs, most of us aren't used to such intensive riding more than a couple of times a week. The length of time on the road in the bus is also tiring all of us out, and this evening was no exception. Tonight's bus journey took a couple of hours from our evening's rest, preventing Rudy from giving us a massage until much later than he'd like and pushing our evening meal back later and later...
We're all getting a bit nervous again. Tomorrow looks to be another stage to rival the Alpine one on Wednesday. We're crossing the Czech Republic over a hilly parcours to finish back in Germany at a mountain top ski station. I just hope that Rudy's massages can have some effect on my poor aching limbs...
Photography
Images by Starshot Design Agency
- Transfers get pretty tiring - Javier gets his head down
- Trying to get some work done, Harry and Jo chill out
- It's even getting a bit much for Daniel, the photographer
- Dirk Spiers, Giant Europe, gets focused
- The bunch strings out early
- The Giant Media Team takes its place - at the back!
- Tough day, trying to stay focused
- Michael keeps Philip and me amused
- Tom and the Dragon - every day, when he wakes up, he thanks the Lord he's Welsh...
- Philippe polices the bunch, I never stop eating!
- Taufig checks his bike after hitting the dirt.
- Full medical support is always on hand
- Being paced back on by Tom is thirsty work, I hand Taufig a bottle
- No need to rush, my Captain got the sprint!
- Taufig shows off his war wounds...
