In this episode of VCDL Extra we bring you Part 2 of our interview with Brian Smith of Endura Racing, recently merged with Net App.

Brian tells us about his own career, from early days at ACBB in France, to his year supporting Andy Hampsten in the 1994 Giro. He also has some chilling stories about the culture of cycling in that era.

In this episode of VCDL Extra we bring you Part 1 of our interview with Brian Smith of Endura Racing, recently merged with Net App.

Brian tells us about his work with Cervelo Test Team and subsequently Endura Racing, and gives us some great insight into rising star Jon Tiernan Locke.

In this episode, we bring you a farce based on evidence from serial perjurers and those who were coerced through threats & sweetheart deals.

Yup, with only one story in town, we just couldn’t ignore it.  We also discuss how Sky (and other teams & riders) have dealt with the fallout.

Finally we look at how Team Sky came across in the recent documentary series, The Road to Glory.

The anti-parachuting lobby (if such a thing does indeed exist) tend to pose the question, “why jump out of a perfectly good aeroplane?”  It seems a reasonable enough question.  Over the past few days, I could probably paraphrase the question most often asked regarding my cyclocross exploits as, “why jump off a perfectly good bicycle?”  Which is probably an equally reasonable question.

I’m not entirely sure how cyclocross got its muddy claws into me.  I’ve been aware of the sport on a professional level for a while. I watched a few World Cup races online over the past few years but I can probably trace the recent upsurge in enthusiasm to a few specific places.  Firstly, Twitter introduced me to ‘crosser Jeremy Powers and his web series Behind the Barriers.  Powers is an enthusiastic & engaging  American that you can’t help but like and Behind the Barriers piqed my interest & made me look further.

I sought out some YouTube videos of the three big race series in the cyclocross calendar, the World Cup, the Superprestige & the GvA Trophee.  Whilst the former purports to be a World event, the latter two make no such pretense, taking place ostensibly in Belgium & Holland, the undoubted heartlands of cyclocross.  The Cyclocross World Championships, held in Belgium earlier this year, attracted a crowd of 61,000 and had Belgians locking out the top 8 places in the Men’s Elite class.  Cross is BIG in Belgium.

However, what took me from enthusiastic spectator to competitor (ok then, participant) was the realisation that cross was occurring on my doorstep.  I knew John & Dave from the Tuesday night chaingang but only picked up on their involvement in the cross scene after they started posting their brilliantly irreverent series of YouTube videos under the Dig In banner.  They showed cross as inclusive, challenging, but above all, massive amounts of fun.

So earlier this year, in January, they put on their own race, Dig In Around the Dock, in Bo’ness and “encouraged” everyone they knew to enter.  Local races can be undertaken on specific cross bikes, road bikes with mud tyres or mountain bikes.  I was happy to stick some muddy tyres on my winter bike & give it a go but a fortuitous search on ebay revealed a Giant cross frame for sale.  One of the benefits of being 6 ft 3 is that you are somewhat outside the bell-curve as far as “normal” frame sizes are concerned and so, with very few bids and a very reasonable closing price, the Giant frame was mine.  A few evenings in the garage and the cannibilisation of the winter hack saw the bike come together and it was time for me to pin on the race number & line up on the start line.

Cyclocross races, in my limited experience of two, tend to comprise of a first half that sees you racing and a second half that sees you barely surviving.  Putting this into perspective, my Garmin told me that my average heart rate for the 52 minutes of my most recent race was 176bpm.

So why jump off a perfectly good bicycle?  Well, for those not familiar with the format, cyclocross comprises a number of laps of an off-road course, with steps, barriers or obstacles to negotiate.  The “fun” that these obstacles cause, has rarely been more graphically displayed than in the YouTube hit, Joey’s OK.  Hilarious, eh?

Finally, why has cross grabbed me & why might it grab you if you let it?  Mountain bikers can’t help but love it.  One of the joys of mountain biking is riding your bike where you probably shouldn’t!  Feeling your bike squirm around on mud, gravel & rocks gives you a great feeling of control (in between the long periods of panic at your shocking lack of control.)  Cyclocross, however, gives you that feeling with the added stupidity of doing it on something that is much closer to a road bike.  If you’ve never been mountain biking and all your experience lies on the road, cross will blow your mind.  Slithering through mud, tackling grassy downhills that you probably wouldn’t choose to walk down, what’s not to love?  The steps, barriers & obstacles?  These are all just added skills which will provide fun and a certain sense of the bizarre to your bike riding.

Do it – go on, Dig In.

In the first of our Extras, Gary talks to mountain biking superstar Tracy Moseley about her unconventional 2012 season and about that crash.

To celebrate 2 years of the VCDL Pod, we have tweaked our format a bit.  Fear not though, it’s still the same cosy, fireside fan-chat between Gary & Graham as this week they discuss the UCI Road World Championships, Tyler Hamilton’s book, The Secret Race & the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup season.

As far as the Road World Champs is concerned, we ask whether we are reading too much into the post-race comments of Nicole Cooke & Emma Pooley (probably).  Whether we were wrong to suggest Taylor Phinney was over-hyped (almost certainly) and whether Stannard could blitz the Classics if Sky supported him (we bloody-well hope so!)

We bring you our thoughts on Tyler Hamilton’s magnificant octopus, The Secret Race, and ask whether it is morally wrong for him to be making money out of a career of dishonesty.

Finally, we wrap up the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup with a season review and we trail (trail? geddit? – oh, never mind) an interview with Tracy Moseley.  The full interview can be heard on our forthcoming VCDL Extra which literally no-one has been asking us to produce.

In this episode we wrap up the Vuleta and we preview both the World Championships and the Tour of Britain.

We do our best not to avoid the unavoidable subject of Lance Armstrong’s recent USADA sanction and the release of Tyler Hamilton’s book.

We then turn our attention to the mud with a roundup of the 2012 Mountain Bike World Championships.

There is SO much cycling going on at the moment – where to start? Well, we start by wrapping up the Olympic track results & move on to the Vuelta. Can Sky support Froome? Is he truly a pure climber? Just two of the questions that we will probably not satisfactorily answer!

We then bring back some mountain biking news after a long hiatus with results from the World Cup & the Olympics. Getting more local for once, Graham bigs-up (or should that be big-ups) the Isle of Bute Cycling Festival

Gary’s Inner Chimp goes fell running

Last Tuesday, Graham and I went for a “social pace” ride round the more scenic parts of Sausage Roll County, if such things actually exist. Over the thick end of 40 miles we took in Dalmeny, the Forth Bridges (under, not over), the wonderfully-named Faucheldean (not scenic, incidentally) and Linlithgow. Prior to reaching the Royal Burgh, Graham had casually suggested, “just want to drop down into Linlithgow and come back over Cairnpapple?” Oh, fuck. Of course I answered, “aye, no problem.”

Cairnpapple itself is a ceremonial and burial site dating back to Neolithic times. But that is a mere irrelevance when one considers my own recent history with it.  Among local cyclists, it’s apparently a bit of a rite of passage with the road that takes visitors to the site (allegedly) being as steep as 17%. It’s also a rite of passage that I’d previously failed when I ended up getting off and pushing at one point. So on Tuesday night, I was inwardly less-than-thrilled to be heading back to the scene of my previous Calvary.

Social pace or not, I toiled up the climbs from Linlithgow. This was not helped by dodgy indexing meaning I already knew the 25T cog would not be available. Funny how it can be shifting like a dream on the stand, yet the moment you step on the pedals everything changes. Also at the back of my mind was the memory of last June’s failure. In some respects, I was already beaten and so it was to be. Long story short, I cracked just before the summit of the first real part of Cairnpapple and spent the remainder of our ride bewildered.

My mental block about Cairnpapple is a daft one when you consider that I’ve conquered longer and steeper climbs without too much drama. I’ve previously blogged about the Duke’s Pass and Schiehallion over which I’d genuinely lost sleep, driven by my fear of breaking down, blowing up or collapsing sideways when things point really skywards. I remained irked for the rest of last week. There was only one thing to do about this.

Perhaps buoyed by Super Saturday at the Olympics, I rolled out of bed on Sunday morning with some purpose. Scratch that, I had one purpose: to beat Cairnpapple. With Real Life scheduled to intervene later in the morning, this would have to be quick so a climb up to Beecraigs and across would have to suffice rather than the slog from Linlithgow, but direct from my door it’s largely uphill regardless.

The approaches were uneventful, although I was working hard and arm-warmers were already down by the time I reached Beecraigs. Rear mech tinkering the previous afternoon meant I was finding and – more importantly – holding 25T without any problems (I think the mech hanger may actually be bent, but that’s another story). The fact I didn’t actually NEED it at that point was also a bonus so the first mental block was removed. The road from Beecraigs can be a slog but I was happy with my climbing and also being able to take advantage of the rolling nature of the road with reasonably fresh legs.

As far as the cyclist is concerned, Cairnpapple begins with a sharp left-hand junction off the main road before it briefly levels out before commencing the first climb which is also a right-hand turn. I dug in and worked my way up past the visitors’ entrance to the historic site, knowing that I’d binned it here a few nights previously. I’d already made progress. Levelling out, I was a happy man before the road then plummeted right then left to the base of the second and larger climb. As with many climbs on the road, this one looks hellish, disappearing up to the right but, as I would soon discover, is eminently doable.

Okay, dig in, Gary. Up to that first marker, keep it going. Keep the upper body steady and keep your energy for the legs. That’s the game. Come on, Stumpy, dig in, mate. That’s it, that’s it, THAT’S IT!!! The lone walker at the summit of the cairn itself must have been bemused at sight of a lunatic on a bike coming over the crest of the road shouting, “Yeeeeeessssss!!!!!!”

Now, I know that some of you will be wondering what the fuss was about and it won’t be a big deal, especially if you’ve been over that climb yourself. But it was important to me, maybe as much for understanding how my mind works than just for being able to say I’d ridden up a big hill. In 2 previous attempts, I’d never considered that it was essentially 2 big efforts with a recovery in between. I’d just viewed it as one big monster of a climb that had beaten me every time I’d gone near it but it wasn’t actually Cairnpapple that had beaten me.

It was me.

I’ve been reading excellent 3-part series about the Tour of Rwanda by Tom Southam and Ben Ingham in Rouleur.  It’s a fascinating glimpse inside what is a chaotic but no less passionate event that may just be as much about rebuilding Rwanda as it is rebuilding African cycling.  If you can get your hands on issues 28-30, they’re worth the cover price. 

Today, listener Will (@Downes_Cook on Twitter) sent us a link to this week’s Assignment programme, first broadcast on the BBC World Service.  Reported Tim Mansel spent a week with Team Rwanda, coached by Jock Boyer, whose “colourful” past includes being first American to ride the Tour de France. 

Here’s what the BBC website says:

“Rwanda – a country known only for the genocide of 1994, when an estimated 800,000 people, mainly ethnic Tutsis, were murdered in cold blood in a mere 100 days – is also a nation in need of heroes.

It may now have found them – lycra-clad athletes in helmets and wrap-around sunglasses on $5,000 racing bikes. They are Team Rwanda, the national cycling team, its tightly packed and brightly coloured peloton now a familiar sight on their training rides on the roads around Ruhengeri in the country’s north-west, not far from the border with Uganda.

For this week’s Assignment Tim Mansel has spent a week with Team Rwanda as they prepare for their latest international competition. The team assembles on a Monday night from all over Rwanda. They come by bike, some after riding for three or four hours, one after a ride of six. Their week is a series of gruelling rides, nutritious food, and daily yoga, all under the critical eye of their outspoken American coach, Jock Boyer.

It’s impossible to spend time in Rwanda without being confronted by the genocide, especially during the “100 days”, the period between April and July when the events of 1994 are remembered. Only a few hundred yards from where the riders live is the town’s genocide memorial, a walled garden dominated by a disturbing monument – the figure of a man pleading for his life and a machete that appears to be dripping in blood.

Team Rwanda is not immune from the genocide, indeed it makes explicit connections. Its website features biographies of several of its riders: Rafiki Uwimana, a small child in 1994, sent by his parents to live in the countryside to escape the horrors of the capital Kigali, forced to hide in the forest from the Hutu militias, and almost dying of malaria before being saved by the Tutsi RPF militia invading from Uganda; or Obed Rugovera, who lost three siblings and two uncles in the carnage.

‘The genocide has affected every one of the riders profoundly and you can feel it even without talking about it,’ says the coach, Jock Boyer. ‘Cycling… gives them the hope that they can buy a house, provide for their family, do something they’re good at and that they’re recognised for and that the country is not just going to be known for a genocide.’”

10 days after the end of the Tour de France and in the midst of the pomp, the glamour and the professionalism of the Olympic cycling programme, Mansel (and Southam and Ingham) paint a sobering reminder that while it may just be all about the bike, the other stuff isn’t always very far away.