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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 2 - May 30: Gearing up
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Wow, this was the day we'd all been looking forward to... We got issued with our kit! The most important and droolworthy bit being our brand new T-Mobile replica Giant TCR Composite bikes, fitted with 10 speed Dura-Ace, including the new 7800 wheels!
We're living - if not riding - like pros this week, so as well as our silver/grey and black race clothing we've all been issued with a whole load of rather stylish black and white team casuals, emblazoned with the Giant logo, which we'll wear before and after the races and while chilling in the evenings.
After making sure that the measurements we'd sent hadn't been complete fiction, and our bikes were a perfect fit, we were instructed in the use of our new Polar S725 Heart Rate Monitors by former Finnish pro Joona Laukka. These will be recording our every move, and we'll be able to compare our own figures with the T-Mobile team as they ride the race.
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The next bit of kit to test was our own bodies... Under the supervision of the T-Mobile doctor, we underwent a lactate test. This basically entails sitting on an extremely expensive HRM bike and producing the power it tells you to while a man takes regular blood samples from you ear. The power level starts at 50 which is pretty easy, but then rises in steps of 50 until you can't do it any longer. This was really painful, as a bit of a stranger to most kinds of formal training, keeping the control over my cadence while trying to produce the required amount of power was a real experience. I just about managed to do the required three minutes of more or less 300 watts before having to give up. I'm informed that Jan Ullrich can do 600! After lunch we all got kitted up on our shiny magenta bikes and went for a reasonably gentle spin around the town to check out the TT course, but more about that tomorrow...
This was the first proper time we had to test our equipment, and I can only concur with John Stevenson's five yellow jersey rating of the TCR Composite. The whole frame feels really stiff in all the right places, but feels almost plush when hammered over the rough cycle paths we traversed where the roads were out of bounds to cyclists.
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While we were out we had the chance to do some star-spotting. T-Mobile, Saeco and Ag2R are all staying in a hotel across the square from us, so quite a few of their riders could be seen out spinning their legs and checking the course as we were. Jan Ullrich himself was seen, quietly riding around by himself, I was quite surprised to see him on his own, without a few hundred journalists in tow. He really does look lean!
I must say, I could get used to this living like a pro lark. We won't have to think about when to get up, when to eat or what to do, it's all organised for us. We even have William Hebing, a T-Mobile mechanic to take care of our bikes, Rudy Bergmans, a pretty legendary soigneur who's pounded he legs of greats such as Greg Lemond and Sean Kelly to take care of our muscles, and Stefan de Beukelaar, a physiologist to look after our bodies. Mind you, we haven't had to ride anything yet, so I may change my mind on his point in a couple of days.
Everyone is looking forward to tomorrow with a mixture of dread and excitement. Jo Burt of Cycling Plus magazine has never done a time trial in his life, despite being a British cyclist, in fact I'm the only one here who knows what it feels like, but I'm under no illusions that this will give me any sort of advantage. Probably quite the opposite, knowing me...
Photography
Images by Starshot Design Agency
- Fuelling up, my way.
- Hopefully, this isn't my Giant bike.
- The Giant Media Team crew kitted out in their race clothing.
- Swanning around.
- Race numbers, just like the pro's!
- Drooling over my schwag.
- More schwag.
- Donning the race numbers.
- Careful does it.
- The Giant Media Team.
- Salute to the sun.
- Lactate tests are a bunch of fun... not!
- Ouch.
- Some yummy-looking machines.
- That's my baby.
- More testing.
- Open wide.
- Putting on the finishing touches.
- The alarming absence of excess body fat among the Giant Media Team camp has got me slightly worried.
- Taking a breather.
- Race ready.
- All the gear, but still no idea of what I've got himself into.
