Critérium International 2008 Part I

The 2008 edition of Critérium International was held on 29th-30th
March. I visited the last two stages on Sunday.


This young man of Skil-Shimno recently gained a lot of attention
when he made his mark on the climb of Paris-Nice. Clément Lhôtellerie
is his name. Here he was being interviewed.



The interviewer is a friendly guy. I met him in 2007 at Paris-Nice (Paris),
Critérium International, Dauphiné Libéré and possibly at other race events.



Laurens Ten Dam. He was wearing the yellow leader jersey. I think his
bar tape was freshly taped for this occasion courtesy of Rabobank mechanic.
Unfortunately he had to give the jersey up to Jens Voigt.



A Française des Jeux rider and a bunch of Cofidis riders heading to the start.



Another Française des Jeux rider.



What is the significance of the photo? Can you tell me? The answer is
shown all the way down this entry. I give you possible answers that you
can choose from.

1. The woman walking ahead of me is Naomi Campbell.
   
2. You can see a mysterious creature on the lake, like "Nessie".
   
3.  Bouygues Telecom rider is making the final preparation before the race.
   

The start. You can see Ten Dam.



I think the man sticking upper torso from the official car is Christian Prudhomme.
I saw him later at the finish.



There he is! The winner-to-be, Jens Voigt.



Immediately after the finish, Jens Voigt congratulated Gerrans.



Gerrans happy and being congratulated by the team staff.


The Anwer: 3

A rider was called by the nature and had to go before the start.

Kuurne_Brussel-Kuurne part II

The team arrived. They started unloading the bikes and putting bidons on the bike. 
At this stage, I (and other fans) start inspecting the bikes. Sometimes I find something interesting, like new prototype equipment being tested or some peculiar things on the bike.

All the team bikes had Zipp full carbon rim (34mm or 58mm height) with "Pave & Cross" stickers on them with the hubs also marked with "Pave & Cross" and Vittoria Pave tubular with green color. Actually, Pave has to be spelled as a French word " Pavé".

I guessed that Zipp wanted the team to use this wheels through out the Spring including those so called Spring Classics known for their harsh paved roads. 
There was an article in Procycling where Team CSC riders 
(Allan Johansen, Lars Michaelsen and Fabian Cancellara) testing the Equipment on 
the cobble stones (which is Pavé).  Johansen had his wheel (Zipp) broken.

Everybody had the FSA K-Force light crankset (one of the lightest on the market) except for Lars Bak. He had a very special crankset (on his spare bike, too).

After that I went to the Feed Zone, about 50km away from the Start. It was about an hour drive. I don't have much luck getting what I want; bidons, sacoche and others that the riders dispose of. Sometimes I do get lucky. For example, in 2006 at Amstel Gold Race, Michael Blaudzun threw the sacoche at me. 
He was about to get rid of his sacoche when he saw me and threw it at my foot. 

I drove back to Kuurne and had a much needed sleep after all for about an hour in my car.
I woke up around 4:00 pm to see the riders come backand make the rounds. I did not go to the Goal, instead, I waited by the team bus. 

So a typical race day ended. "See you next time!" to the team staff and I was to drive 550km back home. 

Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne part I

Photo: Lars Baks' Cervelo R3 with a somewhat suspicious crankset. His spare bike had the same crankset. He likes this crankset. FSA logo is a handmade sticker.


Sunday, 4th March 2007

The first trip to the race in 2007. Originally, K-B-K was not on my schedule; Paris-Nice was supposed to be the first race I would go see. Because of the ongoing battle between UCI and 3 grand tour organizers, I was not sure whether Team CSC would participate in Paris-Nice and decided to go see K-B-K.

I bought a GPS navigation system (Garmin Streetpilot C510) back in December 2006.
Since then I have been creating waypoints marking the places that I need as signposts and destinations for travelling to see bicycle races.

As always, I left home very late Saturday evening or more exactly really early Sunday morning around 1:00 am. The destination was a city called Kuurne in Belgium. 550km to go. With a help
of the navigation's system, driving was easy. Via Luxembourg, I arrived at the destination around 6:30 am Sunday morning.

It was still dark but relatively warm. As always, the first thing I had to do was to look for the 
"Start" and a proper parking place. As always, if there is still time to kill, I go sleep.

Around 9:30, I got our of my car and walked to the Start. There were already people (spectators) at the Start. Quick Step-Innergetic, Predictor-Lotte and one vendor were there to sell their merchandise. I thought I had seen them somewhere before. I was sure they would be at Paris-Nice prologue next week.

I walked back to my car and took my bike out. As always, the next thing I had to do was to look for the "Team bus parking place". That is where you get the autograph from your favorite riders.

There were designated  parking for the teams near the Start. 
There I waited for a while. Several teams came but Team CSC did not show up. 
It was then I saw Francaise des Jeux bus take an unexpected turn and head for another 
unknown parking place. It was past 10:30 am. 
"Damn it, there is another parking somewhere!" I chased the FDJ bus on my bike and found it. 
 

It happened to me again, I thought. It happened to me before.   I mean, being late to find the Team CSC bus and getting no autograph nor seeing the riders 
closely. 
It happend in Liège 2006. I could not find the bus and by the time I located it,  riders were gone or leaving hastily. It happened to me in Frankfurt am Main 2006. 

I located the hidden parking place. There was no Team CSC to find. I talked to a guy wearing Team CSC jersey on a bike. He had not seen them either. "Is there yet another secret parking?" 
I decided to return to the Start if Team CSC had arrived there around 11:00. On my way, 
I saw Team CSC bus arriving. They were just coming late. I rode beside them; 
the MAN bus, Skoda cars and VW van. They honked at me. That meant someone who knew me were driving.