Mattie Dodd journal: a first UCI win, and five kilos of pasta

In his latest journal entry, Rayner Foundation-supported rider Mattie Dodd charts a first UCI win at the Ronde de l’Isard, a week spent in service of a teammate in the Alps, and a blue jersey at the Giro d’Italia Next Gen. This is the first of two entries.

So, where to start? It feels, to me at least, that quite a lot has happened since my last journal. Whether that’s actually the case is entirely subjective, but let’s roll with the assumption that there has been quite a lot of bike-racing-related activity since I was last here.

In my mind, I’d either end up in a hedge or I’d get across to the break

First thing to go through is that I took my first UCI win. That was pretty cool — he says, with massive understatement. Stage 4 of the Ronde de l’Isard, a U23 stage race somewhere in and around the south of France, featuring a few forays into the foothills (and big hills for that matter) of the Pyrenees. The day never saw an “early break” go, it was just constant attacking from the gun and as the race went on, I knew that the chances for any break that did go to take the win grew exponentially. As it happened, I missed that break. To start with at least. I realised quite quickly that I may have just made a grave error, so did something that I’m not sure I can entirely recommend to any younger riders reading this — pushed the limits of bike and road down a twisty descent. In my mind, I’d either end up in a hedge or I’d get across to the break. Luckily for everyone involved, it was the latter and I bridged the gap to what had now swelled to a 15-rider break.

The usual games ensued, as did the repetition of the phrase (in various languages) “if you ride, I’ll ride”. The answers to that phrase were varied, but all responses included a heavy amount of shoulder shrugging and conflicted facial expressions. I tried to attack a few times within the final 30km, but it was a move I made with 20ish kilometres left that stuck. I quickly implemented a personal ban on thinking about the finish and any potential victory — I was only allowed to think of the road immediately ahead of me. Fast forward 25 minutes and I did let myself enjoy the last kilometre.

I don’t know what to say about winning a bike race that doesn’t sound really naff, or hasn’t already been said before by hundreds of others in bland post-race interviews or press releases

I don’t know what to say about winning a bike race that doesn’t sound really naff, or hasn’t already been said before by hundreds of others in bland post-race interviews or press releases. Winning a bike race is awesome — I don’t have the ability to describe that feeling in any more detail in a way that would actually convey it appropriately.

Anyway, skipping ahead a bit now, because I don’t want to give you my hyper-detailed race reports of all 20 race days that I’ve done since my last journal — neither of us have the attention span for that. I had two days off after Isard before another five-day stage race in the south of France — this time in the foothills of the Alps, around Lyon (sort of). The main focus for that week was the GC with Peter [Ed: Peter Øxenberg] — I’ll let you all attempt to pronounce his surname, because it’s nothing like it looks.

The overall boiled down to the final, monster day. After the first three hours spent alone on the front of the reduced peloton giving my best Sepp Kuss impression, my job was done with 70km to go — all of which I also did alone. It wasn’t a particularly sociable day on my end. Not that it mattered, as Peter finished the job and won the stage with undeniable class. Winning a race as the favourite is never easy (unless you’re some Slovenian bloke), despite how I made that previous sentence sound, and it was clear there was pressure on his shoulders. He didn’t put a foot wrong all day though, so I can only tip my hat to him.

The final of my three weeks at home in three months was then an opportunity to stick in a block of heat training. For those reading who aren’t familiar, count yourselves lucky. It essentially involves putting on as many clothes as possible, then riding on the turbo until your body starts to slightly shut down, then staying at that point for the remainder of the session (that is not training advice — I do not want to be responsible for anyone giving themselves self-induced heart failure). It’s not exactly pleasant, but that discomfort is counterbalanced by its benefit. I’ll let you read the science on it yourself, I can sense the boredom creeping through at merely the anticipation of possibly having to read about increases in plasma volume.

All of that was to prepare for the Giro d’Italia Next Gen, which is quite the mouthful so I’ll be referring to it by its nickname, the Baby Giro. It was a varied parcours, starting right down on the toe of the Italian peninsula. I’d say a stone’s throw away from Sicily, but I reckon you’d need something more like a siege catapult to cover the two(ish) kilometres across the Strait of Messina.

I didn’t have too much to write home (or on here) about over the first three days, nothing lost and nothing gained. The first interesting day on my end was stage 4. One of those days where the early break formation just went on and on and ended up not being that early anymore when it did finally break. Any move that team X were happy with, team Y wasn’t, teams A and B would get in the move, but cancel each other out and so on. That was until the first of two times up the climb that was the main difficulty of the finishing circuit. I made a slightly impulsive move when things got hard, and soon found myself off the front with two others with a gap close to a minute. I knew it was going to be a long shot, but as the old saying (adapted to the geography of the situation) goes, in for a cent, in for a euro. Reading that back I’ve realised it really doesn’t translate, but you get the gist.

It’s funny how quickly you can go from encouraging each other and sharing water to trying to ride each other into the ground

Fast forward 40km or so, and it looked like our fun was about to be over, with the bunch looming 10 or so seconds behind as we approached the climb again. Given I’d come all that way, I decided to give it another nudge and managed to drop my breakaway companions. It’s funny how quickly you can go from encouraging each other and sharing water to trying to ride each other into the ground.

Anyway, pressing on over the top of the climb, I was as surprised as anyone to be shown I then had half a minute over the bunch with around 10 or so km to go. In that moment, I let myself dream.

That dream though, quite quickly turned into the closest thing to purgatory I’ve experienced. As time went on, the difficulty of the feat I was attempting to pull off became apparent. A dead straight, wide road, into a block headwind, with a now-organised and still fairly large bunch bearing down meant the writing was on the wall fairly early. I’ll save you the agony of having to read about my agony, but I ended up being caught with 5km to go. It was always going to be a tough ask to pull that off, but buying a ticket is the only way to win the lottery.

On a positive note, I ended up in maglia azzurra — that’s the blue one for the anglophones. It’s the KOM jersey in this race. The plan wasn’t initially to defend it to the death. I’d take the points if I could do so with ease, but the focus remained a stage win. The organisers also gave me five kilos of pasta for taking blue that day. Uncooked, that is, so it wasn’t much use frankly. I then lost the pasta, for those asking of its fate once cooked.

The organisers had thrown said piece of spaghetto on a map of Bacoli, which is sort of near Napoli. Left, right, up, down. Steep climbs, shallow climbs, good roads, bad roads. It was madness

Stage 5 was mad. On the subject of pasta, imagine someone threw a piece of wet spaghetti on a map, joined up the ends, then decided to plot a course in real life on the roads corresponding to the spaghetto’s wiggles (yes, spaghetto is the singular of spaghetti. Who says this isn’t educational?). Well, in this scenario, the organisers had thrown said piece of spaghetto on a map of Bacoli, which is sort of near Napoli. Left, right, up, down. Steep climbs, shallow climbs, good roads, bad roads. It was madness.

It was great fun though, for me at least — I was in the break of six or seven. From what teammates tell me, the harder physical effort was more than compensated for by the lack of mental stress while up the road. Turns out sending a bunch of slightly mad 18–22-year-olds ripping it around a chaotic city circuit isn’t exactly a recipe for total zen.

My presence in the break did mean I was suddenly in a position to hoover up KOM points, and managed to cross the line first on seven of the eight summits. I did end up paying for my efforts in the last lap, going backwards like a stone with the grace of a grimacing hippo when caught by the now highly reduced front group. Anyway, from that point on, winning blue outright was very much a goal.

Stage 6 saw the early break somehow being 40 riders. At some point, you do have to question what still constitutes an early break, or what you just call a split. I’ll leave you to mull that one over. Three of us were in it with the sole aim of taking maximum points on the first KOM. I’ll skip the details and just tell you it was mission success. Caught at the base of the final climb, it was then just about rolling to the finish, getting the podium ceremony done (first-world problems) and getting something to eat to try and put some vaguely intelligent thoughts back behind my staring eyes after three days straight in the break.

I spent an hour following a single Italian rider around the bunch. Whether he found it slightly odd or not, that wasn’t my worry, but ensuring he didn’t take the first KOM point was. He didn’t.

The final road stage was fairly uneventful. I just needed any of five people not to win all three KOM points and I’d have mathematically secured it. Four of those being GC guys who’d be highly unlikely to get in the early break, I spent an hour following a single Italian rider around the bunch. Whether he found it slightly odd or not, that wasn’t my worry, but ensuring he didn’t take the first KOM point was. He didn’t.

On the final day TT, my main task was to achieve the fairly low bar of not crashing to win blue. The absence of any new road rash indicates that was successful. With TTs being few and far between, for a multitude of reasons related to entertainment value I’m not prepared to go into now, a competitive TT was a fairly well-timed test run before the following Thursday. More about National Champs next time — I’m very sorry for the spoiler alert if anyone thought I was talking about going full bells and whistles in an attempt to break 18 minutes on the G10/42 (very, very niche reference, I’ll admit).