Mattie Dodd journal: from Pegasus Bridge to the Iseran

In his latest journal entry, Rayner Foundation-supported rider Mattie Dodd takes on the Tour de l’Avenir with the INEOS Grenadiers Racing Academy: two long days in the break, a level crossing at the worst possible moment, a primary-school anti-doping test and a queen stage finishing near the top of the Col de l’Iseran.

As the saying goes, used enigmatically to describe the scale of our sport’s biggest race, “the Tour is the Tour”. The Tour de l’Avenir is not that Tour, but it is the under-23 version of it. Raced by national teams since 2007, this year it opened up to development teams, meaning that, from afar, the circus bore a remarkable similarity to the big version. That is, unless you’ve got frankly extraordinary eyesight that means you can make out the tiny “UCI Continental Team” logos printed just below the left collarbones of the performing monkeys.

What a single good day at this race can mean for a rider turns the stress in the bunch up that extra notch. Not that most races are exactly a zen-inducing affair, but to quote Nigel Tufnel, “these go to eleven”. Then again, the chaos is part of the fun of it all.

The race started on the site of some historical, though admittedly well-planned and executed, chaos. As I’ve mentioned here before, I have a moderate to severe obsession with military history. That meant my levels of excitement on finding out the location of the start of stage 1 were frankly worrying, considering there was a fairly big bike race I should have been preoccupied by. We rolled out from Sword Beach, one of the British landing beaches on D-Day, and kilometre zero was at Pegasus Bridge. I’m writing on the wrong website to give you a full run-down of the events at Pegasus Bridge, so I’ll leave you to look that up yourselves and find out why I was quite so excited by the fact that we rode over a random river crossing in northern France.

Somewhat counterintuitively, getting myself into the break of the day was actually less stressful than being in the bunch

Somewhat counterintuitively, getting myself into the break of the day was actually less stressful than being in the bunch. The reason was a dead-straight road of 20 kilometres about halfway through the race, coming just after we crossed the Greenwich Meridian, for those with a keen temporal interest. That road had no shelter for miles on the right-hand side. I’ll let you guess the final ingredient in this concoction of chaos. Long story short, there were echelons and general mayhem behind, while all I had to do was keep riding, let the outcome come to me, then race the punchy finishing circuit with some element of mental freshness (mental being the key caveat; physical freshness was another story). Simple. Sort of.

Crosswinds quite often create a sort of vicious downward spiral into general madness, as the fight to be in the right position becomes more and more chaotic with each split. Every split adds to the evidence of what the wind can do, so the elbows get sharper and the consequences of being caught out become more likely. Stage 2 certainly wasn’t an exception. A short stage with multiple crosswind sectors went largely as you’d expect — not exactly a day to chill out. A pretty big crash near the end led to the race being stopped and the eventual decision to neutralise the GC times for the day. That pause had the temporary effect of instilling an element of self-preservation in the bunch. Not that it lasted particularly long with a stage win on the line for the sprinters.

There is something rather odd about a late middle-aged French man trying to nonchalantly turn on the tap while he watches you empty your bladder into a plastic cup in a primary school toilet

I was randomly selected for an anti-doping test after this stage. Outside those who’ve done one, I’m not sure many people know how they work. There is something rather odd about a late middle-aged French man trying to nonchalantly turn on the tap while he watches you empty your bladder into a plastic cup in a primary school toilet, in an attempt to coax out whatever is left inside after three hours of dehydration. Everything before and after was conducted entirely in French, and an A-level that focused largely on obsolete literature was no more help than the simple hand gestures he used to explain that he was testing the concentration of the liquid in the cup I’d just handed him. Hope I haven’t put you off your Weetabix.

One of the quirks that comes with having a few Italians among the staff and riders at Ineos is that you get a review of almost every meal you eat. The French, seemingly, have a fairly unique way of cooking pasta that differs somewhat from the more traditional Italian style — let’s just say that it’s never undercooked. Personally, I really don’t care; my ability to differentiate between food and fuel is pretty limited by the end of the day. That said, judging by the amount of hand gesturing I witnessed, the Italians did have some thoughts.

It was at this point in writing this that I had to go back and rewrite the previous four paragraphs, having decided to restart my laptop with the draft floating about unsaved. Don’t say I don’t go the extra mile for you lot.

Having put my head down for a few seconds to accelerate, I looked up to see two red and white barriers slowly coming down, along with the chances of my plan working

Stage 3 was long. At 232 kilometres, it’s a distance you don’t see very often outside the WorldTour. Aerosuited and booted, I got in the early break again. Not without complications, I should add. What I thought was the perfect time to attack didn’t fit in with the French railway timetable. I’m aware that sentence needs a significant amount of context: having put my head down for a few seconds to accelerate, I looked up to see two red and white barriers slowly coming down, along with the chances of my plan working.

The enforced pause proved not to matter, as I ended up in a group of four engaged in the game of cat and mouse that an early break plays to try to outfox the peloton (lots of mammal metaphors there). The next three hours kind of blended into one. I can’t entirely rule out that being because, while very nice and peaceful, most of central France looks the same. My trance was eventually broken by the news that a group of 10 was on its way to join us with about 60 kilometres left. Not that it lasted very long once they caught us. A group that size has a tendency to bicker like toddlers about who is and isn’t doing their fair share of the work, so I decided that was my cue to attack, bringing one of the new arrivals with me.

For about 10 minutes, I was loving it: we were away, with open road in front and behind. After that, though, I found myself stuck in purgatory. With 40 kilometres left, both of us had multiple warning lights showing on the dashboard, and the 30-second gap didn’t seem to go up or down. The same open road that had been so exciting 20 kilometres earlier now made veering off into a nettle bush seem a pleasurable alternative. I exaggerate, of course, but getting caught carried slightly less disappointment than it normally does when similar escapades fail. Side note: I ate 9,000 calories that day, and again on a later one. Not for pleasure, just to replace the day’s output with an input that looks diabetes-inducing out of context.

I’m going to be honest, the next day sort of blurs into one. I remember we finished up a cobbled climb and I was on lead-out duty, but anything before that is one blob of fields and cows. Again, not complaining, just noticing. The previous day meant my memory wasn’t in much of a state to, well, remember.

I do remember that we spent longer driving than we did racing. A four-and-a-half-hour transfer meant I finally saw that France wasn’t all exactly the same. I should add that I have nothing against France; I’m simply reporting that my eyes seemed to suggest there is nothing in most of it. Anyway, back to where I was trying to get to: mountains. Big ones. The next day was the usual Tour de l’Avenir mountain time trial, going up one of the aforementioned mountains one by one. It was nice to have a bit of peace and quiet to suffer alone for a change.

I still got the experience of riding a bike while breathing through a straw — and I’m talking about one of the paper ones with a maximum longevity of four sips

Stage 6. The queen stage. Etapa reina. Königsetappe. Étape reine. All essentially ways of saying it’s really hard and probably worth watching if you get a kick out of self-inflicted physical suffering. Add the adjective hypoxic and this stage would be right up your alley. It finished up the Col de l’Iseran, at a bit over 2,700 metres. That was after the Cormet de Roselend and a few other climbs I’d never heard of, decent climbs in their own right even if overshadowed by those two. Despite the fact I’d done my job and dropped off at the bottom, I still got the experience of riding a bike while breathing through a straw — and I’m talking about one of the paper ones with a maximum longevity of four sips, not a marine-life-imperilling plastic one.

The entirety of the final stage was in Italy. I don’t know why; it’s not like the climbs there were any harder. The Italian contingent certainly wasn’t complaining. Their sighs of relief as they sat down to dinner, waiting to be presented with pasta that offered even the slightest resistance when bitten, were something my Anglo-centric brain couldn’t quite get around.

The profile of the final day was pretty similar to a toddler’s idea of a launch ramp big enough to send a rocket into space. In other words, basically one big climb at the end with not much before it. That brought the race to a close. I’d only aged about 10 years. In hindsight, the day that suited me best was the first one, with everything else being for nutcase sprinters or vertically challenged climbers. With under-23 racing, it can be hard to predict how a race will play out, so you can’t really know until you’re there. I’d have raced that day a bit differently if I’d known, but hindsight something something twenty-twenty and all that. At least I got to see a cool bridge.

Featured image: Judy Dodd