Rouleur

A few years ago I got the chance to ride L’Alpe d’Huez – 8 miles, 21 switchbacks, average gradient of 8%  – that infamous climb from Bourg d’Oisans on which Lance Armstrong laid his rivals to waste  in 2001 and 2004 and LeMond crossed the finish line hand in hand with Hinault to create one of the Tour’s enduring images.

15.5 Kms, 21 switchbacks, 8% gradient

This years tour, and Carlos Sastre’s magnificant solo ride to win Stage 17 and clinch the Yellow Jersey from his teammate, brought back memories of that day. It was July 20, 2004, the day before the infamous and first ever time trial up L’Alpe – the one where Lance caught and passed his arch nemesis Jan Ulrich to seal his 6th tour Victory.

Lance powering to win Stage 17, 2004

From the bottom L’Alpe appears innocuous enough, but when you turn the corner out of Bourg and hit the first climb it sort of hits you – the mythical nature of the climb, those who have ridden this road before, the majesty of the Alps – and what lays ahead. Its not a hard climb as such, its just relentless, like going up stairs for 15kms. You look up and see the bends further up and wonder how you will ever get there! Lance did the time trial in around 50 minutes, I managed 1 hr 26 minutes, respectable enough. The crowd was immense – they had camped there for days in the thousands to see their idols for the brief few seconds it would take them to fly past – but every one of them cheered me and my fellow riders every inch of the way and gave me my enduring memory of that day – for the briefest of moments I could believe I was riding the Tour.

About a year ago Iwrote a review of my then new Cervelo R3 (http://taylorpost.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/cervelo-r3-review/). Well I have now done over 5,000 miles over some very varied terrain, including several hundred miles in SW Australia, a number of charity rides, several races (mainly crits) and ‘challenges’ like the Death Ride!

Taken near the top of Sierra Rd during the Tour of California

I service the bike myself, although othet than a decent clean, lube and torquing of various bolts absolutely nothing has gone wrong. I also had two crashes last winter, one of which required a new derailleur hanger to fix and some new bar tape, but despite the various cosmetic scratches there has been no lasting impact on the bike (my descending became a lot more tentative for a while though until the roads dried out).

So, what of riding the bike? I live in a farily hilly area so most rides involve some moderate or significant vert and for this the Cervelo is a pure joy. I am by no means the fastest in the Peleton up the climbs, but when it counts and I need to lay down some power every ounce of effort gets immeditaley and smoothly transferred to the rear wheel – it flies up hills! On rollers, rough terrain or the flats I am pretty fast and usually in  the top 1/3 of the group, where the bikes comfort, sublime handling and good manners really give me the confidence I need to stay up there. My descending suffered as a result of the crashes, but I still find the Cervelo a little jittery on fast rough descents. The rear end is very light and rigid so I have to concentrate on keeping my weight back and down as the rear wheel loses grip in a flash (I had a mini slide earlier today when I lost a little grip coming into a sharp bend). Much of this is probably about me rather than the bike! On fast, smooth descents I can fly and the bike handles fantastically even when I need to make quick direction changes, switch from cornering sharp left to right, etc.

Aesthetically the bike looks great, although the black paint job does means that dirt shows up easily (I was the bike every 2 weeks).

In a nutshell, I have zero regrest about buying the Cerveloe, would recommend it to anyone and if I had the cash, would buy 2 so I had one for training and 1 for racing!