Welcome Back…
Don’t both unpacking that suitcase though!!
It’s Tuesday, April 30th and I’ve just stepped out of the car in Girona. I’m tired, I’m jet-lagged, I’m hungry, but mostly, I’m happy to be home.
I collect my stuff from the car, and within a handful of seconds, Hamish Beadle, a Kiwi pro with Novo Nordisk walks past with a smile, “welcome back”, he says as he goes about his day.
I smile, Girona has a lot of flaws, but it’s little interactions like that which make it feel like home.
I’ve been away for some fifty days. I feel like a stranger in my apartment, and all I wanted to do is sleep. I throw my suitcase to the floor, hop straight in the shower and one thing comes to my mind: food.
It’s Traka week in Girona.
The Traka is Europe’s biggest gravel race, and is rapidly becoming one of the world’s biggest gravel races. The whole town is crawling, even more than normal, with cyclists. Yes, I know I’m part of the problem.
Within an hour of being home, I head to Idle Hands, my favourite cafe in town for lunch. On my way, I get stopped by a friend, “Joe, seriously dude, congrats on the States.”, he says. For a place that is dripping with world-class talent, me going around my silly little privateer project and the whole Ribble Rebellion thing can seem tiny.
World Champions and Grand Tour stage winners are part of the everyday social groups in Girona. For people to take their time out to congratulate me - well, it meant more than I thought it would.
I step into Idle Hands to two massive hugs from the guys who work there. “It’s good to have you back”, they tell me.
I bump into everyone at once as I munch down my pancakes. I’ve lived in Girona for over three years, and it’s a small community. Everyone is congratulatory. I’ve been tunnel vision since February. I didn’t expect to be setting up Ribble Rebellion, add in my privateer project and all of my freelance work, it’s been head down and blinkers on. Taking a step back to see what we achieved was great.
–
I do nothing for the first three days. I’m fighting a losing battle with jet lag. My body is on Speedweek Crit O’Clock, meaning I have no chance of adapting. I stay up till gone four one night - that’s around ten at night in Atlanta, which in my body and brain, is the time I’ve just been finishing racing.
My coach has me on optional recovery rides, the weather is horrendous so my option has mostly been not to ride the bike. The couple of times I did brave the weather, my Wahoo went straight into the back pocket. I’m riding because I want to, no number, no pressure.
It takes three days of those optional rides, and then another four days of just riding to get back to feeling human. You know that thing when you stay healthy for ages, but the second you stop, you start to get sick? That was me after the US block.
I’m racing a lot this year, in hindsight, probably too much. I made the mistake last season of over-stretching myself, and I feel like I’ve done that again albeit in a very different manner.
I’m the one that puts my calendar together. It’s carefully crafted over early winter evenings, often with a glass of red wine at my side. Staring at the empty calendar is inspiring, and the dreams of faraway races come to mind. One by one, races slot into place, and the post-off-season brain doesn’t comprehend all the time away.
I planned in more breaks this year, but I think I over extended on the foreign travel. There’s no b**tard DS I can blame for throwing me into races last minute. There’s no team I can curse for hanging me out to dry. There’s just myself. It’s all a learning process. In future years, I’m going to race less and back myself more. Fewer race days, better prep.
I’ll have just shy of 50 race days this season, and spend some 175 days on the road…whoops.
–
I’m writing this on a Ryanair plane, somewhere between Girona and Leeds Airport. The last few days at home have been great. I’ve got back into the routine of being at home. Wake up, flick the Rocket on, make a coffee, head out for a few hours of training on the world’s best roads, hit the lap button a load of times, home, food, coffee, laptop. As an athlete, I thrive on routine, and nothing makes me happier than seeing everything go to plan.
In an ideal world, I’d spend the next few weeks in Girona. Allow the stress and cortisol from the last block to return to their pre-season levels, and get a solid training build in place too. In reality, it’s back on another block which won’t see me return home until mid-August, some fourteen weeks ago.
Maggie and I headed out for dinner and a walk on our last night before we headed away again. We managed five whole days at home together. As I type this flying to the UK, she’ll be on a plane to Canada tomorrow for a track prep camp. It’s Olympic year.
Walking the streets of Girona with an ice cream in hand, it was funny to look at what crazy lives we have. We have an apartment together in Catalonia, we last saw each other in California and the next time we’ll see each other is some six weeks away in Vancouver.
Next time we’re back home together, both our seasons will be coming to an end. I’ll have done the craziness that is my second Northern America block of the year, and I’ll hopefully have a majority of my 2025 contract locked up. Mags will have, with everything going to plan, lived out her Olympic dreams in Paris.
Who knows how many more places visited, flights taken, beds slept in, or lifetime experiences we’ll have in the next couple of months?
It’s almost midnight when I finally finish packing. For my first US block of the year, I started to pack days before, feeling the stress of what was to come. For this next block, I still had to unpack parts of my suitcase from the last trip before I even started to pack again.
If this seems like a reminisce sort of piece, it’s because it is. Whenever I head on the road for a long time, there’s plenty of thoughts and emotions that come into play.
Next Races:
Gralloch Gravel, 🏴 - May 18
Ras Tailteann, 🇮🇪 - May 22-26
Unbound Gravel, 🇺🇸 - June 1
Boulder Rest Week, 🇺🇸 - June 2-11
Blue Mountains Gravel, 🇨🇦 - June 15
Oregon Trail Gravel, 🇺🇸 - June 26-30
Concord Crit, 🇨🇦 - July 7
GasTown Crit, 🇨🇦 - July 10
ChicagoGRIT, 🇺🇸 - July 19-24
Project TAG, proudly partnering (both for my athletic and influencing ability) with…
While you’re here…
I’ve added both a paid subscription and a ‘Buy Me A Coffee’ link to this post. As the year progresses, I’m planning on building this blog and putting out articles which I’ve always wanted to write but for whatever reason, haven’t wanted to pitch.
Any money that I make from either my Substack or BMaC link will go straight back into supporting my 2024 racing project. I am planning on keeping all content on here free to view though.
Welcome back in Girona! I wish someday I stumble upon you at some coffee shop or in some roads around the area. I wish you all the best for this second block in USA. Go for it! 🤙🏻