Jon Dibben, twice National Champion for i-Team as an Under 12 Peter Dibben, Jon's older brother, looking to improve on last year's result Sarah King - giving it a go in the footsteps of her sister Dani.
In 2008, i-Team member and my good friend Richard Gorman was the sponsorship director for the CSC professional team.
Imagine how excited I was when I got a call from him, asking if would I like to do a bit of driving for him and spend a bit bit of time hanging out with CSC at Paris Roubaix?
Er, let me think about it Rich... (0.1 secs later) - OK, thought about it...YEP!
The course itself is quite tough as each lap (3 laps) on the bike has a nice climb midway as well as a technical undulating section through a park and around the beachfront. The run is quite undulating and is one of those courses where down is steep but up is generally a long set of inclines giving you the feeling of having to run uphill for a lot longer than you would have preferred – is this incline ever going to end – ring any bells?
I'm not a great swimmer so the 3.8km swim is all about holding maximum speed for minimum energy expenditure. It is best to swim in a group whilst still holding a decent line and without being jostled too much. I was swimming with a couple of female pros for a while but somehow lost focus for the last 20mins (lack of training) and went backwards.
The course was a difficult one, with three ascents of the demanding 'Blue Mountain Road' climb on a 25km loop and 5 ascents of the 'Wallaceville' climb on a 17km loop. Total 160km. It was predicted that major splits would occur on the Blue Mountains climb. At 2.7km the road rose to just under 300m and with an average gradient of 8.1% the climb required a rider of my ability to be at max every time we went up, this in order to just stay with the group.
Dave in a break with Sean Yates & Tony Gibb with Ben blocking the bunch. Dave worked himself over a bit - going for every point instead of working with the break a bit more and he had to drop off the break. He had some points but he had to wait for the bunch.
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