UCI Gran Fondo Worlds Taste the rainbows The UCI Gran Fondo World Championships gives amateurs the chance to race for a rainbow jersey Words JAMIE WILKINS Photography SPORTOGRAF could try and play it cool format is well established as a mass but the hair standing participation one-day race, and they’re up on the back of my usually fiercely competitive at the front. neck would give me This event is split by gender and into away. Pulling on a Team nine age groups from 19 to 75+, with GB skinsuit with your name on the a coveted rainbow jersey awarded to sleeve is a real moment. No, this isn’t the winners of each. It’s described as the Olympics or in any way related to a ‘mass participation championships’ professional sport. But it is a bona fide in that you have to earn your place, but World Championship, grand in scale and doing so requires only that you finish in slick in execution, and I can’t deny I’m the top 25% of your age group in one of excited to be here. And while the world 20 qualifying events worldwide. may not be watching, it is real racing – no It’s a concept that triathletes will fewer than 56 countries are represented relate to most easily, as they’ve long had among the nearly 3,000 riders. an Age-Group World Championships. There are many challenges you You wonder if this is what’s stopping the might associate with racing in a World UCI using that very title for this event, Championship event, but you wouldn’t since doing so would make the inclusion expect explaining the thing to be one of of a time-trial seem less oxymoronic. As Above: The pace is as hot as them. In the UK especially, ‘gran fondo’ it is, the event has already been through the soaring air temperature as is just another name for a sportive, more name changes than Puff Daddy. riders head out of Albi in the and we all know that sportives aren’t Few now recall that it used to be the 155km Gran Fondo road race races. In Europe, though, the gran fondo Masters World Championships, and P CYCLIST.CO.UK 43 UCI Gran Fondo Worlds UCI Gran Fondo Worlds The road race course isn’t particularly challenging, but the competition is fierce and finish of the TT and the finish of my head down so much that I nearly run Frenchman Samuel Plouhinec (40-44). the road race. With easy access, lots of into the tyre wall on the apex of the final Which is hardly surprising given that parking and a ready-made safe course, corner. And there’s the line at last. he’s a former pro whose 17-year career it’s a good solution but the pit boxes The shaded finish area is an oasis and included riding for top French teams allocated to nation teams are far too I don’t even look at my time. Volunteers such as Cofidis. small. I set up my turbo in the shade park your bike for you having helped you Current pros on UCI teams of the toilet block. off it and onto a seat, hand you as many (Continental and above) are excluded Given the temperature, warming glasses of cold water or coke as you but Elites and recently retired pros are up is more a battle to stay cool. I’m well like, and don’t let you go until they’re free to enter and the podiums are full prepared with frozen towels and bottles, satisfied you’ve recovered. After five of them. No one I speak to thinks this plus chilled drinks. At least the queue for minutes I’m still dizzy and it’s at least quite sits with the spirit of the event, the start ramp is shaded and I pour iced 20 before I feel normal again. But every especially if, like women’s 55-59 P water over myself as I wait. Some riders single rider looks broken. You know it’s look like they’re overheating already. hot when a Malaysian has to be lifted The UCI officials checking riding off his bike. The rider’s rides positions and waving their magic tablets Time-trial: Orbea Ordu Ltd M20i 2016, around to search for motors are a Air miles £5,499, orbea.com reminder that there’s more at stake Brazilian Leonardo Aranha suffered I’ve run this bike for two seasons now and love its speed, handling here than £25 and a scone. In no time, as much as anyone and looks shell- and braking. I’ve upgraded it with an Enve 7.8 front wheel and I’m on the start ramp, watching the shocked at the finish. ‘I was aiming a disc at the rear, SRM power meter with Osymetric 56/44 countdown and setting off. to do 405W but I was 100W below. chainrings, Cycling Ceramic jockey wheels, 3T Revo Ltd aero bar, It takes maybe 10 seconds for the I just couldn’t do the power in the heat. Profile Design Aeria -1/Seventeen stem, Fizik Tritone saddle and heat to hit me. It radiates up from the I haven’t lost a time-trial at home all Michelin Power Competition 25mm tyres. tarmac like fire and my mouth goes dry. year and this was a big goal.’ Should I have brought a drink? I focus It must have been. To earn his on my position and power, careful not to qualification Aranha had flown to start too fast, and fly down the circuit’s Scotland in April to race the TT and the top straight aided by a tailwind. The Gran Fondo, as the Tour de Campeche course had been open to recce the in Mexico was no longer accessible. Five minutes after the finish I’m still dizzy and day before and I’d ridden two laps, He and I had ridden together and so I know I can avoid breaking position chatted a bit at the front of the bunch it’s at least 20 before I feel normal again. But for most of the corners. in Kilmarnock, and now here we are every single rider looks broken. You know it’s There’s a hill after 10km. It’s 1km wilting together in France. long at 5-6% – not exactly a wall, but Another rider racking up the air miles hot when a Malaysian has to be lifted off his bike any hill is tough at TT pace. From the is Jim McMurray from New Zealand, P has also been titled the UCI World enough to experience that myself as recce I know I can stay in my 56x23 and who took silver in the 55-59 TT. This is Cycling Tour Final. the overall winner of the road race in I’d planned to go up it hard, yet I arrive his fourth participation: he won gold last Scotland, meaning my summer holiday desperately hot and already at 180bpm. year in Perth, Australia, and silver in the Road race: Ridley Noah SL 2015, £5,499, British invasion plans for Albi were set. I’d punctured out While moving to the base bar opens my road race, although that ‘local’ edition sportline.co.uk That series barely registered with UK of the TT, though, so qualifying for that chest and helps me get the power out, still involved an eight-hour flight. ‘It’s This bike has served me brilliantly across three seasons and riders because there was no British event required a further long weekend it doesn’t cool me one bit. There’s no winter at home right now and 12°C, so thousands of racing kilometres. It’s fast, stiff, precise and rather underrated alongside newer rivals. The original build kit let it qualifying round. The arrival of the Tour away at the Tour of Cambridgeshire. recovery to be had across the heat is tough,’ he tells me. ‘I found it down, though. Mine is now fitted with a Verve Infocrank power of Cambridgeshire in 2015 changed all Those are the other aspects of the top, only suffering. hard but I enjoyed it.’ The memory of the meter, Cycling Ceramic jockey wheels, Specialized S-Works that and led to scores of British riders qualification: the time and money you The short descent is fast and intense, pain always fades faster with a medal Power saddle, Enve carbon stem and Aero Road bar. Wheel choice participating in the championships in have to dedicate to those events and leading into a T-junction left that I around your neck. varies with the course but in Albi I used Enve 4.5 tubs (my go-to Denmark and Australia in the last two then to the final. Doing the two qualifiers couldn’t practise at speed in the recce When the results are posted I start at 1,300g) shod with 25mm Michelin Pro4 Service Course tubulars. years respectively. This year the Tour was an expensive affair, the trip to Albi so I have to guess and then kick myself scanning from the bottom of the first of Ayrshire was added as a second more of the same, and that was without because I could have taken it 5kmh sheet, where I guess I might be, and qualifying event, and with the 2017 taking up the offers from UK organiser quicker. A few kilometres later, a nasty move up, and up, my heart rate rising GF Worlds being held in Albi, easily Golazo for travel and team gear – the right hander plunges off to the side with my eyes up the page.