Tour Ta Malta

On Tuesday evening, my dad and I left for Gatwick Airport. The flight was Wednesday Morning at 7:15, meaning another early start, getting up at 4:30am, seeing as we had to be their 2 hours before to ensure we got our bikes on board.

This was the first time I had flown from Gatwick, and the first time I was going to Malta. Likewise for my Dad. From what I had heard, the roads were like ice if it rained, there was no MOT so the cars were all falling to bits and oil was everywhere.

The plane ended up leaving 45 minutes behind schedule, due to a traffic jam of planes on the runway in Gatwick.

After about 3 hours we arrived in Malta on the expected time despite the delay, all thanks to a tail wind. We got out with the sun shining and only a breath of wind. After getting the bags, we were greeted by one of the organisers of the "Tour ta Malta" who loaded our bikes and luggage into his Kia Sportage, loading it to the brim, the organiser got us a taxi to take us to the headquarters (which was also the hotel that we where meant to be staying at) of the race, while he took our bikes.

The Taxi Journey

This was the first time that I would be able to see what Malta was like. The taxi driver, in my opinion, was a madman. On single lane roads he was overtaking and undertaking cars, almost scraping all other cars, and beeping his horn at them to move out the way. Cars were coming out from side roads without looking, not stopping and, of course, he wasn't, which made me think that this was the way that people drive here. Car horns where constantly heard from all the close misses, and red lights or zebra crossing weren't in his or anyone else's dictionary's, going straight through even with pedestrians nearby. We got closer to the hotel and the traffic started to build. The taxi driver, still being "the perfect bunch rider" was still fitting through the smallest gaps and trying to “move up” as much as he can, cutting other people up as a result of his actions. But it seemed everyone was doing the same.

Arriving at the hotel, we got our luggage unloaded to take in, just to find that we had to pack it all back in, this time into a van. We were staying about 500m away in Hotel Sliema Chalet. This time we had a different driver driving the van, he was on the phone, driving one handed, without a seatbelt and cutting up a policewoman (who did nothing except hoot her horn) and lots of other people. We soon arrived to find that the room would not be ready for another 30 minutes. So we went back to the headquarters for some lunch of Pasta and ham.

First ride in Malta

When the room was ready, we quickly unpacked so I would be able to go for a couple of hours loosen up, and to see the Stage 1 time trial circuit. Without a map, I had a brief route to get to the circuit that a manager from another team had told me, and somehow managed to find it without problems. The roads were undulating, filled with traffic and kamikaze drivers. I somehow managed to get abused for riding on a bike path, which is something that doesn't even happen in England, and made me laugh.

The time trial circuit was mostly flat with a few little drags in it, but by the time I had done the circuit I had only done 15km, so I continued riding and went exploring. On my search around, I found some nice hills, the first of them very similar to a local climb near me, Little Baddow, which

I big ringed to get my heart rate up. At the top I saw a nice decent to my left which looked like it ended up going up some nice hills, I went down and came to one, which I named Windygap (Due to its similarity to the climb from the Junior tour of Ireland) and a random really bad surface road which I only managed to go up at 10km/h.

Trying to make a loop back to the hotel, I went down a little road and ended up getting chased by 3 dogs, 2 small and 1 big, so a bit of interval training was included in the ride!

Following my instincts, I went down a few random roads and ended up seeing the sea, so cycled towards it, and then a bit further sign posts to the capital Valetta (the rest of the signs for some

reason looked like they were in Russian) I knew that the hotel was only a matter of kilometers down the coast from Valetta in a town called Sliema. Somehow I found the hotel with no problem at all, taking the same route that the Taxi took just a few hours earlier, dodging the traffic. I

checked my Garmin 500 and saw that I had 750m of climbing, which was quite alot for a 2 hour loosen up, and just to let you know, an average temp of 16.5 degrees.

Stage 1 - The Time Trial

Getting up at 6:30am to eat at 7, made it another early start. We had to be at the headquarters for 8, as everyone had to sign on then cycle together to the start of the time trial.. The organisers managed to get David Miller to come (because he was born on Malta) to cycle with everyone who was racing to the start of the time trial circuit. He soon had to leave, as he had to catch his plane for Milan-San Remo at the weekend.

We arrived with a hour and a half till my planned start, I layed down on a wall, and rested for a good half an hour, till about a hour to go when I thought it would be a good moment to start a good warm up. At a glance, there was a nice hill in a hotel car park nearby, so I rode up and down it till the start.

As it was only a 6km circuit, and a 32km time trial, we had to do 5 laps, and it was our responsibility to make sure we did 5 laps, not 4 laps and not 6 laps (which people had done in the past years). The roads were almost completely closed (except for buses) which I was very happy with after my ride on that road the day before (as it is one of the busiest roads on the island). This would also be the longest time trial that I would have done up to this date.

At 11:10 I was off. After 2km there was a good feeling in my legs and managed to catch my minute man. On the 2nd lap, some person all in black managed to catch me up, and went past me. It was the perfect opportunity to pace myself at his pace, but without drafting. A few laps later, seeing him struggle, I overtook him, to find a kilometre after later he went past me again.

On the following U-Turn, I heard a puncture. Thinking it was me, I pointed to my front wheel in distress to the service marshal (that where I thought the sound came from) and came to a stop.

I had a feel of my tyres and they where still rock solid. I looked up and saw the person all in black who I was pacing myself against had stopped aswell. After a few seconds I realised that I had not punctured, it was infact him. I quickly got back on my bike and tried to catch up the time which was lost, ending up with a time of 48minutes 50 seconds and 6^th place, 5 seconds off 4^th place (Probably from the time I lost from stopping!). The average temp was a warm 21 degrees with sun and clear sky's, alot better then England or Belgium is at the moment!

As i'm not a specialist "tester", and have done no time trials so far this year, and not even riding in the position (just riding for a couple of hours the day before we left) I was not expecting to win it, but was hoping to get the best I could get on GC for the following stage, a hilly 100km road stage.

I ended up 3 minutes 22 behind the leader (Sicilian time trial champion), who did it in 45 minutes 28. The top 3 riders where all Italians and 4^th was Maltese time trial champion. As i'm only 1 minute 30 behind 2^nd place, tomorrow could be a good chance to scrape onto the podium.