Ultra distance events. How do you approach them?
Option 1 - Head down and hammer.
Option 2 - Ride solo and feed your motivation with the landscapes, the introspection, the escape and the chance interactions you find along the way.
Option 3 - Relax with friends for maximum enjoyment on the road. And concentrate on calorie consumption. Patisseries, café, ice-cream, pizza, chocolate....
This is a Matthieu riding by himself. Class and style are evident, but something's missing.
Team Détente (that's Team Relax in english).
Partners on the road for Matthieu. They joined him for Chilkoot's signature long distance event, Born To Ride - a mountainous journey that started on Mont Sainte-Odile in the Vosges and finished in Mont Aigoual in the Massif Central and zigged and zagged its way via Germany, Switzerland and Italy.
In case it isn't obvious, Team Détente chose option 3.
Who are Team Détente? Answer: they are the beating heart of the Chilkoot Pioneers
Christopher:
a TCR finisher and known affectionately as the Crazy Ninja. He snores very loudly.
Denis:
so strong he could paralyse you with his little finger. And he likes to sing songs from the musical Starmania, sometimes while bathing fulling clothed in fountains.
last year he rode the parcours of every single one-day classic in one season, in hommage to the great Eddy Merckx. And whilst on the road he likes to eat his own body weight in food each day.
Matthieu:
Mr Relax himself. A metronome on the pedals. Long Distance is his drug but he is an expert at knowing when to stop for a photo or eat a tropézienne cream cake.
Whilst the name suggests a more laissez faire approach, Team Détente are experienced enough to be players in this long distance game.
They cross the checkpoints in time (not a simple task in itself), But they add their own checkpoints as well.
What are those additional checkpoints?
Bakeries, bars, pizzerias, restaurants, sandwich shops, convenience stores and gas stations. Gas stations?
And in between they engage their own entertainment system : joke competitions, best interpretations of Eddy Mitchell or Starmania, photo competitions, everything is allowed.
It's all casually deliberate as they cross four of the highest the summits of the Alps, including Mont Ventoux as the penultimate climb.
That is not to say their journey is without pain, like their fellow rouleurs.
But, there is real pain and suffering everywhere in the world - Team Détente seeks to keep everything in perspective.
The balance between making progress and taking time to enjoy the journey in the context of an ultra distance race is a delicate one.
Do you want to make the best possible time or do you want to have the best possible time?
Team Détente did not and does not judge. It's recognised and respected that there is huge personal achievement in racing the clock. But there is also another way, if you want to take it.
The Team Détente way?
Friendship and mountains, sprinkled with a good dose of bivouac, the zest of some high mountain refuge and maybe a hint of hotel in Briançon.
The first finishers arrived with a little more than a day ahead of our band of merry men and earned the admiration of organisers and fellow riders alike.
But if they had to do it again (and they probably will do voluntarily), Team Détente would not change a line of the story that they lived on BTR 2017.
