Hello! my name is Juan Aragòn. Im 18 years, and just starting my career as an professional cyclist.
I come from the small Country Andorra(), in the mountains between Spain and France. Since I was about 7-8 years(when I discovered it), my favorite sport has been cycling. My mother and father owns a local shop in the city Andorra la Vella, and I’ve lived there my whole life. All since I was a little boy, my dream was to be the best cyclist in the world. I think that when I was 8-10 years I were in a very good shape, since me and my friends trained a lot, playing that it was the Tour de France, that we were Contador, Schleck and Valverde. We often changed names, but I was always the strongest in the hills.
When we got older, my friends started with more “Accepted” sports, like soccer, or started at the training studio. But I continued riding my bike. When the older guys got a reason, they started bugging me, especially because of my size. I think I was about 12 years when I saw the difference. I was as tall as my friends, but 10 kg’s lighter. But I continued. After a while, our teacher’s started to react. Me, which earlier was the most popular guy in school, had no friends now. When they tried to fix it up, talking to my strong and empowering father, he was shocked. But he helped me out of the bad time, my mother also. They helped me train hard, train right, eat right.
And the results came, I got a little bit better all the time, and one day, when I was 16, we found a local cycling club on the other side of the country. That was not far away, so one Sunday morning, I agreed to meet the team, to look what I thought about cycling, and if I was strong enough to join them. Honestly, I struggled to sit in front at the flats, and was pretty disappointed. At the end of the ride, it was a steep and long climb. I was asked to go what I could to the top 9 km’s away. Ok, I had nothing to lose, so I tried. After 3 km’s there was a big stretch on the group, and a couple of guys struggled to keep on, after 6 km’s there were me and 2 others left. After 7,5 km’s we were only two, and the last guy, Josè attacked, I followed him, but had to give him 12 seconds at the end. I continued training with those guys the next years.
Edited by arre123 on 25-11-2014 19:15
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Thanks for response, i hope people will come with good feedback, and tells what they think could be better. The parts will maybe not come everyday, but i will think of quality, as @paul23 suggested. By the way, here comes the second part:
La Vella, 19.9.15, sports pages
In the national Cycling championship, a new young rider impressed by taking the champion title from 32 year old Josè Landa,that has won ten titles in a row. His name is Juan Aragòn, and the local riders means that he is an extremely talented climber, and that this is just a taste of what he wil deliver the next years.-Of course it is kind of weird to not win here for me, but I lost to a much stronger man today, and it is totally deserved, said Aragòn.-He has taken big steps the two years I’ve known him, and he was already a very good climber when we met. He is a man for the future, he is serious, hard-working and talented, and I will not be suprised if he is one of the best climbers in the world in 10 years, he also says.-Juan has worked hard for many years, and I’m very proud of him, his father say. –I’m very happy to get the win, but honestly, I’m not very surprised. All our team tests from June until now have told I was the strongest climber, Juan tells us.-Are you ready to take the step to be professional?-Mentally, yes, but physically I don’t know. But it’s only one way to find out, he ends the interwiew.
La Vella, 26.9.15, sports pages
The national cycling champion, Juan Aragòn, is leaving Andorra this week to get tested by a pro cycling team. Rumors are going, and it is told that he is in the fitness laboratory in Astana, Kazakstan. Other rumors say he has a contact offer from Lotto. His family has no comments.
Both the rumors were true. First I went to Astana to talk with the team leaders, testing my body, while I saw the men testing me checking if the machine was working afterwards. Then they took a blood test, a muscle-fiber test, a brain test, and so on. The “scientists”, at least I thought it was, was very nice to me, and I got what I whished. The laboratory tests would be done the next day, and in the morning I could leave my hotel and go for a walk in the city. I had never seen anything like it, and exited as a child, I walked around in the city until about 13.00.
What a fantastic city!
Then I went back into my hotel room. The telephone rang. It was Alexandre Vinokourov.He asked me to get in the lobby at 13.30, so we could talk a bit. We went out and into his wonderful car, and started driving towards something; I guess we were going to a meeting. Alexandre was silent this morning, almost looking angry, in another way happy. I wondered a lot about what was the problem, but we stopped before I got to figure it out. He was still silent. I was taken to a totally white room, no paintings or windows at the wall. In the room it was just an oval table and 4 chairs. I was asked to sit down on one of the edges. I sat down, waited. Watching my clock, that was about 13.55. An hour, or maybe just 5 minutes, later the two scientists and Alexandre came into the room. Alexandre on the other side of the table. It was silent.-Well, he said after a while, here is a copy of your test results. The man left to me gave me some papers, a lot of weird words and numbers.-Do not worry about the numbers, it’s just in case some other teams want you later. My hope fell. Okay then, I could try next year too.-Maybe we want you, but first we need you to answer some questions, he continued. The hope rose once again, and now it continued to be there.-You have only one big result, so that is negative, he started.-But it’s a good result, and we hoped we could find a good talent. Now, at the off-season we take in a lot of young riders, and put them to the test. The one with the biggest talent and the biggest potential gets a place in our team, or in our development team. But only one, if anybody, in the main team. We have seen your results of the test, and yours are the best of all! I had to put on a wide smile, all the training, the pain and the feeling of not being accepted for loving cycling was all worth it, I felt. Vinokuovov smiled.-You can smile, and then you can tell me why your hemotacrit value is that high, he said. Hemotacrit, what was that? He still smiled at me, then he got serious.-It’s okay, just not do it anymore, okay?
My new boss?
I was still pretty much behind him, and could almost not talk. - Whwhwhat do you mean? I asked him. He walked around to my table. I was frightened. -See there? Hct, 0,485. You know how close you were to the limit? –What limit? I asked, worried. -The limit to be thrown out of the race, he said, like nothing had happened. It’s 0,50, but it’s not possible to get your value normally, at least not in off-season. We won’t tell anybody. OK, that was fine, but what about my career?-We can give you a contract, if you promise never to do that again. We have had enough trouble with UCI the last years.- I haven’t done anything bad, I promise! I said.- Let’s call that a yes! He said, and gave me a contract. I signed at once, but I have to be honest that I had a feeling the first year would be thought, both mentally and physically. But now I thought the mental part was the worst. I felt ill on my way home, and on the way back to my home I threw up once.
At home I told my parents about the test. Then I was sick for 4 days. I called my new trainer, Vadim Zeynulov, about it, and asked what to do with my training schedule. He helped me making a new, and also helped me about my strange values; because I was sick, and that made the result higher than it really was. While I was lying in the bed, I got a call from the Lotto team. They wanted me next year, they said. I told them I already had a contract, but that I appreciated the offer.
Schedule for 2016 season
Name: Juan Aragòn
Vuelta Ciclista a Mallorca
Giro di Laguelia
Trofeo di Lugano
Paris-Nice X
GP al Pais Vasco
Tour of Turkey
Tour of California X
Ruta a Burgos
Vuelta a Espana X
X: One of my goals
Thank you for reading! It will not come any new parts tomorrow, but I will start telling about my first race in the weekendEdited by arre123 on 27-11-2014 19:16
Thanks for the tip, I was thinking to do it in the race and stuff, but if it makes the text better, i'll do it. btw how do you do it? Photobucket or something?
Vuelta a Mallorca:
Goal:
To find out where I am in a pro peloton + help Aru.
Fabio Aru
Frederik Kessiakoff
Aleksandr Dyachenko
Juan Aragòn
Mikel Landa
Ruslan Tleubayev
Daniil Fominykh
Andrey Zeits
The team met at a local hotel in Mallorca, the day before the race was on. That day, we made some tactics, set up the final team management, went for a small training trip, checking into our hotel, and so on. The tactics were clear; we should drive for Fabio Aru, if he got problems of any kind, Landa should take over the leadership. If so happened, we would possibly get some chances to go in a break. I was put into room with Frederik Kessiakoff. He was a nice guy, and really tried to help me as a new one in the peloton.
Stage 1: Palma-Palma
Wow. My first day at job. I was so exited before start, that I could barely eat. But I knew I had to, else I would not finish my first pro race. So, then I stood there, ready to give it all. Luckily, the first stage was flat, and short. Unluckily, I lost the peloton. Things happen so fast, I was just cycling, when the front wheel of a Movistar rider, I think it was Igor Anton, and both me, Fabio and Andrey went on the ground.
I did not think, just jumped on the bike and came back into the peloton fast. Then Alexandre asked me to go back to Fabio and help him back. Okay, so I went back, and tried to get back. The peloton was extremely fast, and we left the whole team back to help him. At last we got back, but it took so much energy that Fabio fell off. We couldn’t help him anymore, and he ended loosing 12:51 to Alexander Kristoff, that won the stage. I ended up on 64th place and was happy with that.
I was extremely impressed by myself, falling of the peloton, getting back up, and keep up with the best while a man like Fabio falls off.
Thank you for the positive response. I really agree, crashing is a part of cycling, and it is a part of learning.
Stage 2: Campos-Ses Salines
I woke up at early morning and felt that I had worked yesterday. But, a new day, new opportunities. I ate a good breakfast, a kind of pasta with a cheese sauce of some kind. I’m not good with food. But, at 8.00 it was a team meeting. Yesterday we had been very unlucky, but I hoped it didn’t follow me the rest of the year. Since Fabio had fallen of the peloton last day, I got a free role and could test myself. I surely did, when I tried to get in the break of the day. Over the first top I was number 3. A new break was made, and I got into it. The peloton left it, and we were on our way. The next climb I started my sprint for climbing points too early and was number 2 over the second climb. The same happened on the last climb, and on the next flat I fell back in the peloton. This day I had fun, but a lot of pain. At the end the peloton was very fast, and Kristoff won his second win.
When I watched the results the evening I saw I was 5 in the GC, and was the leader in the Youth GC. I was very impressed by the result, and talked to Frederik, which was the only one I talked much to. He said that I would lose the lead the next day, so I had to enjoy the day in the jersey. He had a point, I was cycling because I loved it, and tomorrow I should enjoy every moment.
), in the mountains between Spain and France. Since I was about 7-8 years(when I discovered it), my favorite sport has been cycling. My mother and father owns a local shop in the city Andorra la Vella, and I’ve lived there my whole life. All since I was a little boy, my dream was to be the best cyclist in the world. I think that when I was 8-10 years I were in a very good shape, since me and my friends trained a lot, playing that it was the Tour de France, that we were Contador, Schleck and Valverde. We often changed names, but I was always the strongest in the hills.
I will try my best to finish it, if it's possible. If I have time, I will post one part each day.
