So the last two weeks have been awesome if you exclude the pretty shit weather that we have had to put up with. In the last two weeks I've had a one day tour as well as a big French Junior Tour. Last week was Le Prix du Saugeais a local one day tour. First of was a 10 km uphill time trial which didn't go that great and ended up in 3rd place. That afternoon was a very difficult hilly 90 km road race where I tried to take the time I needed for the win but ended up coming 2nd across the line and a close 10 or so second off the overall win! A good result but not the win I was looking for!
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| Along the Road Race |
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| Finishes 2nd |
After another good week of training and some good rest it was time for Challenge de L'Est Junior Tour. This was a target of mine as it is a big Junior race in France. Our team joined together with another team called CC Etupes which was awesome as they were a cool bunch of guys who we got along with straight away. After a long drive in the morning the stage started at 3. The stage was 120 km long with a couple of small climbs to mix it up. The weather was just like Auckland with it being super hot one minute then freezing cold and raining the next. The stage started off pretty slow with Chad and Arnaud from our team getting in the early break away that quickly got a gap that stretched out to about 3 minutes at one point. After 20 or so km I set about bridging to the break which I did with 2 others. This ended up being the winning break for the stage and I think everyone knew it so everybody decided to cruise and just tempo it at a comfortable pace with no big attacks or anything. Chad got most of the mountain points up the climb. The pace never got super hard until the last lap up the climb when the break split. Arnaud and I made the split and finished 9 seconds behind a solo winner. I finished the stage 3rd which adds to my list of podiums with not many wins which was starting to get frustrating to say the lest but i was happy as 9 seconds was a small enough gap to pull back.
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| Breakaway Stage One |
After a good feed and massage that night it was time to hit the sack for a big day chasing the yellow jersey. Day 2 started off with a 15 km Team Time Trial and a 92 km road stage in the afternoon. The weather was super windy with huge cross winds and heaps of head wind. The team trial did not go so great loosing 50 odd seconds to the winning team which put me 4th on overall going into the final stage nearly a minute off the top 3 riders. To say the least I was super disappointing with the time trial as a lot of waiting and slowing down went on throughout the ride. All the boys put there all into it though so that's all I can ask for.
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| Driving the Team Home |
I decided not to let my anger and disappointment from the time trial get into my head and rather put it to good use in the final stage. The final stage seemed like it was going to be a good one with the wind picking up some more and rain starting to settle in. The race started off with the usual early break away going but thing break contained a rider who was coming 2nd overall. The break was sitting at a gap of 3 minutes for about 50 km with the bunch being pussies in the wind. I disparately wanted to just smack the crap out of the bunch in the cross winds but i thought better of that idea and just waited patiently in the bunch for the right time to have a dabble at going for the win. 20 km to go up the major climb of the race i put everything into an attack with only one rider coming with me with yellow unable to follow. I did the majority of the work catching the break as the rider who was with me had a team mate in the break that was coming 2nd over all. We caught the break 8 km later on the major climb again where I kept the pace high with only 4 of us making it together over the top. Over the top was 2nd overall and his team mate and another rider who was a team mate of the current leader. I could tell the rider who was coming 2nd was rooted so I kept drifting him off then sprinting back to the others. On the 2nd to last time up the big climb I attacked once more and dropped him and his team mate who stayed with him and over the top had about a 30 second gap with 8 km more remaining. I had a rider sit on my wheel all the way to the finish until he knew his team mate had lost the leaders jersey and decided to work if i let him have the win which i agreed to as i was pushing as hard as i could in the head wind (going 25 km h it was pretty bloody strong). I rolled over for 2nd in the stage and was waiting to see the other riders roll in with fingers crossed it was enough! I ended up putting 2 minutes into the next rider across the line and 4 or so minutes into the bunch! This meant i had secured the overall victory!!!
I was super stocked with how the last stage played out. By the end of the tour our team had secured 1st and 3rd overall as well as the climber’s jersey thanks to Chad’s efforts in the first stage. Big thanks to the team for an awesome weekend and all working well together!! This finished my latest 2 weeks of racing with 5 stage podiums and a 2nd and a 1st overall! Good two weeks!! This is my biggest win in France to date!
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