Back to flat boring Belgium now. Left the hilly alps of France Sunday night in a pretty unhappy and gutted mood and arrived home at 2.30am Monday so that's why I'm doing my blog now cause I was pretty tired yesterday. Race didn't quite go to plan. But yea, when I last wrote my blog we had just finished our hard training and we were just beginning to relax and get ready for the tour which would have been about 3 days out. I was feeling really good in the first few days of riding in the alps and was quite excited because I thought I could do alright in this tour but I was feeling pretty knackered on our recovery rides but I didn't let the deter me too much and just thought I should be fully recovered by the time we start the tour. The day of the first stage my legs weren't feeling too bad but not 100%. Still gave it 100% though. Tried getting in the early break with 3 other guys but that got mowed down pretty quick and we were giving it some serious jandal to get away. I gave it a couple more goes but nothing stuck. After that I thought this is gonna be hard so I'm just going to chill in the bunch for a bit and recover for the hills cause it doesn't seem like a break is going to stay away. We started climbing up one of the first hills that was long and dead straight and holy moly we cracked up that thing quick. Had to dig deep just to hold the wheel in front me. I'm not entirely sure what happened next because I wasn't at the front of the bunch but I think a group got away going up that climb because once we got to the top there weren't a lot of people left. A few of my teammates got into a move to try and bridge across to the split that got away, which I think had split apart again now, so I waited for them to go up the road and then I attacked the remaining bunch and rode back up to my teammates to catch up to the split. Kinda hard and confusing to write about but yea I think that's what kind of happened. But yea, there was another smallish group ahead of us so I rode off the front and took one other teammate with me to catch up to them. We caught up to them at the bottom of the first real big climb which was 8km long. We flew past a couple riders that dropped off from that bunch and started riding with the few remaining riders left in that bunch. One of my teammates was already in that bunch so there were 3 of us out of the other 4 riders. 7 of us were rolling through and we caught up to another big bunch that was ahead of us. This race is such a hard race and there were small groups of riders everywhere so you would slowly start picking up more and more riders that had dropped off from a group in front of you. Yea, we were just rolling through fine and then to finish the stage we had to ride up the Col du Télégraphe for 10km and then turn off and do another 2.5ish km up hill. I couldn't hang on to the bunch for too long when we started to climb up the hill cause I was pretty rooted. Had had a pretty decent day with a lot of attacking and sometimes unnecessary work so I was out of gas and slowly made my way up the hill. I managed to finish with 3 other guys but we were 19 minutes down on the winners. 19 minutes!!! The guys who finished top 10 were riding back down the hill in jackets and leg warmers when were still bloody racing! This was going to be a lot harder than I thought. There were a lot of feeder teams which are basically professional teams but for younger riders like there was Katusha which is a Russian pro team, Lotto Bellisol which is Belgian, Belkin which is Dutch and Euskadi who are Spanish and also the French National team so there was some serious talent and fire power at this tour. I was pretty damn smashed after the first stage but was keen to get going tomorrow.
Hans had a chat to us the next morning and said there was a pretty good chance that they will let a break go because there is now someone in the yellow jersey, it was a smelly Russian who looked anorexic, and they will control the race so he wanted us to be up in the break. I was real eager to get into that break because the course map looked pretty flat for the first 50km and then after that it was an uphill battle so I wanted to get a head start up those hills. I think I tried a little too hard to get into a break and so did everyone else. Every man and his dog wanted to get into the break to get a head start so nothing was sticking. Tried desperately to get away and even ramped up the speed to 73kph on a slight downhill to get away but na. Felt like I was doing a bloody Belgy Kermesse cause I was being chased down every time. Of course, a break finally got away and I nor any of my teammates were in it. But yea tried way too hard to get into a break and it wasn't completely flat for the first 50k so I was feeling it pretty early. There were some bloody steep climbs in that first 50k too so the map lied... I started to feel quite hungry early on in the race so I munched down some food to try and recover for the first hill that was coming up. Was really suffering up the first climb which was about 5k long and just dropped off from the bunch, along with quite a few other people, with about 2k to the top. Now we had a real tricky and technical descent to the bottom. A lot of crashes. On the side of the road it was a steep grassy hill so you would see riders climbing back up the road with their bikes on their backs cause the took a corner a little too hot. Saw one bike lying on the side of the road but no rider to be seen, must've rolled down the hill. There was a corner that was like a Y intersection and the small group I was riding with didn't know what way to go, then some old man started pointing left and left was like a sharp as turn so we all had to slam the anchors down but I couldn't quite stop in time to be able to turn safely and I nearly hit the barrier in front of me but I managed to slow down enough before the barrier to turn away from it. Had to fist it to try catch back up and took a few risks in the process. Came round a corner pretty damn hot and there was some kid who had binned it before me just climbing back up the hill on to the road. He saw me coming round the corner and knew I was coming in hot. I was heading straight for him and he knew it too, could see it in his face. Just managed to stay on the tarmac though and kept riding. Was bloody close though. Got to the bottom of the climb where it was flat and I cracked big time. Hunger really caught up to me. Could hardly stay on the bunch I was in and then dropped. Andrew drove past in the car and I asked if he had any food in the car, he didn't... No food what so ever and that's all I needed. You can't drive a car without fuel and it's the same with riding a bike. I had nothing in me. Kept going anyway and reached the bottom of the next big climb. Was climbing that for about 30 odd minutes and getting slower and slower. Then came past a sign saying 10km to the top. I cried a little bit. I was so dead and wanted to get off this mountain and get some food in me but kept going. Not long after that the 'Broom Wagon' came past which is the last car in the race that sweeps up the last remaining riders that want to give up because they are never going to make time cut. They have time cut at Tour races so you can't just slowly make your way to the finish. You have to finish within a certain time of the first finisher and I was never going to make that so I hoped in the broom wagon and that was it. I was absolutely gutted because I just wanted to be able to finish this race. It's the hardest amateur race in Europe and to be able to say I finished it would be awesome.
Things I learnt:
Always take food for before the race. I was starting to get hungry before we started but I had no food on me.
In some races I should just ride to survive. I wasted a lot of energy trying to attack and get away from the bunch and I would just be shut down pretty quick. It was a waste of energy doing that. That's just the way I race though because I like to attack and get into a break but I do just need to be more patient and choose the right time to attack so I won't be caught 2km later. Especially at this race because there are clearly riders who are much better than me, a lot of them are going pro next year, so I should've just ridden to survive.
I shouldn't ride super hard a week out from a big tour. I was a little too eager and excited when I was riding some of these alps. I was flying up some of these hills cause I was feeling so good but I think I rode a little too hard cause I was feeling pretty smashed with a couple days before the tour and didn't feel 100% during the race.
Still enjoyed my time in France though. Saw some pretty amazing things that nature has to offer. Definitely have to go back in the winter when it's snowing and go skiing. I'll chuck some pictures up when my laptop is working again.
But yea, got an Interclub race tomorrow so hopefully I go good in that then don't have too much racing for 2 weeks until the next tour which I'm hopefully doing.
Yea that's pretty much it from me I guess.
Thanks for reading
Nick
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