Sorry about the late blog. Got home from France on Sunday night at around 10.30pm, then I just completely forgot on Monday until I remembered at 1am when I couldn't sleep, then last night we got called over to Andrews for a few final beers and a few rounds of Scum (I'm still champion).
But yea the tour didn't go too badly for me. The good news is my knee is a lot better, had no problems with it through out the tour or in training so I'm really happy about that. Was getting really bored and annoyed not being able to race or train. Stage 1 I felt fairly good, wasn't expecting much from myself for the whole tour because I hadn't done much racing and done little training building up for it so I took it fairly easy in the beginning. Oh yea I just remembered, I raced that crit on Monday and managed to score so bucks from that, that race was the tester for my knee and it passed with flying colours and then I raced on Wednesday and spent 15k out the front by myself to collect some prem money then I blew tits and didn't finish so that was a good base line to see how well I was going after not riding much.
But yea then the race in France I was feeling pretty good. I had to bridge a big gap across to one of the splits and then from there I finished around 36th on that stage about 4 mins behind the first group. The first group had Zeno in it and he finished 6th and won the Most Aggressive rider prize so he got to wear a nice fluro jersey and got a giant toy pig which is bloody good.
The next stage started with a 15km Time Trial in the morning and then 109km stage in the afternoon. Didn't have a TT bike so I was never gonna win it but I felt pretty good. The course was fairly flat through the town but bloody hell there was a lot of traffic to dodge. After the town you hook it left and start the 3km climb. Felt pretty good up there and I started catching my minute man (The guy ahead of me) who was my teammate, Josh, who was on a TT bike. Once you get to the top you go flying down hill, I hit 88kph going down there, and then it's a slight down hill for about 7km but it was headwind so it was pretty hard. Then you enter the main town again then to the finish. It was not too bad of a ride considering I was on a road bike but I probably could have shed some more time off it if it wasn't for the bloody Frenchys. The organisers and marshals were useless as. I had cars pulling out in front of me or I would catch up to them and they wouldn't move out of the way or they were blocking the intersection where I needed to turn or I would have some bloody old mate Frenchy start crossing the road then stop in the middle of the road to have a good old argument with the marshal. Bloody Frenchys! Made it a very interesting TT. Still finished 18th, first out of the guys with road bikes, unfortunately there's no prize for that; there should be though.
Stage 3 my legs were pretty kaput at the start. Was just cruising around in the bunch all day pretty much until we started turning left on to another road and then we had a bunch of marshals waving there arms screaming at us telling us that that's the wrong way. So we continued going on straight and then turned left down the next road and then in the bunch there was a lot of yelling going on and then the big riders like the leader of the race and the U23 French Champion and a couple other big guys went to the front and just told everyone to stop. Apparently the break that was up the road had gone the wrong way so we had to wait 10mins for the race to get back on track and then we started again. With 10k to go there were a couple big climbs that split the whole bunch up. I ended up in the 3rd bunch with Zeno so I sat on the front and drilled the crap out of it to try and catch back up so Zeno doesn't lose too much time. Finished 30 odd secs behind the first group in 49th so Zeno didn't lose too much time.
Last stage was the longest with 170km of up and down. Legs were feeling the purest form of crap for the first 1.5 hours of the race. There was a big climb in the first 10km that everyone smashed it on so that split up the bunch but I still managed to keep up with the bunch, just. There was a big split up the road though with Zeno in it so I could sit back a bit because we had a rider up the road. Was really struggling in the first 1.5 hours but after attacking up one of the hills to bridge across to one of the splits my legs felt heaps better. Managed to get into a break with about 90km to go and felt really good. With about 20k to go we got caught by a big split behind us. I was a bit tired so I slipped to the back of the bunch which was the worst thing to do. Pretty much as soon I got to the back, we went up a massive and steep climb. Just got spat out the back going up the climb and couldn't quite back on. I'm so stupid. Rode the last 15km with 3 other guys and finished 37th around 3mins behind the winner. I think I finished 29th or something overall.
All in all it wasn't too bad. So that was pretty much the last race of the European season for me. Off to Paris tomorrow now, staying in Brussels tonight and then catching the train to Paris early tomorrow, so excited for that.
It's been bloody nice here too. Clear blue skies and really hot, got up to 25 degrees yesterday and it's looking really nice again today. Bloody good.
So yea that's it from me. Might do one last quick blog on Monday. One week today till I head home whoop whoop.
Thanks for reading
Nick
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