
On the day that marks 3 weeks since my arrival in France I finally got to ride my first race. The race was 7 laps of an 18km circuit which had a 1km hill half way around, with the feild numbering 177.
With an early break away of 5 forming in the first 20km there was not a lot for me to do except to sit in the peloton and cover any more breaks that might eventuate as I had a team mate in the breakaway. Unfortunately with 50 km to go the break was stopped at a train crossing allowing the peloton to catch up. 10km later a big break accrued with around 20 riders in it. We had 2 riders in this which really wasn’t very good. So as we came to the hill and 30 km to go I attacked by myself and rode across the 40sec gap catching the break with just over 25km to go. Totally wrecked by my effort to get across, I sat on the back of the group to recover. As we came around for the bell lap and 18km to go, I continued to sit on the back of the peloton taking a turn every now and then. As we approached the hill I was feeling quite good again and lead the group up the hill. As we were about to crest the hill, Kenji, who was one of my team mates in the break, attacked with another rider. I continued on the front but dropped the pace significantly until some other riders decided to start chasing. I once again sat on the chasing bunch in case they caught Kenji so I would be fresh to attack if he was brought back. With 6km to go Kenji and the other rider had about 1min on our chasing group and we had about 1min on the peloton. At the 5km sign a lone rider attacked and got away so as the 4km sign approached I attacked with every bit of power I had left, I quickly got away from my group and could see the solo rider in front of me. As I came up behind him with just under 2km to go I tried to attack him but he quickly got on to my wheel. I then swung off and to my relief he pulled through and did a massive turn to get us to the 1500m to go sign where he pulled off and I attacked him once again. This time he was unable to get onto my wheel and I rode to the finish in third place getting within about 10sec of Kenji and his opponent. Kenji ended up winning the sprint between the pair.
So it turned out to be quite a good race for the team and also for myself as I surprised myself with how strong I was at this stage of my training block. I will be racing once again this coming Sunday the 29th which will be 12 laps of a 120km Circuit.
2 comments:
Congratulations Matt... it was all the secret training we did!!!
Ok, I can only leave messages as anon it seems... BV
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