L'Etape de la Defonce - Road Race

At the start of this season, and in conjunction with my aim to do some more cycling this season, I got myself signed up for a 3 stage road race in Wales along with 3 other Dynamos who were going to make up our little team. The main reason for this was undoubtedly the fact, nestled in amongst the road racing, there was going to be a team time trial - how could I resist.

When we arrived, we already knew that we were going to be in for a weekend of rather unpleasant weather, there certainly wasn't much n the way of sunshine in any of the weather reports anyway. The first stage was a 45 mile, 2 lap, race around some of the local Welsh countryside. Things started off at an okay pace, but it was clear from the outset that things were not going to be as easy as we counted on. Our afternoon of scanning the riders names and typing these into the Time Trials results pages had elicited only a handful of contenders, albeit, we thought that we could beat most of them. If there was one thing that I learnt this weekend, it is this, one's ability to TT is in no way a reflection on their ability to road race. By the time we were starting the second lap, I had been run ragged, I had seen a couple of chaps fall off right next to me and I had heard about 3 people puncture...the wet, windy conditions were taking there toll on the pack.

Still, I managed to hang on to the pack all the way until the finishing straight which rose sharply and, as a result, I was spat out the back of the back with about 500m to go. I lost about 15 seconds on the pack and hence I was going into the TTT quite far down the field. Still, my time to shine was only a couple of hours away. Also, as an added bonus, we had a team member in the breakaway for the day and he was now in second place. A good TTT and we could have the yellow jersey overnight.

GARMIN OUTPUT: STAGE 1

We had reccied the TTT course the night before so I knew that it was going to be a tough 9.5 miles of racing.. The course was either up or down - not great for me, but still, was looking forward to it. As soon as we started, I knew that I was going to have a good ride. My legs actually did not feel that bad from the morning's efforts so it was just gonna be a case of hammering it out as hard as you can for 20 odd minutes. I think that I may have been feeling a bit better than the rest of the team during this one as well, on a couple of occasions, I had to slow down to let them get back in the slipstream and I also tried my best to make use of my bigger gearing to get us down the hills quicker. I was feeling good though so just tired to maintain as high a pace as possible without causing the group to split. The last hill up to the finish was quite brutal, but it seemed a lot better compared to the morning's efforts. We crossed the line in 21:54 and managed to beat the next best team by over 40 seconds. We had managed to secure the yellow jersey and we also now had a 1,2 and 3 in the general classification going into the last stage.....we quite literally had it all to lose.

GARMIN OUTPUT STAGE 1A

Over the course of the last stage, we did in fact do just that...we all lost positions on our 1,2,3, we lost the yellow jersey and we lost a place on the team GC. The second road stage was hilly, for me anyway. I had decided to be near the front at the bottom of the first climb but even this was not enough to get me to the top and still be in the main bunch. I had dropped off the back and then the second little rise after that ensured that I was not going to get back on without some really hard work. Thankfully, a few others who had been dropped joined up and we set about trying to get back on. I did most of the work and we did get close, but another push by the pack on one of the hills and they were out of sight, never to be seen again. The next 20 miles were hard work, generally riding on my own and feeling pretty miserable about having lost the pack. All of my efforts to get back on really came to the fore in the last 3 or so miles as I quite literally had nothing left to give, quite appropriately, it had started to chuck it down as well....the stage was set for a miserable finish. I had dropped 8 minutes on the pack and I had gone from 3rd to 39th in one day.

GARMIN OUTPUT: STAGE 2

Still, looking back now, it was a great weekend. I think I have realised that I am better off sticking to the dual carriageways for now though. Maybe I'll spend some time in the winter trying to learn how to ride up hills. As a team we did win quite a lot of money anyway, Martin finished second overall, we had 4th with James. We won the TTT so had winnings for that and our second place in the team prize just increased the prize purse even more.