Saturday’s stage was 130km, 95km “on ligne” then laps of a 6km circuit, 115 starters, anyways we took off and the first hour was ballistic, incredibly hard to move up, in fact the easiest time for me to move up was the climbs. So on the upside, I must be climbing OK. After 70km we got to the second big climb and I managed to drop the chain near the top and get it pretty stuck, had to get off and muck about … couldn’t get back on through the cars … rode to the finish in a group of dropped riders and lost oodles of time.
The next morning was the team time trial over 18km, this went OK, apart from losing one guy near the start we managed to hold it together on the hilly first half and nail it towards the end, averaging over 45kph … for a team with no training together, no aero equipment and not taking risks in the corners, it gave a glimpse into how fast it’s possible to go … it also hurt a lot!!!! New experience for the day was having a team car sitting one metre behind us with the megaphone going non-stop “allez allez allez”. Anyways that was enough to put Pierre into the jersey for best Regional-category rider – by one second – and James still had his pretty pink Combination jersey (aggregate points for sprints, climbs, most aggressive and one other random competition).
4hr break over lunch. The good old five-course French lunch it was too although one question remains unanswered – is the wine for the riders or for the guys driving the team cars!!?? Felt like I was going to be OK for the afternoon and help out with keeping the jerseys … couldn’t have been more wrong there, just got smashed to bits through the early sprints and had all the power of a wheelbarrow, went sailing out the back in a group and early finish. Hard race, pretty disappointing, never really got going all weekend.
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