GP Moncontour - 5th June 2006

Freakin’ awesome race today, fifteen times around an 8km circuit with a decent hill about 1.5km, 25deg, 130 in the race and apparently 10,000 in the crowd, not to mention great scenery. Good day for the podium!! Being an Elite Open it was pretty hard, in fact when the music stopped the average was 43kph, not bad for fifteen times up the hill.

Anyways I punctured AGAIN $#@%!^#!! but happily before the race. That led to being a bit rushed, we were parked in front of the start line so showing up late meant being on the front row, beside my teammate Herman. The flag dropped, Herman did his thing (attacked) and I did mine (blocked). Anyways the first few laps not a lot happened apart from Herman’s break being caught and he going straight back through the bunch “c’est dur!!” and stopping. I think for Herman, who is ranked about 100th amateur in France, all his races are either win or DNF.

We got to about ten laps to go and the race was really going, about eight up the road and I managed to get myself in the first chase group with a certain Peter Latham. Despite best efforts it split on the hill and I wound up in the back bit, we got caught by another chase group and a lap later by the bunch, meanwhile the front bit went up to the break and that was the race. So it was back to square one in the bunch but kinda frustrated and well in the hurtbox!!

Between then and the finish the bunch split a million times which was even more frustrating, managed to get away with 2km to go and got a reminder that 500m to go is quite a long way when it’s uphill. Somewhere around 30th, meanwhile Mr Latham won the U23 category and scored 6th overall.

Three hours later and I’m back home with very sore legs, eyeing up the second pizza …