Moustair AC

Stop, start…repeat


This pretty much sums up my second race, of a three-race block!

So after feeling quite good against some high competition at The Trophee Daniel Bretonne in Plougoumelen the day before, the next race on the cards was a lower key affair. A round of The Trophee Job Morvan Series.

Moustair-AC was the town and after the storm like conditions the day before the morning did not hold much hope of a dry race, with torrential rain. Picked up by The Mills’ it was a mere 20 min drive to the town of Moustair-AC where a 3:15pm start greeted us.

Signed on and the wind was howling and the skies were grey with the occasional flurry of showers. As the only finisher from my team the day before today we had myself, Pascal, Laurent and Rene in the mix today.


Off for a warm up and straight away my legs felt heavy. Spinning up the drag on the finish line I gave a couple of digs to open the legs up. A 20-min warm up and onto the start line. I had done a couple of laps of the 4km course and with 23 laps it was going to be a war of attrition, or so I thought.

As this was a series, the leader, Bapiste Haye (the giant I have spoken about in previous posts) was in the yellow jersey and again had a number of team mates present.

About 70 riders lined up and starting on the second row we were soon off. Away we went and an attack from the gun caught everyone out. I followed the wheels and sat in the top 15 riders as the wind put everyone in the gutter. The pace was on…and then it wasn’t!

What I’ve worked out with a lot of these lower key series races, the races are very stop start. One minute 50km/h the next 30km/h. This is the worst possible situation for me as the constant changes in pace really don’t suit. Flat out for 100km would even be more preferable.

So lap after lap and with a long descent as well I can safely say my legs and myself were not happy with this constant stop/start style of racing. Felt like a session of intervals more than a race.

With the day before just being pretty much fast throughout this lower key race was proving a lot more difficult for me.

Anyway soon a break had formed. None of my team had got in it! Rene being the powerhouse knew this and got on the front and lined out the bunch as for about 8km he drove the bunch in pursuit of the break, which for the whole race only hovered around a minute ahead of the bunch.


The yellow jersey had also missed the break and had his team on the front driving the pace.  Five laps to go the gap was coming down. This was going to come down to the wire!

Three laps to go and the break were in touching distance, about 20 seconds in front. With the pace now high and the chase on, the break was holding a mere few hundred metres as they dangled in front for another 8km! Last lap and 3km to go the yellow jersey’s team had closed the gap. All square, expect for a last survivor of the break holding a mere 10 seconds or so out the front.

Flying down the final hill. 1km to go and the last corner 300 metres to go the lone escapee was caught! Talk about tight! Bunch sprint and I rolled in mid bunch.  With Rene paying for the work he’d done earlier abandoning, Pascal getting up in the sprint for 9th and Laurent finishing just behind me.

After feeling a bit frustrated with the style of racing and legs feeling heavy I had used it more as training and had another good 100km of racing in the legs ready for the final days race tomorrow.

Crach tomorrow. A crit basically. A high quality one so I’m led to believe. 3km circuit to be done 35 times. So on paper not quite for me but last day of racing so gonna give it my all and try and better the top 20 placing from Trophee Daniel Bretonne from Saturday.