I write after what has been one of the most enjoyable, varied and at times savage races I've ever done.
It all began bright and early on Saturday morning. After what has been a slightly stressful week with moving accomodation (now temporarily in team mates house) and trying to catch up on sleep (managed to get in an 11hr sleep by Friday night) I was ready or for the first stage race of the season and my first stage race in France.
Picked up from my team mates house by my manager in the team car, at just gone eight, we set off to pick up the remaining riders for the quite long drive to Beaupreau, a town the other side of Nantes. By quite a long drive it is still relatively short by English race standards! Just over 2hrs in fact. Two team cars for this race as we had six riders, team manager and a helper.
Dictionary out I made sure I didnt miss any vital gossip and race info as we headed towards the race. Arriving at the town our first port of call was lunch. Put on by the race organisation we parked up next to a convoy of AG2R vans and cars. Slightly worried that a top pro cycling team had turned up I later found out it was infact the feeder team, Chamberry http://www.chamberycyclismeformation.com/
Slightly relieved we headed into the restaurant and sat down with all the other teams for lunch. A typical French affair of vast amounts of pasta, cheese, grated carrots, bread, you name it... the lot!
After a nice meal we set off round the corner to the accomodation for the weekend, a school. Arriving to see lots of team vehicles, each team was allocated a room and we got our bedding and kit ready for the 1st stage of the race, which was to start at 2:30pm.
Stage 1:
Kitted up and ready to roll and with rain and wind we set off for a warm up. The French love a good warm up and after sitting in a car for a couple of hours so did I! A good half an hour done and we went to the sign on by the finish podium, had the team presentation and readied ourselves for the start.
Lined up of the start there were a few big teams present for this one, UC Nantes, Chamberry, Cholet and a few teams I hadnt come across before. On UCL Hennebont we had myself, Gurvan, Pascal, Rene, Phillippe and Stephane present and with the other 19 teams this made 136 riders.
Soon we were off for an en ligne and finishing circuit stage making just over 130kms. A nice gentle start to the weekend? No. Soon the flag was dropped and the pace exploded, the bunch was lined out and the wind was howling. I wasn't feeling such a fast start and after an hour (just over 46km/h average) a break or should I say portion of the peleton had managed to get away. Luckily Pascal was feeling good and made the 30 or so rider group, which was now holding a minute on the bunch.
Yet with a couple of teams missing the break the chase was on and the gap soon came down to 30 seconds. Yet the rain and the wind direction soon changed and the gap went out again. I was beginning to feel a lot better and onto the finishing circuits followed the wheels and managed to get away in a 20 rider or so group along with Rene. Feeling better as it went on and with the pace high it came down to a sprint from our group which I tried to lead Rene out for. Finishing we had lost some time on the winner (UC Nantes' Renou) yet Pascal, even missing every feed! had managed to limit his losses and finish just under a minute off the winner.
A bit gutted my legs had taken so long to come around, and thus losing over 3mins, I was set on getting a good meal in me, lots of rest and thus try to make up for it on Sunday
stage result: 130.4km
1st Mickael Renou UC Nantes 3:2:10
26th Pascal Hue UCL Hennebont @ 42 sec
46th Rene Taillandier UCL Hennebont @3:23
53rd Daniel Kogan UCL Hennebont @3:27
64th Philippe Nedellec UCL Hennebont @4:16
72nd Stephane Potier UCL Hennebont @4:16
79th Gurvan Hamonic UCL Hennebont @4:16
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