Dinner served and it couldnt have been more French if it tried! Consisting of an entree of vegetables and potatos and lots of bread, followed by pasta and meat of some sort, a cheese board to rival the worlds best cheese boards and a fruit compot to finish (very popular it would seem over here) After eating well it was time for me to head back and chill out in the room. My team mates on the other hand, bearing in mind this is 9pm, opted to go for a strong coffee, nothing like some caffeine to get you to sleep!
I have found out in my 3 months of being here some interesting facts about the Frenchs' ideas on recovery after races and my team mate, Gurvan's is definately one of the coolest. Basically a electro pulse meter sort of thing that you strap to your legs and it vibrates to basically give you a massage and get the inflammation of tired muscles down.
So to sleep and with what seemed to be a dawn chorus of slamming doors we were up at 6:30am for breakfast.
stage 2:
So down for breakfast, and I think it's safe to say this is where The French do meals most differently. At the table and a bowl, some bread and jam. The bowl for cereal? pasta? Nope...coffee! A bowl of coffee then bread and jam which they dip in the coffee, once the breads gone they drink the coffee..supose it saves on a cup and the washing up!
I though brought some cereal with me so used my bowl for a different purpose!
Breakfast complete, changed off to sign on and a warm up. Although it was just gone 8am it was rather humid and the sun was already high in the sky. Warming up and the legs were feeling really good, nice and fresh. I would soon be thankful this was the case!
9am and lined up. Not a usual time to start a race in France (much more English!) so there was a lot of grumpy faces! 127 riders starting today and I'd been told by Rene (who won the race in 2001) that the morning stage was "tres dure" and one for the grimpeurs! He wasn't kidding!
60km stage and being so short it was going to be a fast start. It didnt disappoint. Off like a criterium, I was feeling good and sitting in the top 20 or so riders. Never one to really be up for a fight for position the narrow lanes, constant turns, descents and climbs made it crucial to be near the front.
First climb and after about 10 mins the bunch exploded! Literally bodies everywhere. Feeling good and climbing well I was sure this was going to be a war of attrition. What followed was constant climbs, descents, corners and in the gutter racing. I can safely say, even feeling relatively good, this was one of the hardest races I'd ever done. Climbing well is one thing but if your not near the front you get stuck behind riders losing the wheel. This is exactly what happened as riding to far back I was having to scoot round riders blowing up and making life for myself pretty hard.
Just an hour in and the 127 rider bunch was down to 60 or so! Myself, Rene and Pascal were present and I was making sure Pascal, who was best placed on GC, was helped as much as possible.
Last 20km and we turned a tight right and can only be described literally as a wall. I'm not joking, although only a couple of hundred metres long I'd never ridden up anything so steep! To put it into context there were riders grinding to a halt and having to walk up it. Luckily I managed to get up it on my bike!
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| Top of the wall and this was the shallow part, luckily hear race leader Renou hardly looks to be breathing! |
Over the top and all together it was all to play for. Coming into the finish and the last climb of a kilometre or so. 3km to go and it was all lined out in the gutter. I was going 100% and the sprint hadnt even begun yet! Two riders had managed to clip off the front and were holding a 20 second gap. Into the finish and with the pace so high the bunch literally finished in one line, with the two escapees holding off the bunch by 20 seconds.
To say the stage was hard is an understatement. To put it into figures we did 60km, just over 1hr 39 mins and over 3000 ft of climbing with the last group on the road over 15 minutes behind!
Unfortunately we'd lost Gurvan in the stage to a broken chain and thus would be starting the final stage with 5 of us. I was feeling good, Rene was riding strong and we had Pascal still very much in the hunt for a good result in the general classification.
Stage 2 Results: 59.8km
1st Romain Marchand ECP Dinan 1:39:11
46th Pascal Hue UCL Hennebont @ 20 sec
56th Daniel Kogan UCL Hennebont @ 20 sec
60th Rene Taillandier UCL Hennebont @ 43 sec
84th Stephane Potier UCL Hennebont @11:16
92nd Philippe Nedellec UCL Hennebont @11:16
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