After yesterday's Ronde Finistere race I was ready (if probably still dehydrated!) to tackle today's race at Meslan.
Awoke, and after what was a terrible nights sleep, headed off to drop team car back. Riding back to house, a mere 4km, I thought legs would be tired yet actually felt better than yesterday.
So normal pre race stuff and then was met by my team mate Sebastien and his family for the 20 minute drive to Meslan. Arriving at it was our club who was organising the race. This meant lots of familiar faces, lots of kissing, hand shaking and lots of Hennebont riders for the race, 9 infact!
So signed on and headed off for a warm up round the circuit. On a day like this it doesnt take long to warm up with the temperature again touching 30 degrees! Why do the French race in the heat of the day!?
The circuit then...2.5km a drag to the finish with tonnes of wind, a very small climb, a very windy false flat and the a twisty and quite dodgy descent to finish off. 25 laps so a short one. On the line the normal contenders and around 60 riders.
2:30pm and away we went. Pretty calm to start, yet after a couple of laps the pace was on. I was feeling ok, if struggling a bit on the false flat with the wind. Still following the wheels I waited. A few laps later and a serious move went with team mate Pascal in it. I sat in and soon saw the opportunity and with a couple of others jumped across. Now around 15 of us away and race over for the peloton.
We were out of sight pretty sharpish, yet with such a big group it was very stop and start and lots of attacking. I followed the wheels and tried to save as much as possible whilst drinking loads and eating. A few riders were dropped but other than that all stayed the same.
A couple of laps later and disaster struck. My seat clamp decided to give way sending my saddle back and pointing downwards. This made producing any power pretty hard. Typical, weeks of missing the break, finally get in it only for this to happen.
Unfortunately Pascal wasn't having much luck either as he was suffering, and with attacks flying soon a split occurred and both of us were detached along with 3 other riders. We were all struggling and although the break of 6/7 were within touching distance lap after lap we were not likely to catch them.
So last lap. Bollocks were in all sorts of pain from saddle position and back was starting to throb. A very half hearted attack with a 1km to go but went no where. Ended in a sprint and came 11th/12th.
There you have it, a race of what could have been. To be honest been pretty lucky this season with mechanical issues, but still very frustrating all the same.
All I can do now is try and fix seat clamp and look ahead to the next race.
And what a race... GP Plouay amateurs next Saturday!
The support race to pro race, the day after, and a real hard and prestigious one, so I'm told. Really excited to do this as circuit is great and even more exciting is it starts at 9am in the morning!
Literally the second time in over 40 races that I have a morning start..something I much prefer. So that just leaves an easy week to make sure I am fresh as can be for what is surely one of the biggest races of my season next weekend. Cant wait!
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