The Tour of Martinique

Following my victory at the eastern champs my focus turned to preparation for the Tour of Matinique. The 9-day race is based in the Caribbean and is a French colony which means to things, a hot/humid climate and aggressive racing as soon as the road goes uphill. 

I went into the race relatively blind having not ridden a stage race before (unless you count the 2-day tour of Northumberland) and this inexperience showed in my preparation and eventual outcome in the race. We arrived Thursday night and were greeted by the incredibly humid 30 degree heat getting off the plane.

Friday was spent recceing some of the course for stage 1 and before long we were signing on to the race Saturday morning. 

Sign on for Stage 1

Any preconceptions I had about this being a relatively small race were proven wrong when we were presented to huge crowds at signing on and the convoy of cars left town following the race. The standard of the competition was also an unknown but after averaging 45kph on rolling roads in the first hour I realised it was going to be a bit of a battle. Unfortunately I didn't know the French for 'chill out, there's another 8 days racing left' but I don't think it would have helped seeing as they went ballistic up every hill for all 9 days racing. Stage 1 ended with a group of 12 up the road and a huge ride from my team mate for the race, Josh, finishing 4th. I struggled with the heat a little but was comfortable in the peloton before being greeted by the unwelcome sound of a puncture. Our team car with spares was following Josh and no other car offered to stop until I'd been stood at the side of the road for 10 minutes. This dashed any chances of a good finish overall but meant I could concentrate on individual stage results.

Stage 2 included two category 3 climbs, one at 25km which blew the race to pieces and another after 95km (10km to the finish). I was well placed throughout the stage and with the leaders until the final climb. 500m from the top I suffered with really bad cramp. I managed to haul myself over the top of the climb and use gravity to get me to the finish in 29th place. This wrote off my legs for the afternoon TT but with no ambitions for the overall this wasn't a concern.

Stage 3 had the largest climb of the tour with the summit 25km from the finish. Most of the racing had been done in the run in to the climb with 2000m climbing before hitting the final mountain. This included some 20% plus gradients and the bunch being slowly reduced on every climb. I made it to the foot of the final ascent in a group of 10 riders with 20 or so up the road. I knew the climb was steep near the bottom so attacked in a bid to close the gap to the leaders. One rider came with me and we slowly caught riders being dropped from the break. As we neared the top of the climb I dropped my chain and after getting off and making a mess of putting it back on lost several places. I rode the final 25km solo to finish 28th. I was gutted as yet another avoidable issue had cost me my chance of a strong finish. I still enjoyed the stage though and was happy with my performance despite the issues.

Go Pro in hand, I was a tourist at this point

The profile for stage 4 was uphill or downhill all day and was going to be a real test following a hard first 3 days racing. Unfortunately I only got to experience 5km of it before my chain snapped and with no spare or chain tool in the car and a spare bike which was too big I had no choice but to abandon. I've had a lot of bad experiences whilst riding but this was right up there. I put so much into my training for the event and worked more hours to afford it so to end in this manner was gutting. It took a while to get over it as I knew the next 5 days would be spent watching a race I was meant to be in and I felt confident that, having adapted to the conditions, a podium on one of the stages would be possible. 

Overall I'm incredibly grateful for the experience as it has opened my eyes to what racing should be like and am desperate to get more opportunities like this next season. Thanks to Velo-Schils InterBike for allowing me to guest for them and everyone involved with supporting us in the race. 

My focus now turns to a couple of races in the UK before heading out to the south of France to race whilst the calendar in the UK is non-existent.