Before you know it, half the season
has gone and ‘summer’ is upon us. It’s been a great 3 months and I have begun
to turn my consistent performances into results. My season started a lot slower
than I’d liked, despite riding aggressively and showing my face in several
breakaways it wasn’t until a trip to France with the team that my season took
off. La Cantonale under-23 race was held at the beginning of May in Northern
France and took place on a 90km loop though 20 different villages before 3 laps
of a 16km finishing circuit awaited us in Maresquel-Ecquemicourt.
After missing the early break I put all my effort into a move that went after
75km of racing. The group swelled to around 20 riders and lost its impetus. On
the second lap of the finishing circuit I attacked the group hard on the climb.
I was joined by one other rider who refused to work but spurred on by the
novelty of closed roads and support from the locals I committed to it. We were
joined by another 6 riders on the final lap as we held a small gap over the
chasing peleton, thankfully we stayed away to the finish. We were left
sprinting for 6th and
having got a big excited taking up the sprint with 250m to go I finished 9th.
This was by far the best I have ridden both physically and tactically. Despite
making a mess of the finish it gave me great confidence and I instantly fell in
love with the racing in France.
A couple of weeks later I backed this up by getting round at
Lincoln GP, part of the elite spring cup, which was a real battle after I got
caught out as the peloton split in half going over Michaelgate. This left me
with a lot of chasing to do and I was just pleased to finish but I still have a
lot of work to do on my positioning in these big races. It let me down at the
Rutland-Melton Classic and at Lincoln; it’s a completely different ball game
trying to maintain your position at the front when there is a group of 160-180
riders. It’s a case of building experience in these races and having got round
Lincoln I will now be more confident going into them and will be better
prepared.
After illness hampering my chances the following week on a grippy
course up north it was time to prepare for one of my big goals for the year,
the eastern region championships.The toughest part about cycling is being able
to take repeated disappointment and then come back a couple of days later for a
block of hard training before doing it all again at the weekend. I put
absolutely everything into the 4 months I had out training in Girona so to
start the season without any significant results was a bit disappointing.
However, every week after a disappointing result on Sunday I’d be back out
training giving it my all in each session and I could see my performances in
races improving. This translated into me putting in my best display of the year
at the regional champs. The race
panned out perfectly, I had a team mate in the first move that got away so
could save my legs. I waited patiently until the gap came down to 15s before
bridging to the leaders in a small group of 5. As soon as we reached the
leaders I attacked with one other rider knowing that the group was going to get
caught. We rode 2-up for the last hour establishing a 1:30min lead on the
chasing peloton. It eventually came down to a sprint and after leading it out I
won comfortably to take my biggest win so far. I don’t really need to explain
how much it meant to me as the picture says it all.
