May saw me target some big races and one of them being Tour De La Manche held in south west France. The race was held over 4days and featured 5 stages.
Before the big race in France 4 members from the Goma team took to the roads and went deep into the German mountains searching for some form and solid climbing!
The trip was a nice change to our usual routine and saw us take in some stunning scenery and culture.
Day 1 was a big one for us and we covered 190km with 4200m of elevation gain! It was a real endurance day and day for some base work!
Day 2 was slightly easier but with the legs a bit dented from the day before it still felt tough. We still covered a decent distance of 110km and 3000m of elevation.
Overall a great mini training camp and good set up for La Mange in a few days time!
Feel free to check out the rides by strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/2455929
THE TOUR:
Day One was a nervous one for everyone as everyone was keen to get going and show the strength they had. It was one of the hardest days on a bike for me this year and a real head kicking to French racing. 7 top national teams and ex world tour pros were riding so it was set to be a toughie!
Needless to say I didn’t let this get to me and just set out to do the best I could.
Stage 1 and 3 were very hilly days and fast paced. The fight for the yellow jersey was high. Unfortuantley by stage 3 I was out of contention for any good overall General Classification results as the winning breaks went and I was subject to the main peloton.
Now the plan was to go for some sort of stage result or jersey in the points or KOM jersey.
Stage 4 was my time to do something different but the yellow jersey team rode hard all day on the front controlling it and keeping the jersey safe. There were lots of narrow roads and this meant for a very nutural day so not my day for a good breakaway!
Stage 5:
Although it was the last day I was still set to do a solid result for the team and got in the days break after a rapid 48kmh start for the first 1hour. There were lots of points and KOM points along the road and I managed to sweep up all of these! Overall it would see me finish 5th overall in the KOM jersey and 2nd overall in the points jersey, narrowly missing out on 1st by one sprint. After the points we entered a local town for the finishing 5laps of a hilly local circuit. Lap 3 and 15km from home saw attacks starting in our breakaway and eventually my legs gave way. I was cooked and got swept up 1lap to go by the extremely depleted peloton. I was gutted to not have the legs to finish as 2 of the breakaway stayed away to the finish and won the stage!
I rolled home 39th in the group and topped off a fantastic tour and finished off the legs nicely after a hard 4 days of racing!
EEKLO Criterium:
As people may have gathered from my previous posts I’m not a Crit rider!
The race was 24laps of a tough 3km circuit with 2 dead turns either end of the circuit. Overall the race was 70km.
Positioning and kicking out of every corner was vital to staying up there and not wasting to much energy chasing back on!
I stayed up there but doing too much work early on pushing for a break away saw me miss a local pro kick pass me and ride a 4 man break away to the winning move. Overall I came home 20th which saw me take home a healthy cash bonus!
It’s crazy how coming top 20 sees you take home more prize money than winning a race back home in the U.K.!
Next up for the month is keeping the form going from La Manche and race 2 more big interclubs on the 12th June and 1st July which is a TTT championship. Inbetween these races will be the mid week and weeekend Kermesses.
Thank you for reading and stay posted with my social media feeds for frequent updates and where abouts I’m next racing!
Salut
George
Before the big race in France 4 members from the Goma team took to the roads and went deep into the German mountains searching for some form and solid climbing!
The trip was a nice change to our usual routine and saw us take in some stunning scenery and culture.
Day 1 was a big one for us and we covered 190km with 4200m of elevation gain! It was a real endurance day and day for some base work!
Day 2 was slightly easier but with the legs a bit dented from the day before it still felt tough. We still covered a decent distance of 110km and 3000m of elevation.
Overall a great mini training camp and good set up for La Mange in a few days time!
Feel free to check out the rides by strava: https://www.strava.com/athletes/2455929
THE TOUR:
Day One was a nervous one for everyone as everyone was keen to get going and show the strength they had. It was one of the hardest days on a bike for me this year and a real head kicking to French racing. 7 top national teams and ex world tour pros were riding so it was set to be a toughie!
Needless to say I didn’t let this get to me and just set out to do the best I could.
Stage 1 and 3 were very hilly days and fast paced. The fight for the yellow jersey was high. Unfortuantley by stage 3 I was out of contention for any good overall General Classification results as the winning breaks went and I was subject to the main peloton.
Now the plan was to go for some sort of stage result or jersey in the points or KOM jersey.
Stage 4 was my time to do something different but the yellow jersey team rode hard all day on the front controlling it and keeping the jersey safe. There were lots of narrow roads and this meant for a very nutural day so not my day for a good breakaway!
Stage 5:
Although it was the last day I was still set to do a solid result for the team and got in the days break after a rapid 48kmh start for the first 1hour. There were lots of points and KOM points along the road and I managed to sweep up all of these! Overall it would see me finish 5th overall in the KOM jersey and 2nd overall in the points jersey, narrowly missing out on 1st by one sprint. After the points we entered a local town for the finishing 5laps of a hilly local circuit. Lap 3 and 15km from home saw attacks starting in our breakaway and eventually my legs gave way. I was cooked and got swept up 1lap to go by the extremely depleted peloton. I was gutted to not have the legs to finish as 2 of the breakaway stayed away to the finish and won the stage!
I rolled home 39th in the group and topped off a fantastic tour and finished off the legs nicely after a hard 4 days of racing!
EEKLO Criterium:
As people may have gathered from my previous posts I’m not a Crit rider!
The race was 24laps of a tough 3km circuit with 2 dead turns either end of the circuit. Overall the race was 70km.
Positioning and kicking out of every corner was vital to staying up there and not wasting to much energy chasing back on!
I stayed up there but doing too much work early on pushing for a break away saw me miss a local pro kick pass me and ride a 4 man break away to the winning move. Overall I came home 20th which saw me take home a healthy cash bonus!
It’s crazy how coming top 20 sees you take home more prize money than winning a race back home in the U.K.!
Next up for the month is keeping the form going from La Manche and race 2 more big interclubs on the 12th June and 1st July which is a TTT championship. Inbetween these races will be the mid week and weeekend Kermesses.
Thank you for reading and stay posted with my social media feeds for frequent updates and where abouts I’m next racing!
Salut
George