Tour de la Drome

This was one of the premier cat2 tours in france so was a real hard race with massive climbs, strong winds, was real hot and had heaps of strong riders and 130 starters.

Stage 1 100km
the first stage was probably the hardest stage as we raced up a big climb that went up 1000m in altitude and then a couple more shorter steep climbs after that and then the final 20km flat being a howling crosswind. So the start was real fast with a small break getting up the raod but as soon as we hit the big hill it was reeled in, one of the strong teams controlled the pace up the hill keeping it fast the whole way up, with the pace so high there werent any attacks untill the last 500m of the climb so there was still a pretty big group about 30 the next climbs attacks went but nothing could stay away and just a few dropped off, so goin down the last decent which was a gnarly 11km downhill with big switch backs there was a group of 20 odd left, and Kieran who had been dropped on the last climb managed to get back up to the front group after he hooked the decent. so there was only me and kieran from morteau in the front group, we tried our luck with trying to get away from the group but it was to windy and it always came back together. so it ended up as a bunch sprint for the finish wjich Kieran got 2nd and i was 17th out of 22 in our group.

Stage 2 11km tt
the next day was a time trial that included a 4km hill at the start which wasnt very steep then 7km flat to the finish. i got 8th in the stage which moved me up to 5th on GC. Unfortunatly i havnt doing much time trialing so not goin aswell as what i would have hoped for.

stage 3 105km
the last stage wasnt as hilly as the first but still had some steep climbs thrown in i was hoping to gain some time to move me up on GC but lost my chance when a group with a few guys in the top ten got away and i had to do alot of work to pull the group back so we caught them with 30km to go and one 3km hill to go i wasnt sure if i could stay with the front group over the climb but it seemed everybody was pretty tired and i got over the top of the climb with a group of 4 and we were working well together to hold of the chasing group but the last 20km was flat so we were eventually reeled in. coming into the finish one of my team mates in the group got of the front in the last km and won the stage an i came in mid pack.
so in the end i was 5th on GC and 3rd U23 and i also got 2nd in the KOM points which im unsure how i got as i didnt go for many KOM sprints. so wasnt to bad but would have liked to finish on the podium.