ANNEMASSE-BELLEGARDE ET RETOUR

ok well this was the biggest race i have done so far this year both in distance and level. It was an elite national with 180 odd riders and also had few teams from other countries (Russia, Latvia, Swiss) and the course was 180km with a few tough climbs-



So for the first 60km of the race it was mostly flat with 2 easy hills and i just made sure I was saving as much energy as possible, with the first hard climb at 60km i made sure i was at the front and ready and from there the race pretty much started, from about half way up it was pretty hard and the attacks came thick and fast and it seemed is soon as i was putting in some accelerations to go with the attacks i was straight into the red zone so from there i knew i wasnt having the best day. Over the top of the climb the peloton was real spread out, but it all came back together on the decent and before long we were on the next climb, which wasnt so steep so not to much of a problem.


It wasnt until the next decent where a small group got off the front and had about a minute lead by the time we reached the 2nd to last climb which was a real leg breaker. The peloton set a fast pace up it, and when we were in striking range of the group ahead at 1km to the top guys began attaking to bridge accross unfortunatly i couldnt make it, i tried and got super close but not close enough so over the top the group ahead was 23 strong.
I was pretty guttered not to make that group and i was thinking it was race over, but i still had 2 team mates in my group and they smashed themselves on the front to catch the front and did a super job and even set the pace for half of the last climb and then left it to me from there, I managed to catch the convoy of cars behind the lead group and a few guys attacked past the cars and i think some managed to catch the lead group but i wasnt able to go with them so again i was stuck in the 2nd group.
From there it was 40km to the finish and mostly downhill and i finished in the 2nd group unsure of placing...
Was a really aggressive race and im a bit disappointed as i just didnt have that top end for the final selections on the climbs and everytime i seemed to be stuck at the front of the 2nd group so a bit to work on for next time.

Also a bit of an update on what iv been up to during the week, I had 2 days training with the team during the week where we did some time trial training and long kms. We did a small 20 km time trial on a rolling course with some guys on tt bikes and some not( i dint have one as mine isn't ready at the moment) and i was 4th in the team with 2 guys on tt bikes ahead of me and my Latvian team mate, Martins (also on his road bike) 1 second ahead of me. With some time trials coming up im hoping im able to make the team for them but we will see.
Other than that I spend most my spare time relaxing in my room on the computer, sometimes trying to learn French etc. Or Martins and I go catch the train to the center of Lyon which takes about 20minutes and there is heaps to do there with lots of shops, and we even went to watch a movie at the movie theaters that was in english with french subtitles so that was good. And thats about it for now.

Thanks for reading!