Finally I am doing a write up for this.......It was a bit of a mixed bag.
Well I went into this with some great form and was a little unsure how I would go as it was a classed as a UCI 2.2 and the only other UCI 2.2 i have done was the Rhone alps isere tour, and that was effing hard.
So the prologue was cool as it was the same course as the Criterium Dauphine a couple weeks ago. It started in the evening and it poured with rain and being on a short technical course staying upright on my bike was my biggest priority, as I thought it would be better to lose a little time not taking the risk rather than risking it and crashing and lossing alot of time. I ended up losing 40 seconds to the winner so not the greatest.
Stage 1 was flat for 80ish km then 2 mountains to finish it off. I expected a small break to get away on the flat and I thought the peloton would be controlled by some of the bigger teams, but this didnt end up happening and a massive split of 30 odd guys got off the front and I didnt make it. Up the first mountain the peloton set a real hard pace which was good and it whittled it down to about a bunch of 30 and we pulled back a few guys that had dropped of the back of the break. On the last climb at the bottom the yellow jersey attacked and he took about 3 or 4 with him, I went after but was a bit late to react and didnt have the kick to hook on to them so I was stuck between them and bunch for a bit so ended up sitting up for behind. We pretty much stayed together most the way up and with about ten in the group and we werent getting much closser to the front break away so near the top their were a lot of attacks and we all split up a bit. It was then downhill to the finish and i ended up in 28th was a bit gutted as if there was no break i could have made top 15.
stage 2 I was confident of a good finish and feeling good after the day before. It was a super hard stage with 3 mountains and was just over the border in Italy which was cool. First climb a break of about ten got away and the peloton just had a steady tempo. Coming up to the 2nd climb I attacked from the peloton with 2 other guys and we bridged up to the front, also a group of 7ish behind us made it across. So was a fairly large group of us in the front and the motorbike was saying we had 4 minutes over the peloton. Basically as soon as I had made it across to the front there were constant attacks which wasn't ideal as I had already worked my ass off to bridge up, so it really cooked my legs and by the time we were 1/4 the way up the 2nd climb I completely blew to pieces, hit the wall as they say. I think it was also due to not eating enough early on in the stage which was a stupid mistake. I crawled to the finish and literally zig zaged my way up the climbs trying to shove as much food down my throat as possible. finished 40th i think.... I was pretty disappointed.
stage 3 I was hoping I could salvage my tour but it wasn't to be I just hadn't recovered well enough from my torture the day before and the legs were like lead and I couldn't get my heart rate over 85percent. Was just suffering in the bunch and ended up dropping and finishing a few minutes down.
In the end I was 32nd on GC
Even though I had the form I made some stupid mistakes that cost me.
I have just had a sweeeet holiday down in the south of France so that has made up for any disapointment. will have a post on it in the coming days!!!!!!!!
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