24 HEURES DU MANS VELO

So this weekend I had 8 hours of traveling to go to Le Mans for the 24 Heures Du Mans race. Basically this race is a 'fun' race something like round Taupo so a big range of levels with 1754 riders. The race itself was raced on the same race track as they use in the 24 Heures Du Mans for cars and you have a team of 2,4,6 or 8 riders and you change riders at different intervals for example we had a team of 4 and changed every 2 hours. The team with the most laps in 24 hours wins. The main reason we did this race was for our sponsors, Vulco (Vulco is a auto repair shop) , which were sponsors for the event and so was very important for us to win.

The race started on Saturday and was a scorcher of a day, around 35 degrees. I was scheduled to race 2nd, which meant I started at 5pm for my 2hour block. When I started the front group was all still together so about 30 minutes into my ride I attacked on the small climb on the lap which was about 500m long at 4percent. I managed to get away with 4 other guys and I rode with them for about 45 minutes but were a bit to slow for me so I ended up going alone for the last 45 minutes. By the end of my shift I was 3 minutes ahead of the bunch. Luckily our team had someone to take us to our hotel, which was 10 minutes away, to sleep for a couple hours before our next shift.

By the time I was back at the track for my next shift at 1am the team had finished what I had started and were 1 lap up on the field. This made my next ride a little easier as I could just sit in the bunch and follow any moves, which was lucky for me as I wasn't to keen on making a big effort in the middle of the night. It also had started raining during the night and the track was really slippery, I think I pretty much drifted around most of the corners.

My last shift was at 9am, so by this time the sun was out again, the track was dry and it wasn't too hot yet. At this point we were 1 lap up on 7 teams and 2 laps up on a dozen other teams. I was getting pretty bored sitting in the group so I attacked again and got away with one other guy who I knew as we have raced each other before and got about half way to lapping the field before I had to change again. So I had finished my part and the rest of the team easily got another lap and at the end we won by 2 laps to 2nd place. Also my Latvian team mate got the fastest lap time in 5minutes 14seconds, an average of 48km/h which also beat the previous record by 15 seconds. In the end I think we averaged around 41km/h for the whole race.

Super stoked to get 2nd win of the year although its not the biggest race a win is a win.



The start


Our director





Pit zone

First WIN of the season!

Well its my first blog post in almost a month, so sorry to any regulars. I have some good news! I have finally had some good luck and good legs, and I have won my first race in the first category!!Saint-Sernin-du-Bois
The race was on a small circuit of 2.5km that we did 40 times, and had a 500m hill that snaked through some forest.

It didnt seem like so much when you rode around it but after 40 times up it definitely took its toll, adding up to just under 1000m total elevation by the end. The race had about 60 odd starters so not a huge field but had some half decent riders there with one guy who has just got a stagiaire with AG2R.
For the first 10 laps I honestly felt like I wanted to pull out, the pace was really fast and I was feeling awful. I think it was because the race started quite late at 4pm and I wasnt warmed up properly. After the first 10 laps I started coming right and could lay down a few attacks. On the 16th lap I managed to get into a break away of 8 with 3 riders of the same team and I was the only one from my team. So this meant I was able to sit back a little and not do so much work. We managed to keep the gap to the peloton at about 40 seconds for most the race. At 10 laps to go the gap shot out as the peloton split up behind.
With 4 laps to go 1 guy from the break attacked on the hill and got away by himself, which was a good situation for me as it forced the team with 3 riders to do the work to bring him back. The next time up the hill when we were just about to catch the front guy I followed an attack of another rider and we bridged across to the front with one other, so we were 4 in the front. It stayed like this until the last time up the hill and one guy attacked right at the bottom which was easy to follow and about 100m from the top I launched my attack and managed to get away by myself. I pushed on to the end to win by a handful of seconds!
here are some articles on the race also
http://www.lejsl.com/sport-local/2011/08/10/un-kiwi-gagne-a-st-sernin

http://www.creusot-infos.com/article.php?sid=29609&mode=&order=0

http://www.creusot-infos.com/article.php?sid=29610&mode=&order=0








I havnt just been doing nothing the last month I have actually been quite busy so I havnt had the chance to write on here. Basically I think I will just try sum up what I have done.

I have had Brad Tilby practically living with me. He came down for the Tour de France then went to Italy for a few weeks. Its good to have someone to train with and I think for him it was a good chance to get away from the rain that Holland has been having. We have done some epic rides in the mountains around Lyon.

I have also done 10 other days of racing so a quick summary......

On Thursday the 21st I had Nocturne d’Albertville a night time criterium, where our team dominated. We had 4 of us in the break and we took 1st 2nd 3rd and 6th(I was 6th) and we also won almost every sprint preme so we ended up with about 300 euro each by the end of the night.

After that I had my parents arrive on the 24th of July and they stayed with me for 2 days before coming to watch me do a 5 day tour(I will write more about this in a later blog I dont wanna make this one to long). I was 28th in this tour.

I had another race 2 days after the tour where I pulled out....still a bit tired from the tour.

I had a race on the 7th that Brad also came to watch, and I was 12th in this race and I won heaps of wine, 5 bottles. Unfortunately I don't like wine.

And yea I think thats about it for me. Form is good

Thanks for reading