Monmouth GP and Tour of the Basque Country
After a little mid-season break after the cicle classic, it has been a pretty busy and successful couple of weeks with winning my first national road race as well as wearing a yellow jersey for the first time.
Monmouth National
Arguably one of the toughest races as part of the UK national series the Monmouth Grand Prix, a race I was really looking forward to after a couple of weeks not racing, which was quite nice as gave me time to get some solid training in.
After heading down to my Grandads Saturday afternoon in the sweltering heat with Joe Baker it was an early start Sunday morning as we made the hour trip to the start of the race. Numbers pinned on, team talk done and a little spin on the rollers and we were ready to go.
The race didn't get off to the best of starts after 8 kilometres of racing the race was stopped due to everyone riding on the wrong side of the road, but after the chief commissar gave us a little talking to we were back racing again. The race consisted of one big lap of around 60km followed by 3 smaller laps of 20km, all over rolling terrain with around 2000 metres of climbing, on that first big lap a break of about 10 riders got up the road but with the gap not really going out to more than 40 seconds there wasn’t really anything too much to worry about, however as we started to head back towards the smaller laps a number of other attacks went up the road but as we hit the finishing climb up to Grosmont for the first time the race came back together again.
The first time over the steep finishing hill the peloton reduced in size slightly and a few riders went off the front, but all was pretty controlled as we headed back round down the hill towards the next lap, a couple of kilometres away from the base of the main climb I put in a little attack to see how the legs were and what the reaction would be like from the bunch, I managed to open up a gap of about 15 seconds but then was soon chased back down as we approached the penultimate lap. As we hit the climb the pace was pushed on and there was a little split in the bunch, with 10 of us getting a couple of seconds but over the top, there was a little lull in the pace and with no one wanting to push on the pace I put in an attack as the bunch all came back together.
Getting away with 3 other riders we soon managed to work up a decent advantage and after 2 or 4 kilometers got across to the two riders out front, at this point everyone looked at each other and so I went again, with 40km to go, putting the hammer down the gap steadily grew and as I hit the climb for the last time heading onto the final lap I had built up a lead of around a minute and a half, this gap grew and went out to 3 minutes at one point as I was really pushing it on over the back part of the course. With the team car coming up to me to give me so freshwater after throwing up due to the effort I had put in I managed to push on and take it slightly easier the final time up the final two climbs after cramping up slightly in the kilometres before, but I still managed to take the win by a minute and thirty seconds to 2nd and nearly two and a half minutes to the peloton which I was really happy about and gave me a real confidence boost going into the Tour of the Basque country.
Tour of the Basque country
Two days at home and getting my 2 3 hour mock tests out of the way it was off to Spain, a lovely 2:30 AM wake up call and we were off catching the 7 AM flight out to Bilbao we were in Spain by lunch time and out on our bikes for a little pre-race spin to get the travel out of our legs a couple of hours later.
The racing started on the Thursday evening at 17:00 with a 94km rolling stage, with temperatures of 40 degrees and everyone eager to go with it being the first stage the first 20 kilometres were pretty hectic with attacks repeatedly going one after another, 25 kilometres in I put in a attack, maging to get away with 3 other riders together soon managing to build up an advantage of over a minute. As we approached the first categorised climb of the day I pushed up over the top to get the KOM points but opened up a fairly large gap to the little group I was in so over the top and down the descent, I just pushed the pace and the gap kept going out. I spent the next 50 kilometres out front solo, taking the points for the sprints competition and the KOM competition before I was eventually caught by a break of about 7 riders as we approached the final categorised climb of the day, one rider managed to slip away over the top and take the win by 6 seconds whilst I won the group sprint for 2nd, as well as putting myself in the lead of the sprints and KOM competitions.
The second stage was a shorter one, 80 kilometres which included 2 3rd category climbs and 1 2nd category climb. The first 20 kilometres of the race followed the coastal road, twisting and turning following the cliffs which made it pretty important to stay up at the front to conserve energy so that you would not have to sprint out of every corner to catch up again, a little group managed to get up the road along this section and over the next 60km to the team did an amazing job at pushing on the pace and trying to bring it back, over the big 2nd category climb of the day after a massive lead out into the base by Jamison and Joe, Archie pushed on the pace up the climb splitting the peloton to pieces and distancing the yellow jersey, over the top and down into the valley we continued to push on the pace with George and Jamie doing some big turns before we hit the final climb of the day heading into the finish where I managed to win the group sprint for 5th as well as puttng a couple of seconds into the bunch putting me into the yellow jersey and points jersey heading into the last two days.
Saturday was the double day, a 64km road race in the morning which was pretty full on as expected with the race being so short, luckily we managed to keep control of the situation and the race came down to a bunch sprint where Archie managed to get second and I got 8th helping to keep me in the yellow and points jerseys ready for the TT that evening. After a lunch of pasta and chicken put on by the race organisers we headed off to the start of the stage, a 7.2km uphill tt that was certainly going to test everyone, once we had driven the course I settled down for the next 5 hours watching all the other riders set off and come back until I was finally off at 7:40 PM. After a tough warm up to fire up the legs I was ready to go, after racing this race last year I had a little bit of knowledge of the course and knew that you could not go too hard too soon otherwise the last few kilometres would really start to bite you. For the first 2km I pushed a hard but sustainable pace before firing up the cylinders and giving it some beans as the road winded its way up the hill side, round the kicks of the hairpins before finally reaching the little village at the top. With about a kilometre to go the lactic acid had really started to build up, averaging 191bpm for the entire effort, I kept pushing trying to keep a good cadence and tempo but it was not quite enough to keep hold of the yellow jersey, after getting 5th on the stage I slipped into 2nd on GC with one final stage remaining.
6 categorised climbs over 100km, the final stage was certainly going to be a test, after rocking up in my skinsuit with numbers pinned it turned out that I had to wear the green jersey to symbolise the points competition, with my shorts back at the hotel I had to wear the jersey over the top of my skinsuit which cooked me nicely going up the climbs in the heat. The first 20km I was a little too far back in the bunch, but with the legs not feeling great I was just trying to conserve as much energy as possible as well as making sure I was keeping on top of my eating and drinking, as the race went on and we started to hit the climbs the bunch started to deplete in size with riders being dropped and others crashing out on the technical descents. When we finally hit the final climb of the day, around a 4km climb followed by a 4km descent to the finish the size of the front group was no more than 15 riders, the pace was pushed hard into the base of the climb before the attacks started to come, at this point I was right on the limit and had to just push a pace up the climb that was right on my limit, but I just did not have enough to go with the sudden surges in paces that came with the attacks, a kilometre and a half from the top the gap to the wheel in front went completely and I pushed as hard as I could all the way to the finish but I just couldn’t quite hold onto my 2nd on GC and slipped down to 5th, as well as finishing 3rd in the KOM competition, 4th in the sprints and points competition so overall was a pretty good week away.
A massive thank you to pedal potential for helping with the continued support so that I can do these races, as well as Rawvelo for helping to keep me fueled by providing my on bike nutrition in terms of energy bars and gels, plus Galibier for the amazing training kit that has been helping me to get the miles in out training.
