After a week of getting settled and learning my new
surroundings for the next seven months, last Saturday marked the start of my
2014 road season. The race, Paris – Evreux was a French National 1.12. The team
left for the race on Friday afternoon to make the three and a half hour trip to
Evreux.
8 o clock was wake up time on Saturday morning to head down
to breakfast, a typical French breakfast greeted us when we arrived downstairs,
an all you can eat buffet...of bread.
After we had eaten enough bread to last us a year we headed
off to the start, signing on we saw that many big teams would be racing
including Big-Mat Auber93 and the French Army. Once I had done the usual things
sign on, pin the numbers on, there was just enough time to go for a quick spin
to loosen the legs and then on to the start line. We started at 12:30 and
headed out to do two local laps of around 18km, before a further 130km of lumpy roads. With this being a long race and
bigger teams able to control it I imagined that a break would go early on, get a
lead, and then be wound in. However, my imagination could not have been more
wrong as from the gun we were lined out doing 45-50kph in the gutter. Looking down at my Garmin I dont think my heart rate dropped below 160bpm for the 1st hour.
The main split of the day happened coming into a small
village from a descent, unfortunately I was too far back to make the front
group as we negotiated the technical corners. We chased and held the front
group at around 30seconds for a number of km’s, but when we hit the valley the
bunch just sat up and let them go. Not content to stay in the bunch for the
rest of the race, I decided to show my face at the front and attacked with
about 60km to go, I was soon joined by a two French riders, and later on
another and fellow Dave Rayner supported rider Eoin McCarthy. Soon enough we
had a decent lead and the peleton were out of sight behind.
As we entered the two finishing circuits we still had a good
gap but it was only me and Eoin really contributing to the group and soon
enough two French riders dropped back leaving just the three of us to plow on.
It was a tough little finishing loop, windy and with a drag up to the finish.
It was the wind that eventually played its part and we were caught at the start
of the final lap. I managed to stay in the bunch but didn’t really have any
legs left for the sprint and came in 41st. Overall I’m happy with my
performance and with a local kermesse lined up this weekend hopefully I can aim
for a good result.
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| Coming up the finishing climb for the first time |
