Racing over the last few weeks

Since the last post I have competed in two races over here in Europe, one in France and one in Belgium. Last week was the 2nd round of the French cup, which was held in Pujols, in the south of France, on a very hard circuit. The course consisted of 6 laps around a hilly course, which included a steep 3km hill and then finished up the hill on the last lap. The team had 3 goals for this race- 1. To win the race, 2. To keep our young rider Alexia in the U23 jersey for the series and 3. To maintain our 2nd place on the team classification.

Unfortunately, the race did not pan out exactly according to plan. Halfway through the race a group of 12 riders escaped off the front, including 2 riders from our team. Unfortunately, they were outnumbered by the Vienne Futuroscope team, who were able to continually attack the group in the last lap and get some riders off the front of the breakaway, leaving our riders had to settle for 5th and 7th places. I had a good finish coming in near the front of the peleton, in 18th place. With 4 riders in the top 20, we were able to keep our 2nd place in the teams classification for the series. However, our young rider slipped to 2nd place in the U23 competition.

Finish of Pujols

This weekend, I did a UCI race in Belgium, Halle Buizingen. I did this race last year, finishing in the main peloton. However, this year the standard was a lot higher, with a lot of strong teams in the peloton. The pace was on right from the start with many the group being greatly reduced in the first 40km, due to the high pace and also several crashes. After around 50km there were two short steep climbs, which split the group to pieces. Unfortunately, my legs just blew up after these climbs and I was unable to stay with the front group and I ended up in a group which was pulled out with 20km to go. Although I was extremely disappointed to be pulled out, it ended up that only 44 riders finished, out of the 170 starters!! Our young rider, Alexia, was the only rider from out team to make it to the finish coming in at 28th place.

Trip to Dijon with my team mates Alexandra and Claire, team manager Sylvie, and her son Tom

As well as racing, I have also had a few trips into Dijon to look around the city, one of which included meeting up with my cousin Chris and his wife Jess, so that was good to catch up with them, and hear some kiwi accents!


We also had some team photos taken while we were away at the french cup. These have got to be some of the strangest photos that I have ever been in!

Dottignies

On Monday I raced in the Belgian UCI 1.2 race, Dottignies, a 133km course. Before the race I was told not to worry, the race was flat, no cobbles and would not be to hard. Well after doing the race, I don't know where this information came from, because this race had hills, it had cobbles, and even had a hill WITH cobbles.

The race started fast, with 200 girls all trying to get to the front, before the first narrow road, which started 1km into the race. After this came the first cobbled section, which luckily wasn't too hard or fast. However, after this we started a series of climbs, the last of which was very steep and all cobbled. I started this climb with the front group of around 30-40 riders. However on the climb I just felt like I was going backwards! Because I don't weigh much, I get bounced around a lot on the cobbles, so I don't enjoy them at all! Luckily, I was not too far off the back of the first bunch over the climb, and was with some strong girls from the AA drink and Dolmans-Boels teams who were able to get us back to the bunch.

One of the climbs on the course

After this, the course was reasonably flat, which allowed a lot of other riders to also catch up, so we entered the last circuits of the course with a peleton of 100 riders. The last 4 laps all contained a short section of cobbles, but there was no real effort to string out the bunch, with the big teams all keen for a bunch sprint. The sprint was quite difficult with a few corners in the last kilometre of the race. I finished midway in the bunch, so not the best sprint. After the race we drove straight back to France, getting to Domois at about 1am, so I was VERY tired by the time I got home. 

Riding in the bunch behind 2nd place getter, Emma Johansson

The rest of the week has been good because another kiwi, Gen Whitson has moved into the house where I am staying, as she is also riding for our team this year. It has been great being able to talk english, and feels weird to be able to talk so much after 3 weeks of just speaking french!! 

This weekend we have another big race coming up. It is the 2nd French cup race, and is in the south of France, so is very hilly. As we have lots of hill climbers in our team, we really want to win this one! So this week will be an easy one, to make sure I am ready for the race

Emma