World Cup Plouay

Well my early exit from the trophee d'or last week ended up being a blessing in disguise, with the extra recovery time before the world cup in the weekend helping me to have a really good race!

As we arrived at our accomodation the night before the race, it started to rain. Now for most people, this would be a bad thing, but not me...for some reason I always seem to race well in the rain- maybe a result of all those rainy saturdays I spent racing out at Counties Manukau club during the winter when I first started riding! Anyway it was a great relief after the horrible heatwave at Trophee d'Or!!

The world cup was held on a hard, hilly circuit in Plouay, Bretagne, and due to it being the final of the world cup series, all the best riders in the world were there. Lining up on the start line among all the big riders from AA drink, rabobank, specialized-lululemon etc was a bit scary! Out of all the teams at the race, our team was ranked last, so we knew that it was going to be a tough race!

The race started off at a quite easy, and I was having no trouble staying up the front. Then on the 2nd lap of 5, there were a few attacks on one of the difficult hills of the course. Due to good positioning, I initially made the front selection of around 35 riders. However, after being caught behind another rider who crashed on the next hill, just as the bunch was all lined out, I dropped back to the 2nd bunch. Over the next 2.5 laps, our bunch kept going at a good pace, and I felt really strong and was able to contribute a lot to the pace making, especially on the hills. I had a bit of an average sprint, to finish 46th in the race, a result I am very happy with as only the first 2 bunches ended up being allowed to finish the race! The race was won by the unbeatable Marianne Vos, who arrived at the finish alone after breaking away from her 2 breakaway companions on the last lap.

After the race, we had a long drive home, getting back to Dijon at around 2.30am. I am now spending the week recovering, before starting the Tour of Ardeche on monday.

Trophee d'Or: Only one word to describe it...HOT

I have just spent the week racing the trophee d’or, a 6 stage race base around Saint-Amand-Montrond, which is somewhere in the centre of France. I went down to this race, expecting it to be a good tour to ease the legs back into racing, as it is not that hilly. What I didn’t count on was the extreme heat wave which is happening in France at the moment. Lining up on the startline of the first stage of the tour, my garmin was reading 48.9 degrees, and this was at 4.30pm!! I don’t think I have ever been anywhere so hot before, let alone raced a bike in it!! After only a few minutes of riding, my drink bottles were boiling, and I pretty much spent the whole stage pouring water over my head, or trying to strategically position myself behind other girls who were spraying themselves with water! The stage ended in a sprint, with me coming in just out of the top 20, in 21st place. However, even after the stage finished, there was no escape from the heat! It was so hot at the end of the day that we had to get up several times during the night to have cold showers, and it became normal to walk around in just a sports bra and shorts the whole day! It also became normal to have a constant headache from the heat, which was not nice at all!

Stage 2 was a team time trial around the city, and as per the norm in France, the course was all ups and downs and corners. This was a bit of a worry, as our team had never ridden a team time trial before! However, we managed to make it through without crashing, and even bet 2 teams, so that was better than expected!

That afternoon, there was another road stage, and like the day before, the temperature had risen into the 40s by the time 4pm rolled around. Again, I spent the day pouring water over myself and made it to the end with the peloton, having another good sprint to come in 28th place. My team mates were not so lucky, with one fainting during the stage and ending up in an ambulance, and my kiwi teammate Gen, spending several hours in hospital after the stage due to extreme stomach cramps from the heat!

Day 3 arrived, and I woke up with an even worse headache than the day before, and was dreading the stage that afternoon. Although the temperature was slightly cooler than the day before, it was very humid, so it felt a bit like riding in a sauna! Unfortunately, this proved to be the limit of the amount of heat I could handle, and after 30km of racing, I fainted and spent the rest of the race in the ambulance, with a French nurse trying to feed me cubes of sugar!

While I was disappointed that my tour had ended early, in reality it may have been a good thing, as it has allowed me to recover better for the world cup that I am doing this weekend. We have been told that this is going to be the hardest, hilliest race we have ever done, and we are not expected to finish! So the aim for Saturday is to prove that wrong!!

Round up of July racing

So as I said in my last blog, during July I had the hard task of completing 3 4 day stage races within the space of 3 weeks. First up I had the Tour of Krasna Lipa in the Czech Republic, a tour which I have done twice before. I competed in this tour with my team from last year, Team Ibis Cycles. This is a very difficult tour, not only because of the constant hills, but also because of the extremely hot temperatures. For some reason, I seem to have a real problem with the heat. Last year, I had one occasion when I collapsed during a race due to heat stroke, and since then I haven’t really coped well with really hot weather. Unfortunately, during the first stage of this tour, the heat stroke struck again, and feeling as though I was going to faint, I had to let go of the front group, and ended up finishing in the 2nd peloton. After the first day, the heat didn’t die down, but I started feeling a lot better. Strangely, although it was so hot in the mornings while we were racing, every afternoon, there would be a huge thunderstorm! On the 3rd day, we had a double day, so this meant racing in the thunder storm for the afternoon stage, and this just happened to be the most technical stage of the tour, with descents filled with potholes and sharp corners. While most of the peloton were dreading this stage in the rain, I was loving it- a break from the heat!! I had a really good stage, managing to stay right near the front for the whole race and finishing in the front group. I again finished in the front peloton on the last day, and ended the tour in 40th place- unfortunately I had not been able to move any further up after such a bad first day.

Next, I was off to France for the tour of Bretagne, which started 3 days later. Although this was the tour I had not really wanted to do, it ended up being my favourite of the 3 races. The terrain in Bretange is constantly rolling, but with no really big hills to split up the peloton. Therefore all the road stages ended in big bunch sprints. One thing that I have noticed this year is that I have got a lot better at riding and sprinting in a bunch, and that really showed during this tour. Whereas last year I would just roll in at the back of a big bunch for the finish, during this tour I finished in the top 25 out of around 150 girls in each stage of this tour. So that was a really positive thing for me, and showed me that all the flat races in Holland and Belgium over the last few years.

By the time the final tour, the tour of Limousin, started, I was absolutely exhausted! This had originally been the tour that I had wanted to get a good result in. However, after having to do 2 tours before this, it was obvious that this was not going to happen! On top of the tiredness, this was an extremely hard tour, with big hills everyday, and the Olympic champion, Marianne Vos, using it as her final Olympic preparation. The highlight of the tour had to be following Vos in the car while she was warming up for her time trial- over an extremely technical and hilly course, she was going at an average speed of about 40km/hr..and this was her warm up! She was definitely in a class of her own during the tour, winning by around 40minutes over the next rider! For me, the tour was just a matter of getting through it. However I did have a really good last stage, finishing in the front group of 40.

After the tour was over, I travelled back to Holland, where I have been staying for the last couple of weeks, having a much needed break. I am staying with a group of Scottish and British cyclists, and am enjoying being able to speak some english for a while!! I am now getting back into training, to get back into form for the trophee d’Or at the end of the month.

I have also recently received the good news that I am on the long list for the road world championships at the end of september. My main goal for the year is to race at these championships, so I am very happy to be a step closer to achieving this goal.