The August bank holiday weekend was the Junior Tour of Wales, 5 hard stages including a hilly prologue, the hardest crit of my life, and two mountain top finishes. Basically my best stages were 1 & 3, however stage 1, the prologue time trial was announced null and void after a screw up with timekeeping. My time would have given me a top 20 finish for the stage in the previous year so I was dissappointed to have the stage cancelled. Stage 2 was fast until the bottom of the mountain, and I paced it well up the climb to finish in the top half of the field. Stage 3 was a super hard criterium that saw two thirds of the peloton shot out the back, I managed to stay in the bunch until the final bend when my back tyre blew with a spectacular bang! I was given the same time as the bunch though so no worries! Stage 4 was an easier flat stage that posed no problems, whilst stage 5 saw me get dropped, chase back on, only to blow at the bottom of a 4 mile climb. Overall it was great fun and riding with the Central Region team was great too.
Next up, British Time Trial Championship... UCI Regs meant a completely different position on a completely different bike, aching legs following a TT the previous day, a steaming up visor, wet conditions and a slipping back wheel... All these things added up meant I was over a minute down on some guys I usually match or beat, so was super dissappointed to have failed in one of my main aims for the season... bad times.
Wet Wet Wet at the BTTC!
Next up were a few time trials to try and improve my placing in the Junior Best British All Rounder. First up, another trip to wales for the Port Talbot Wheelers 25, the wettest and windiest time trial of my life, during which I encountered a 5 minute gail force hailstorm. Managed 54:00, a slight improvement on my 2nd 25 mile time, but not enough to overhaul Josh Teasdale for top spot! Another couple of time trials saw my final BAR times imrove to 19:53, 20:52, 51:28 and 54:00. This gives me a provisional result of 2nd place in the Junior Best British All Rounder competition. A good result for me, although wondering what might have been, having got within 0.2mph of Josh Teasdale in the top spot.
To get right up to date, today I did an E123 road race near Andover in Hampshire. The circuit was a very tough, attritional loop of 13 miles, which we covered 5 times. The course included one long drag to the finish, and a couple more draggy sections. The starting bunch of 60 was soon whittled down to less than 20, with a break of 7 up the road. I kept trying to break off the front but nothing came of my attacks. I was feeling good on the final lap and reached the bottom of the final climb in second wheel feeling good for a killer sprint to the line... then cramp struck, badly. Starting in my calves then reaching my thighs and quads, meaning I could hardly turn the pedals and lost over a minute to the bunch in the last mile. I collapsed over the line writhing in agony after my last road race of the season.
Sorry for a rubbish blog this time, but I will keep up to date from now on!
Ciao.
