Tour de Beaujolais

This weekend 5 of the team were heading for a quick trip north to the wine region of Beaujolais.

From all the talk from previous years it is a really good tour, with everything organised really well.

This year was no different,

Stage 1

I got stuck in early on. Went to early and attacks came flying every where. I managed to scramble through groups on narrow hard roads until I made the front selection.

From there the next gpm saw a few guys go clear. and with all the strong teams accounted for the time gap shot out.

Attacks came as the group lost its biorhythm and then the finish circuit ones and twos going off the front I covered as much as i could. But was out numbered and eventually hit the wall and lost a bit of time to the other chase guys.

Sundays Stages

2

Put the skin suit on for the flat 60km stage.

Was fast to start off with, but then I felt the heat cooling off a bit so launch on the narrow roads. I managed to split a group off.

Went real hard the whole stage but did way to much and rolled 5th. Climbed the ladder on GC as well

Stage3

Cracked on the second to last gpm and they didnt bring the convoy through so i was screwed. rode around trying to find the way with one other guy. ended up going the wrong way a couple more times and doing 121km for 103.6km stage. Dont know what thats all about.

Pleased to get a hard Tour in the legs though.

Big June coming up including Belgie trip so stay tuned.

KH

Prix de Pont-de-Vaux

So I'm sitting downstairs at the Bar, its Monday morning and its time to think about yesterdays race.

Race departed at 3pm, was really dark clouds and you could feel the air pressure, as it was about to bucket down. From the start no neutral which was strange because there normally always is. I clipped in nice and quick and followed the first attacks from the home teams boys (bourge en bresse). A good little group managed to get away (maybe 10 or so) everyone was willing to roll through which was good for a change.

As the rain came down things got loose and a lot of the riders didn't know how to handle their bikes particularly well. I was applying pressure through the narrow (technical) roads in the hope of splitting a smaller group off the front.

As the race ticked over, another group on the road caught our group and this meant the group was fairly big and not going to be overly helpful in setting the tempo,

2 guys got up the road then another bridged, I knew that it would be a good move to be in with conditions like the were, I attacked once but got covered by the group, I waited a bit then after the technical section when it was strung out, I went to try bridge the gap that had grown quit a bit. After half a lap (4km or so) I had made contact with the front 3.

It took awhile for me to recovery from the bridge, but soon we all got stuck in.

1 guy got dropped and 1 strong man managed to bridge.

THE Bell lap: So coming into the final lap everyone getting twitchy, taking quick laps on the front. I got attacked whilst on the front and I left it up to the other 2 too respond. they did but did't quite have the legs to pull in this one guy. Then 3 of us started attacking each other to make contact with the front guy which was just letting him get away.

Coming into the finish looking for 2nd. I was in 2nd wheel and wanted 3rd wheel cause the strong sprinter Lionel Genthon was on my wheel. I let the wheel go in front of me to force him in front of me, he didn't respond straight away and the guy in first wheel randomly turned around saw he had a gap and bolted, Lionel was waiting for me to respond but I wasn't going to cause I wanted his wheel. But in the end I left it to late and rolled 4th

A little gutting but banked some points I hope!

that's about all for now, stay tuned

Kieran

DN2 Coupe de France, 2 and 3

Just a quick update to all those people out there reading this ramble.

Just got home at 1.30am, fresh from another hard windy day down in the south of France. (fun driving on the motorways!)

The race was really windy and had 1 main climb of around 1km length then 2km false flat and cross wind to the finish line in a village with a massive castle was pretty sweet.

Didn't get the best sleep at the F1 hotel in Toulouse with all the hookers making heaps of noise next door. So was a little sleepy, race was OK on the 5 big laps but the climb and drag to the finish was draining me. The 4th to last time up i got pinged off after the climb and game over. Another Dnf

I have been told from room mate Ki, that i was riding in the wind and being an idiot and if i had conserved more and ate more I would have been fine, so will defiantly keep that in mind for next races.

Also really disappointing at the moment with some of the team mates not committing 100 percent in the races. It really sucks for use riders that, just want to get racing and pull off results..........

The other Coupe de France up in Bourg didn't work out for me. As i put in way to much intensity through the week and had no PUNCH in the legs on race day.

Thats about it from me folks, enjoy this beautiful weather were have aye.

Ciao