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
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