Ambert Nocturne *Crit

So for this race on a Monday night it was just Esko, Karlo and I (plus a British guy called Ki). I stepped it up and decided to drive there. It was pretty dodgy cause I haven't driven the team car that much and am not use to the clutch, to make matters worse it was raining hard and we had to go on the mountain roads!

Any way. We arrived to the race with no hick ups. got our dossards(numbers) and tested the course..... It was still raining a bit, but it was warm (so all g). The course was fairly technical with a climb a couple of quick turns then a straight decent with a slow single file left hand turn to the finish. If you got the hole shot out of the last corner it was pretty hard for any one to come round you.

So I was taking all the primes just by getting the jump into the corner. The race had a lot of attacking and I made sure I placed my self up front for most of the race, just to cover the breaks. Eventual though the race came back together with around 10 laps to go. Ki was feeling decent and was throwing some spice around, but the bunch ended up swamping all the attacks. In the end I had OK postion around the last left hander and managed to grab 4th. Plus 6 primes at 30 euro each so not a bad night.

Got a race on Sat, Elite National so should be interesting...

Ciao for now.

KH

Alpes

So I've been a bit busy lately with training and racing. I will try and think back to a week or so ago, I had an Elite National called Charvieu chavagneux it was a super fast flat course, which i knew would suit me if I played my cards right.

There was a really strong line up for the race, the pace started high seeing it was bastille day and never let up.

The good break went within a couple of laps. but lucky for me not all the teams were represented up front. So it got dragged back eventually. As that was going on I made my way to the front and a split went off the front and that was it.... full noise to the end and I had a dig with 2km to go but got bought back then rolled 8th in the sprint.

After this was a race on Sunday... I recovered really well and went on the attack straight away. I was loving the wet conditions and dropping everyone through the corners. Once the good break went I bridged across and it looked to be solid until we were caught with less than 1k to go, I stayed well positioned to take 7th.

After this I have been in the Alpes (near Braincon) training and relaxing and also getting in a bit of Tour action. I also had a Nocturne crit in Albertville, but was really lacking energy and power for some reason (maybe the altitude training im not sure). So I decided to pull the pin only 50mins in.

So that is all really, just watched the TT at Le Tour was pretty exciting!

KH

GP les Avenieres

So we only had 1 race this weekend.........

It was a 1,2,3 Categorised with a few of the big teams there, I was pretty chilled out about the race this week because I had forgotten what a race was like!

At the same time my HR was pretty excited because I nailed a couple of strong coffees at breakfast (and i never drink it normally)

The race itself started in some decent heat and just stayed hot the whole time. I was first to attack and got away but never got a gap. Then Ki went over the top and opened a decent gap (shit yeah Noel). after this I just scoped out breaks. I got in a few breaks and just kept pushing it ahead so never had to bridge gaps and go into the red to much in that heat.

I ended up 8th with the initial break never coming back, but a few people cracked from the front break.

Thats all at the moment only 1 race this weekend coming so stay tuned

KH