1.12.1

After a week of Nothing but kicking back and watching the  Professionals race  The Dauphine Libre up Mont Ventoux and the day after when O’grady beat Hincappe  , it finally came our turn to race at Cusset.  I new the race was going to be hard  as of its category but didn’t realise just how much of a quality field it was going to be.  Before the start meet some more Aussie Contingency but this time in the from of S.C.O Dijon’s Kieran Cameron. With many Strong Elite 2 teams there we new were going to be up for a hard day.  The race would be run on 1 large 84km loop with some small climbs then 6 laps of an 8km circuit with a nasty 1km climb that wasn’t going to be all smiles.

The race got underway at a nice pace with no attacks for the first couple of kilometres which was nice for a change but then one of our team mates decided it was up to him to get the ball rolling,  he attacked and shortly after it was attack city with more going than you could count.  Eventually we hit a long berg but not that steep and just after the top a strong break went with 14 strong riders.  None of our team unfortunately made this split.  Afterwards the bunch was constantly sitting up allowing large numbers of riders to ride clear.  I found myself in the 3rd group on the road chasing the second group 30 seconds up the road,  eventually we joined and become a large group on the road of around 30.  We had the 1st group of 14, 2 minutes clear and the bunch around 1 minute behind us.  This group wasn’t working very well together and many splits were always going.  I was feeling quite strong and was going with almost all of these and we would stay away for a while and then get caught then once again slip away.  Behind us Kieran was doing a lot of work controlling the bunch as he had a team strong team member in the front group.  Despite our groups efforts the chase the Peleton rejoined us as we started the final 6 circuits.  On the first lap the group halved up the climb and the same happened the 2nd lap.  The front group we still putting time into us so we were all now racing for minor places.  On the second lap a small group rode off the front and with a nice push from Joel ( cheers mate) I rode across to the group and then attacked them bringing 2 others clear,  we rode well together and caught a rider up the road.  With 3 laps to go a rider managed to bridge across and us 5 now road strongly with the bunch out of sight.  Coming around on the finally lap with half a lap to go a large group of around 15 managed to catch us and 4 of us ( the four in the break)  managed to slip off the front on the decent and were caught up the final climb once again,  It now came a big kick to the line and I managed to get 4th in this finishing in around 19th position.  Kieran’s hard work was rewarded as his team mate managed to win the race.  Joel finished shortly after me in around 30th.  We are both happy with the result in such a quality field.

Cheers