This past weekend I ventured up to Dijon, France for a mini stage race. The whole weekend was a cool experience. We arrived Friday afternoon to meet up with the French team that was putting on the race (ASPTT Dijon). Since our director was arriving later, the team kindly offered to take us for a ride around the TTT course and the circuit course and arranged dinner for us afterwards. None of them spoke much English and none of us spoke much French, but we somehow managed to communicate with our sparse set of overlapping vocabulary and had a fun evening together. That night we settled into our dorms where all the teams stayed for the weekend. We would also eat with all the other teams for the remainder of the event -- it was a pretty neat setup.
(TT Preview)
(Dorm)
The next day we started off with a breakfast of pasta (not my typical bfast food) and then headed to the road race. Before the start of the race we had to go up on stage as a team and sign in -- they then announced our names (and other things which i could not follow) as we stood up on stage. They also gave us a gift basket with Dijon treats! It's fun to get prizes before you even start the race :)
(Treats)
On to the races... The first race of the weekend was a 106km road race with 8 climbs. The race started out with a neutral start and proceeded to be a slow and bunched up race until we hit the climbs. After the 2nd climb, I was off the front in a pack of 7 riders, including a teammate, Amanda Miller. We tried to work together to stay away, but our efforts weren't well coordinated and the race came back together. This scenario would repeat itself over many of the climbs. The race would break up into small groups and slowly reintegrate back together... with the pack getting smaller and smaller along the way. The hills got tougher and tougher as the race went on and at one point I was pretty sure I had a flat... so certain that I looked back at my rear wheel several times to check on it. Turns out it was just steep hills and tired legs giving the impression of a flat tire. By the end of the race, the pack of 100ish riders had dwindled to 20some with Jeannie Longo solo off the front. I came in with the front group, but didn't have much left for a sprint at the end and finished midpack in 12th.
Climbing...
More climbing...
Amanda and me in one of many breaks...
The finish!
The next morning, we prepared for a team time trial. This would be my first ever team time trial (with more than 2 riders). The 6 of us had practiced together for only a week and lacked the high tech aero equipment that made the other teams look fast. However, good teamwork and hard pedaling put us in 3rd place -- a finish we were all super happy about!
TTT
A little lunch and nap after the TT...
Mmm...
Zzzz...
...and then we were racing again that afternoon in a "crit" -- the Europeans consider 20 times around a 3.7km loop to be a crit... it was more like a circuit race with a good climb in the middle, a fast downhill into a turn, and a flat and fast stretch to the finish. Everyone was pretty tired by this race, but the US squad did a good job staying up front, going with all the attacks, and making attacks of our own. In the end, we tried to set up a leadout -- I went hard to the last straight away, where Amanda took over with a strong pull down the final stretch... but we lost our sprinter... Ooops. It was a fun attempt at a lead-out, especially since this was only our 2nd race together.
US on the front
It was a weekend full of Fun Racing! Monday we head to Pujols, France for a hilly circuit race -- should be fun!
~devon
No comments:
Post a Comment