And Again!!
David Smith | Monday 5th July, 2004
David Smith |   |
Well, things have been a bit up and down since my last post a couple of weeks ago, I'll start with the good news...
Last weekend I had a race down by St. Flour in Haute Loire. It wasn't anything like the scale of the E2 the previous weekend but with Vachon there and a number of other decent riders it wasn't going to be a walk in the park! Not least because the 4km curcuit included a 1km climb that had a section at 13per cent to be struggled over....18times! I thought this would probably lead to an early break going and not coming back and I wasn't wrong, hostilities began the 2nd time up the hill and it never came back together. I made sure I was in the move and when the previous years winner Jean Luc Faure attacked I went with him. The 2 of us built up a good lead but with 9 laps to go another 2 riders joined us, an Australian, Gilbert Gutoski (he's Australian?, exactlly what I thought the first time I heard his name!!) and a rider from the Mauriac club. Faure was dropped with 4 to go and that left 3 of us for the sprint. This is where things didn't go quite according to plan and I found myself on the front at the bottom of the hill. Then, even more foolishly I put it in the little ring, bad move! The second I did this the Mauriac rider attacked in the big ring, I had to put it back in the big ring but he'd already taken 10meters and with the finish line only half way up the hill I wasn't going to come past him too easily! Still, I manged 2nd, not too bad I guess but I can't deny I was dissapointed!
So onto this weekend and we were off to the Tour du Haut Gevaudan in Langedoc-Rousillion. A good field of 80 riders and I was really looking forward to this as I knew the form was there. The first stage was all going well untill with about 25km to go some wise guy decided to try and fit through a gap that really wasn't there hitting my front wheel in the proccess. This resulted in many snaped spokes and a completely buckled rim. We'd just crossed a GPM so there were no cars in behind us as things had been splitting up on the climb and I waited a good minute to even get a new wheel. I rode like a madman down the descent but on a narrow twisty road it wasn't so easy to pass the 12 or so cars in the convoy! I got to the bottom just about in one piece after a few close calls and then we began a 4km climb. I knew attacks would be going on up ahead and that it would be very difficult to get back to the head of the race and sure enough 18 guys were ahead by the top. I came in 23rd but the gap to the winner was a not insignificant 3minutes and I knew it was game over as far as GC was concerned. I managed a mediocre 20th in the time trial still paying for my efforts of the previous day and about 11th or so in the afternoon's stage but with the top 25 on GC all coming in in one group I made no further progress. 2nd in the king of the mountains competition was a small compensation for the bad luck I suffered but overall I was left fairly frustrated! And the winner was......one Ruslan Sambris (remember that name!), Moldovan from VC Cevenol, 3rd overall stage race victory of the year and 10th in total!
The Tour comes to St. Flour next week on Bastille Day but I'll be turning myself inside out in an E2 race over by Lyon so let me know who wins!!
