Lousy March

David Smith

• Moving On...
• Adieu Vaulx-en-Velin
• All Good Things Come to an End
• A Race Diary
• Seen Better Days

Through one set of circumstances or another March has turned out to be a fairly lousy month, not at all the start of season I had been hoping for. My back required a second session of treatment which meant I missed another weekend’s racing although on the positive side it seems a lot better now.  I was due to start back at ‘La Durtocha’ on March 22^nd but it was cancelled due to heavy snow. March 24^th, Easter Monday, was the traditional ‘GP du Vougy’ but this looked also like it would be cancelled as there were still blizzards and freezing temperatures. Incredibly the organisers went ahead with the race but on the second lap a huge blizzard rolled in while we were going down the descent and you literally couldn’t see more than five meters. When it cleared there was a big split in the bunch as so many guys had almost come to a standstill through the lack of visibility and I found myself in a small group just behind the leaders. We got back on at the start of the climb on the third lap but given that I hadn’t raced in nearly a month I only managed to hang on for about three minutes before blowing spectacularly and calling it a day. In the end there were only around twenty finishers and it certainly was not a good day at the office from my perspective.

The good news is I am now back to proper training and have managed to put in a decent week with some efforts which I haven’t been able to do for awhile. On Sunday I’m headed for ‘Annemasse-Bellegard’ which as I’ve mentioned before is one of my favourite one day races although whether I’ll have the kind of form required to get a result remains to be seen. April is looking like a heavy month with (if all goes according to plan for a change) will include two UCI 2.2 stage races, ‘Les Boucles de l’Artois’  on the 4^th and 5^th in the Nord Pas-de-Calais region (a long way away from our usual stomping grounds!) and the ‘Rhone Alpes Isere Tour’ between the 17^th and 20^th. Hopefully by the time I post another entry the moral will be back and I’ll have some results!

The photos are from the team presentation (bonus points if you can pick out Bernard Thevenet) and the poster and postcard shots.

(Advertisment)

À bientôt.