GHS onto 2010

The end of the 2009 after my 2nd in france was pretty average coming 7th in my age group at the GHS national time trial, but that was due to illness in the weeks before and this marked the end of my racing season. I was very disappointed but next year will be my last shot at the GHS competition so I will only be happy with a medal.

Onto 2010, the squad has been made a lot more compact with some of the boys moving onto the One Life Fuga Squad. However in our Junior team we have (myself,Jake Martin,Charlie Fawke,Elliott Tabraham Dowers and Bongo Jamieson) and we will soon be joined by current youths (Dante Carpenter,Milo Burdeau). The team looks extremely strong and I Look forward to riding with our talented team. The 3 older riders (Jay,Adam and Josh) are moving to Belgium to race in Flanders colours. Which I hope one day I will be able to follow. Next year we have two new sponsors coming on board, firstly Holmes Couriers and Flanders Bike shop who's bikes look Beautiful and I look forward to riding next year as I have out grown my current Fuga.

I shall update the blog soon but there isn't much to talk about during the winter block but I will upload any pics I have of the squad during training ;)

Race and Day of My life

After my awesome experience of racing in France at the start of the summer and watching the tour de France which was truly inspirational. I had the worst nationals at Hillingdon but I then return to France for what was the best race of my life.

I raced at Montaut in a 75 km criterium around the streets during the village fete. It was the hottest day I can remember of the summer and my legs were extremely strong after 150km of motor pacing thanks to my mum and Greg the week prior to the race. The race started fast with myself attacking from the gun to separate the 50 field on an extremely tight circuit. After constant attacks throughout the race I found myself able to latch onto the back of every attack and by the 50km mark there were only about 20 left in the lead group. Then Kevin Lago attacked extremely strongly and he went alone and I did not react thinking it would be impossible to ride alone to the finish for 25km (to my mistake). Then with 15 km remaining I knew us stronger riders could not give him anymore time as he made himself a 1.30 min lead.

So I launched the most powerful attack of my life bringing 3 riders with me. I tried to get the group to work well together but they did not want to know and after having an argument with fingers flying with the departmental champion I decided if I wanted a result I needed to do the pulling. So with 10 km to go as we hit the final straight I attacked form the front (tradition Cadel Style) and managed to gain 50 meters in no time at all. So the next task was to bury the head and ride alone to the finish in pursuit of Kevin. by the time i got to the finishing straight Kevin beat me by about 10 secs and as I crossed the line I Sat up and marked Lago's quality ride clapping towards him as a mark of recognition, however I put 1 min 30 on the break of 3 and finished in 2nd place.

After the race I was treated like a pro, with all 300 people watching, wanting to shake my hand and the feeling was unbelievable and I hope to repeat that again in the 2010 campaign but maybe get a 1st place abroad. After the race the first person I went to was my mum and gave her a Hug as I needed to share my excitement with someone, and as a way of saying thank you as she could see all the hard work we had both put in, as it had came evident right in front of her. Then there was the podium where I was interviewed in french which was pretty cool and got a bouquet of flower.