It was a crazy trip as I travelled Saturday, raced Sunday and returned to the UK on Monday! This was my first experience of Italian racing and I was excited and apprehensive in equal measure.
The race comprised of two loops. A flatter 1st loop which was to be completed 4 times which led on to a hiller 2nd loop to be completed 6 times. Our team comprised of 4 riders - Charlie Quarterman, Will Roberts, Dan Combe and myself. There was a 200 rider strong field which included multiple national teams such as Switzerland, Kazakhstan, Slovenia and Slovakia. It was a beautiful day in Tuscany and about 28 degrees.
The pace was fast and furious from the off. As soon as the race was de-neutralised, the pace went up to 57kph immediately so I knew I was in for a hard day at the office! I expended a lot of energy on the sea plain circuit constantly try to move up the bunch. I made a conscious effort to move to the front before the first part of the climb. However, I got swamped by a lot of riders coming around the outside and got bulked almost coming to a standstill at the narrow entrance to the climb. I lost ground on the lead riders. This meant I was now to play catch up for the rest of my race.
The race was blown to pieces on each ascent of the climb but there wasn't a lot of respite on the 'flat' between each climb. On each lap riders were getting dropped. I managed to stay in until 106km when my race ended. Only 40 riders completed the race out of 200 starters. This is definitely the hardest race I've ever competed in, physically and tactically. This has made me realise that the Italian style of racing is the way to progress as a cyclist; it takes no prisoners.
A massive thanks goes out to Paul Quarterman who gave me the opportunity to race out here and also to Flavio Zappi for looking after us during our stay in Italy. It was a fantastic experience.
Ciao!
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