Tour de Bretagne
So last week saw me off to France to race what is one of Wales Racing Academy’s highest level races of our season, the tour de Bretagne. All of us were pretty nervous but really excited to be exposed to such a high level of competition. There was an element of heading into the unknown against this competition.
Personally, I was really up for just getting stuck in and seeing what I could achieve as I was happy with my condition going into the race.
tour de Bretagne in brief
This is a 7 day UCI 2.2 stage race. With the list of teams entered incredibly strong being either hardened, continental level or the cream of the crop world tour development teams. The tour was also aired on french national TV.
Heading into the first stage, the weather was pretty inclement with pouring rain and a fairly strong wind off the sea. My goal of the day here was to get up the road which I succeeded in very early on. I was brought back after around an hour but later in the stage I claimed some first category mountain points which put me in the polka dot jersey. I was really pleased with this!
Then onto stage 2 with the weather still being pretty grim I managed to some how slope off into the break of the day. This enabled me to gain plenty of valuable mountain points to distance myself from my rivals in the KOM competition. This was a long day out front with my 2 break away companions. We lasted out front for 150km so it was a taxing day on the legs.
Heading into the remaining stages of the tour now I was in a tricky situation as I was only 8 secs back on the general classification and I had a big white and red target on my back so wasn’t allowed much leeway to go on the attack.
This made gaining points to retain my jersey pretty tricky. I tried my best to pick up some minor points where I could but with riders sloping up the road gaining the maximum points, this was a tough ask. And after 4 days in the jersey, I was dethroned. Just to add, on the day I lost the jersey, me and the rest of the team did everything in our power to keep the jersey and to bring back danger men. It was a super tough ask and eventually we were done over. It was a little gutting but we did everything in our power to hold it. I was made up with how selfless the lads were for me so the favour will definitely be re-paid further into the season.
The last few days I tried to ride very aggressively again to gain points back to re-gain the jersey but it just didn’t happen. I came home second in the King of the mountains jersey just 6 points off the eventual winner. On the last day I had a pretty unfortunate mechanical putting me out of any contention of the dying embers of the race.
It was great to have plenty of support for us welsh boys roadside from both Bretagne residents and Welsh alike. Also got to add a big thanks to everyone who messaged me support throughout the week I really appreciated it!
