In order to
qualify for the worlds every rider needs a top 20 in the series so I headed out
to France with my folks for this year’s Roc Laissagais. Two weeks after the Epic I was unsure
if I’d recovered, my bruised quad was still sore but all other wounds were
healed up and I felt well rested.
We stayed in a
French converted barn in a tiny hamlet at 800m altitude with a log burner
inside which we made sure never went out!
Saturday we woke to snow, a bit of a shock after the sunny UK we’d come
from. It was grey, miserable and
wet down at the start in Laissac and I was glad we were just signing on. I finally did an hour back up at snow
line, wet but at least more scenic than in the rain lower down!
Race day was dry
thankfully but only 1 degree at the start line. I didn’t mind that armed with 2 pairs of gloves, knee and
foot warmers and our lovely new team winter jersey from ASG. We headed out and started climbing. I
found myself at the front and at the top there were only 2 of us. On the muddy decent I was dropped, the
Europeans really know how to ride in the mud and soon 3rd place was
passed me. 3 of us rode together
as we hit an un ridable climb.
Finally I passed and dropped 3rd place but lost the leader on
a long descent and never saw her again.
The route was beautiful; forest trails, single track descents, river
crossings, open gravel climbs and muddy hike bike climbs. With so much variety on a challenging
course and feed stops every 10km where my parents managed to get to with drink
and a handful of sweets at one point I was enjoying pushing myself and racing
hard again. My 32Gi tabs tooked in the bottom of my shorts went down well, it
was a course for quick easy eating food as there was little time for taking
hands off the bars. The last 10km
was hard. It was warming to a
barmy 6 degrees, too hot with my layers and where I expected a long downhill we
still climbed another 500m in altitude in deeper mud lower down in the
forest.
With a hunger
knock hitting I finally rode into town and across the finish line in 2nd
place, 4 minutes down on the leader having had a small fall and denting my
helmet but not hurting myself just loosing a bit of time. The interview in French was a non-starter,
I muffled ‘fatigue’ and that was about it! I was very pleased with the result having come from rocks
and dust in South Africa to 1 degree and mud. I was riding a lot of technical bits just not with a lot of
speed so that’s where the work needs to be done now!
