Well well look what the cat draged in!!! Yep I have dug out the old puter to inform, inspire?! and amuse you.
What has happened since last I wrote?
Well I went to France with a composite team of MTB and Track wcpp riders to compete in the Ruban granitier 7day 8stage race. A real baptism of fire with some extreme gutter action (mostly sensored!) in the strong Breton winds. Early I the race I got a 4th which made me happy then I made the weeks decisive break on stage 6 when a group of around 16 of us were 16mins up by the finish of the 118m of racing. that put me in the top 15 overall with 2 stages to go. After the last stage which was the hardest evryone finished well and was pleased with a competitive weeks racing.
Onto my main focus post America, the Italian and Belgium world cups. The stage race gave me some good form and I put it to use with a pleasing 56th in Sarrentino-Italy. A week later I was in Belgique at Houfflize for the classic world cup venue and a race I had a personal desire to do well at as the last coupla years I have been in poor form with 96th and 113th not being any good at all. A cracking race saw me in 44th and very pleased indeed with the improvement.
We stopped out in belgium for the next week before going down to luxumbourg for the Fleche-du-sud road stage race, 4 days and 5 tough stages had the brits at the front again with the winner of first stage and overall going to mr Bradley wiggins. It was pretty cool to be riding for the race leader having confidence in his ability to finish off the job everyday - which he did with undisputed class, and with the parcourse of the remaining stages being quite hilly it proved to be in our favour as the mixed MTB and track team once more worked superbly together to keep Brad in the lead to the finish.
Back to Britain for the first NPS race of the year, I wanted to make the podium but was foiled by a hole in my tyre to big to repair. Gutted. A week later in the U23 RR nationals down Swansea way, I took my agression out on a very continental field of espoirs in a relativly short race of 3hr 20min it packed in some good climbs early on before a very thoughtfull 15mile stretch of dual-carrigeway- yawn, yawn!!., but a good finishing curcuit (definatley the way to go for crowd friendly racing) brought a bit of excitment to the race.
With the first half being the hard bit asfar as gradiants went, a 25min climb from KM zero made the selection straight away with 3 of the wcpp Nantes 44 riders up the road a little way in a group of 6 or 7, it was up to my group of 15 or so to chase them down and once we'd done that a brief respite alowed me to attack and pull 3 others away to form the race winning break at 30m to go.
We all worked very well and got to the 6 laps of the finish curcuit with a coupla minutes in hand on the bunch and continued on till a lap to go a bit of jumping around dropped one and made a medal a certainty. With visions of duel national champ status on road and mtb flashing through my head I was going for glory but I must have left my brain on the road cause I lead it out from to far and lost by half an axial pro...... ahhh... anyway silver was cool with me in a race I was not on form for. A really cool thing here was having Adrian timmis in the team car as manager- true inspiration...
A few weeks later I was guesting for the Helly Hansen squad in the redbull 24hr race, wow what an event so many people just like the old days of racin in britain. The giant world team had got a sniff of the 5grand first prize and won it with Dupoey, and Hoydahl the backbone it was unsurprising, Diamondback were 2nd and us Third. Thanks for the invite fellas.
The next NPS was put on at Trentham gardens the following week after a change from hoof an mouth infested Margham Park. I was keen to make amends here and had a great race to outsprint Craigy for 3rd, both of us giving our national champ jerseys a final airing before having to defend them next week.
And finally the national crit champs at Newark this last weekend. A very tight curcuit with an interesting stretch of cobbles meant that my starting position on the back of the grid was the worst possible place to be. With teammate Tim Morley at the front goin well collecing prime points and subsequently the points jersey, it took me nearly 40mins of the 1.5hr race to get to the front!!! Cursing myself all the way for having a last minute pee....after a lap of rest I attacked and was then away for 5 or 6 laps on my own but nobody came across just some considerate person draging the whole bunch up to me. It did provide a launchpad for Mords to launch the race winning move pulling 3 with him, they stayed infront at 20+secs then with bout 11 to go I decided to try and get across with the incentive of an ever incresing prize for me to do so from the roaring crowd and commentator, I got within sight at 8secs then it was to late as they started attacking for the finale and I was left in between but held off the bunch well enough for a comfortable 5th behind winner Chris Newton.
A great final effort before this weekends National champs where I hope to defend my jersey for another year.
I will let you know how I do...
Wilks
