As I write this the team is in the middle of the biggest week on our schedule, with 3 Nations Cup races in the space of 7 days. The Nations Cup series is made up of 7 races around the world contested by teams of 6 riders from each country. It's a series specific to U-23 riders and wins in Nations Cups often set the stage for a rider to step up into a Protour contract the next year. So back to our races...Tour of Flanders was last Saturday, the course featured 17 climbs (which is actually 2 more than the pros do) and a bunch of cobble sections packed into 170k. Flanders is a big deal to the Belgians, whether it be the pro or U23 version, and there were plenty of people out milling around the start, looking for autographs and pictures. Long story short, my nerves got the better of me and I was dropped before the finishing circuits, ended up riding back to the start with a Luxemborg and Ukraine dude, which made for great conversation.
Fast forward to Wednesday, now we were in Picardie, France. This area is located in the Somme/Dieppe region right along the coastm meaning lots of wind and some decent hills. After some hugely overpriced truck stop food on the drive down and some hugely overcooked pasta at the race hotel the night before we were on the line again the next morning. Again the fans were out in force, including the most organized autograph seeker I have ever seen, and we were introduced on stage by Daniel Mangeas, the Tour de France announcer. No one else probably cares about that but it was pretty cool to me. Anyways I had my head screwed on right this time and made it to the last 50k before I exploded on one of the climbs after doing a big turn of work pulling on of our leaders back to the group after a mechanical. From there on in a small group of us rode around to finish, but ended up just missing the time cut. It was a good experience anyways, riding in the hills and wind against the best U23s in the world make you learn fast!!
The last race in the trifecta is the ZLM Tour in Holland this Saturday, and then we have a bit bigger break to recover before some more Kermesses and a UCI race in Holland at the end of the month....Cheers for now
Jamie
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