They were the best of time, they were the worst of times…

I’ll start off with the worst of times, Tour of Limousin. There are not many races I truly do not enjoy and the Tour of Limousin has it one fell swoop made it right to the top of that list, there are a few reason for this. First it is in France where for me bad expeirences out weight good experience by about a 100 to 1. Second with the field at Limousin being about 80% French the raced would play out in their very distinct racing style, one which I am not really a fan of. I can handle the narrow, patchy, rough pavement, even a bit of rain but their amateur style racing cracks me.

They attack without reason and respect for fellow riders. They attack when they have team mates up the road, they attack when the yellow jersey stops for a nature break, they attack in the feed zones, they attack when the break is already 5 minutes up road. There is no rhyme or reason to anything they do or tactics for that matter. When the director told me to pull the plug early on the last stage to save some legs ahead of Sunday GP Plouay I was elated to say the least.

Now for the best of times, GP Plouay. For about 6h hours on Sunday it was like I wasn’t in France at all, GP Plouay is a long standing classic and hosted the 2000 world championships on almost the identical course. The ambiance of the race was still very distinctly that of a world championships, hundreds of thousands of fan lining almost the entire length of the undulating 19 km course. There were fields of camper from spectators who had arrived up to 2 weeks before the race to get their spot and the 90% of the course was barricaded. Our plan was to keep our three leaders, Pate, Ryder and Dan, out of the wind and well positioned so when the time came to throw it down they would have saved as much energy as possible, essential in a 240 km race. I spent my day looking after Ryder, keeping him fed and at towards the front of the race and with my legs feeling good, made it through to the last lap and took over the front of the peloton with 6 km to go to lead the boys into the final climb and allow them to be in the front when it went down. From there it was dropped anchor as Dan took control and attacked over the top of the climb to bridge up to the successful break for a solid 5th place on the day. Awesome ride by Dan and the whole team seemed in synch which is a good feeling.

Then everything turned back to the worst of times as we headed home. On the flight from Plouay to Paris Orly we were instructed to put our carry on bags on the trolley to be loaded in the under belly of the plane as we walked out over the tarmac to the plane. Then upon our arrival in Paris we were told that our carry on bags would be sent out to baggage claim and to pick the up off the carousel. With a tight connection and a 35 minute wait for our carry on luggage we nearly missed our connection but in the end I did make it home. Though that is going to be very short trip as we leave on wed for the Vuelta, the first grand tour experience for both Svein and I, should be fun.