Le Tour Feminin en Limousin had been billed as being hillier than Bretagne and this was certainly the case!
The Tour de Bretagne was a massive learning curve and one of the main things for me was positioning. Positioning is key!! Getting yourself in a good position in the peloton is one thing, staying there is another!! You can't switch off for even a second or you'll have drifted back 4 or 5 wheels. So going into Limousin, positioning was one thing I wanted to focus on.
Stage 1 started off steady, but the narrow roads made moving up the bunch quite tricky. It was a case of see a space and put the power down to get into it before someone else beat you to it. Around 6 or 7 km from the second QOM prime, I managed to get right onto the front, joined shortly after by Mel. This proved to be good timing as not long after came the customary ramp up in speed by the contenders for the mountain points. Being up the front allows you the safety net of drifting back a wee bit without being right off the back, but it's actually much easier as you kind of get sucked along surrounded by other riders. The fast descent that followed had the peloton strung out, with a few riders involved in a crash on a small bridge at the bottom of the next climb. I had to dig deep to stay on the wheel going up the climb and the small group of us chased back through the convoy to rejoin the main bunch.
Not long into the finishing circuit, where we were to do 5 laps, a small group of us were again distanced from the main bunch. The pace was pretty fast as we chased to get back on the main bunch and I was having to go some to stay with them at times. As we crossed the start/finish with 3 laps to go, around the 90km mark I think, I lost the wheel and later heard from Stew that it was like it was in slow motion. Stew pulled alongside me at this point and said to chase so I put the hammer down and gave it everything I could to get back to the group. After several "almost but not quite" attempts I had to resign myself to the fact that I was off the back. Stew pulled alongside me again and (although it took a few tellings) I followed his advice to sit up and wait for the group behind to catch me. This was something I found mentally quite hard to do, as I was extremely frustrated at having lost the wheel. The remaining laps were a much more comfortable speed and seeing the 1km to go marker was such a relief!
The next few hours were spent doing some self-reflection (code for beating myself up, but not literally!!). However after some good chats with Peter, Stew and my team mates, I was feeling much more positive and focused on the next day's stage, the individual TT. More on the other stages in my next post...
Cheers!
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