Luck of the Irish

After Savoie and Oetingen I travelled home to Ireland to race my National Road Race Championships. I always love riding the Nationals and spending the weekend in Ireland, but the race itself hasn’t ever been too kind to me! This year I was ready to change my luck… 

I flew into Dublin on Friday the 27th of June and from the airport went straight to Mullingar. I was ready to race and contest the u23 national title. I really fancied my chances of getting a top result this year so I was more excited than ever!

I had great legs, and raced strongly but I misjudged my tactics. I wasn't the only one however! 

A move of 10 went on the first lap, but I didn’t panic. I was keeping my cool in the peleton and just following every move that went after that. Playing the waiting game! I was sure another group would bridge across as Dan Martin, Sam Bennett, Matt Brammeier and Martyn Irvine were all still with me. Only trouble was An Post had 3 riders in the breakaway and proved that strength in numbers and co-operation really pays off.

I didn’t miss anything else. Every other dangerous move that went I was present in. I fully committed to try and get across but it just didn’t happen for me. I rode the remainder of the race in the chase group of about 30 riders to get 20th place and 7th u23. Not the result I’d hoped for but I still showed I was in good shape and did enough to be selected to ride the U23 European Road Race Championships in Nyon, Switzerland on the 13th of July.

The day after Nationals I travelled back to Belgium to prepare for the Europeans. I raced again the next Saturday at Omloop Het Niuewsblad UCI 1.2. The elite version of the early spring classic! It was the perfect preparation race before Switzerland. The morning of Niuewsblad I opened the curtains to shit weather. Rain and wind - just lovely, wet cobbles! From then my mind was in the wrong place. I was more worried about staying safe ahead of Euro’s rather than getting a nice result at Niuewsblad - as Euros was a much bigger goal for me! That’s never a good way to race but on this particular day that was the way it was. Before the season started it was a major goal of mine to ride my first major championship race so I wasn’t going to miss it due to a crash - no way! 

I still raced Het Niuewsblad cleverly and stayed out of trouble until I needed to be in the very front. As the race started in Zottegem - my Belgian home town - I knew the roads like the back of my hand so my local knowledge payed dividends for most of the race. Not knowing the exact race route didn’t help though and my plan to move to the front before we hit Eikenberg didn’t work out as I would have liked. After Eikenberg the race was just relentless - just never ending bergs. Bergs, bergs, bergs! Hard, hard racing! I found myself too far back and missed the front split of 50 or so riders. I rode in the next chase group until we got to the local laps and we were pulled out with a lap to go. I love the classic style races so I'd love to give it another go as I feel I am capable of a good result in such races. I just needed a cement milkshake. My fault that day! 

The Europeans was next on the agenda. Like always, I was extremely happy and proud to be selected to represent my country - now at a major championship. My first major championship! I was super excited and motivated to give it all I had!

I flew into Geneva on Thursday the 10th of July. My trip didn't get off to the best start as easyJet left my bike in Belgium, but thankfully it arrived the following day. Phew! Being at a bike race without a bike - that could have been a disaster! It was great to arrive at the Irish camp in the town of Divonne-les-Bains and get settled in before our campaign kicked off!

The race itself was exactly how I'd imagined it would be. Crazy! The course as well as the weather was mixed. It was a lumpy circuit with some pretty technical sections - a real championship course! 

My race didn't go as planned. From the start it was full on racing and with all the crashes on the opening laps I found myself caught in trouble. 

On the 4th lap of the 12 lap race my rear mech got pulled off in a crash, I thought that was it - race over! Until Kurt came bombing around the corner in the car with a spare bike for me. Yes! I rode the spare bike, which was far too big, for the next 4 laps. It was fine in the beginning but after an hour or so it was really starting to hurt me and give me cramp. I needed my bike back! For the second time I thought my race was over until I saw Kurt was on the side of the road fixing my bike! What a legend!

 I got back on my bike for the last 4 laps but I wasn't the same after that. The cramp never left. So when the finale started to heat up I didn't have the legs or energy to make the front split of 50 or so riders! I finished in the second group on the road for 80th place. Not how I would have liked my first major championship race to go, but I did all I could do in the situation I was in. It was disappointing not to do more for myself or for the team, but I did learn a lot and will definitely take something from it.  

I can't thank the staff at Cycling Ireland enough for their flawless and professional support. Thanks Brian Nugent , Kurt Bogaerts, Neil Martin, Neill Delahaye and Stacey Kelly . It was a really enjoyable weekend!

I travelled back to my base in Belgium the day after Europeans to get settled in and start racing in some kermesses again. I had a big break away from the kermesse scene so it was time to tackle some again and try and pick up some nice results. I had a few days off in which I enjoyed watching my little brothers racing. I then raced in Ingelmunster, Lichtervelde and Sinaai where I was 26th, 21st and 11th respectively. Every one of these I feel I deserved a better end result but I am happy with how my condition is, and how I am involved in the action.

I am now building towards Ronde van Namen (Tour du Namur) from the 6th-10th of August. Until then I will be training and racing hard in hope of some top results! I feel some top results are just around the corner for me, just got to keep playing the lottery...

"Man.. I've never suffered like that before!"

My next big race after the An Post Ras was in France at Tour des Pays de Savoie. A beautifully unique and very hard UCI 2.2 ranked race through the Alps. We travelled as a team to Le Chambre a week before the race began to try and acclimatise and adapt ourselves to the efforts required to race up mountains - a whole lot different to what we are used to here in Belgium. We stayed halfway up Col du Glandon in a little ski lodge for the week before we travelled to the race hotel at Valmenier the day before the race began. 

Over the course of the week we did some epic exploring which ticked a lot of the world famous climbs off the bucket list. Col du Madeleine - check. Col du Glandon - check. Col de la Croix de Fer - Check. Col du Telegraph - check. Col du Galibier - check. Col du Chassy - check. It was nice to have a few days to find a climbing rhythm as well as chilling out together with the team. 

I was very nervous as well as excited building up to the start of the race. It was a whole new experience. Almost a whole different discipline within the sport! I was nervous. I didn’t know how to approach it. “Do I race like I normally do?” ; “Or do I conserve some energy and wait?” ; It even came down to wondering how much I should eat and drink beforehand incase I was carrying extra kilo’s up the mountains - because until now it never made a difference before! As it turns out none of this mattered that much. Everyone just went flat out and the race sorted itself out on the road. 

I have to say I was shitting myself the morning of Stage 1. The reality of what I was about to do really hit me! I knew it was going to be an epic race.
Finally it was time to pin the numbers on and get racing. For some reason I was under the impression that the race would be a little tamer on the flat and the real kick off would happen when we hit the mountains. I was wrong. Stage 1 was carnage!

 The first hour was flat out. Actually the whole of stage 1 was more or less flat out! The first hard climb wasn’t until roughly 60km, but down in Savoie every road is hard. To my surprise the whole race was split to bits before we even hit Aussois Category 3. Little groups kept clipping off the front eventually joining creating a big front group. This left me somewhere between the front and the grupetto - in no mans land! I rode with a group of 15 for most of the stage and at the foot of the final climb up Valmeinier we were swept up by the grupetto. We lost a lot of time to the Russian winner Ignatev. Admittedly, it was what I expected so I couldn’t be disappointed. 

Stage 2 started from Chambery and was arguably the hardest stage on paper with 4 Category 2’s to tackle over 150-odd kilometres. Safe to say it was one of the hardest days on the bike I’ve ever had. Just a complete suffer-fest. It was full-on racing to the first ascent of Col du Fort du Mont as guys were trying to form a break. I started the climb in a really good position which helped a lot over the top of the steep 5km ascent - as the race split to pieces. I just managed to stay in contact with the front of the race over the summit before we started the daredevil descent back to the valley. 

I’ve seen some dangerous descending in races before but never saw anything like this! It was a twisty descent through a forrest so the bad lighting wasn’t helping. Going around some of the blind corners there was bikes laying in the road with no riders to be seen. In front of me there was riders overcooking the corners and going over the barriers into the ravine. Scary, scary stuff! 

I got through it safely but when we hit the 14km climb of Cohennoz I had to start making the calculations and leave the front guys go - I was suffering too much! Again I found myself in a small group of 15 or so in between the front groups and grupetto for the remainder of the stage. We finished at Plateau d’Assy where we had 2 laps of a brutal 10km circuit. 5km of that being uphill and extremely steep! I lost almost 30 minutes to the Spanish winner from Team Ecuador. I was never so happy to cross the line after the longest race I've done (time-wise) 4 hours 45 minutes! I can’t even count on one hand the amount of times I’ve suffered like that before. However our race hotel had amazing food and views that night. It was a consolation - safe to say it was demolished! 

Plateau d'Assy. Beautiful backdrop of Mont Blanc

The third day, on paper, looked like it was going to be the easiest day of the race. We had a 90km road stage in the morning and a 10km TT in the evening. Rest day!? Yeah right! 

In the first hour I followed a few moves to try and get into the breakaway. There was only one climb to worry about and it came halfway through the stage. When we hit the climb there wasn’t any breakaway so the racing was still full on. Not ideal! I underestimated how hard this climb was going to be. I didn’t do my homework properly and suffered for it! I got dropped. From then on it was a very hard stage for me. I was now racing the time cut! With such a short stage you could easily miss the time limit. As the race went on the grupetto was no longer a nicely sized group as stage 2 had a sizeable amount of DNF’s - it was a serious clean out! I was happy to have one of my team mates with me, as well as some Belgians. I ended up making the time limit pretty comfortably. Now for the TT, another visit to suffer city! 

On bottle duty!

The time trial was horrible - as time trials always are! It was made especially horrid after the previous days of racing! After doing a recce of the TT course it was going to be a race against the time limit again. Most guys had their time trial bikes for the downhill-headwind section so I knew I had to ride more or less full gas to make the time limit. Scary thing was, the cut off point was only around 3 minutes. With roughly 6km downhill and 4km uphill it was possible that you could miss out. Luckily for me I made it pretty safely. It hurt more than I would have liked it to, but I made it! 

Going into the last stage I was in a 50/50 mindset as to whether I could make the finish or not. Usually I am very positive but I on this day I was being realistic. It all depended on how the big teams (Katusha & Lotto-Belisol) raced. We had 130km with two 20km Category 1 mountains to take on - the first ascent coming after 40km. The second mountain was to the finish line. Summit finish! All this, and only 70-80 riders left in the race. This only meant one thing - not much of a grupetto! My goal was to get to the finish, so I pushed like never before. 

The stage turned out as I’d hoped. Lotto and Katusha controlled the first 40km on the flat and the first 10km of the first mountain. When I made it over the gravel filled summit I knew I had made it, even with 90km to go. I found myself in a rather large group with a lot of strong riders in it - riders who also wanted to make it to the finish. We then rode together to the and lost roughly 25-30 minutes on the Belgian winner - Louis Vervaeke. Vervaeke is now signed with Lotto-Belisol for 2 and a half years. Absolute weapon! 

What a hard race. I reached a lot of new limits, and was happy to have a great experience of my first race in the mountains. It’s rare as an amateur rider to get the experience of a proper mountainous race. It turned out how I’d expected. I got hammered. I finished 61st on GC with only 66 riders making it to the finish. I’ve never done any bike race like that before. Definitely felt like the longest 4 day race I’ve ever done, and definitely the hardest. I took a lot from it. I learned so much about my body that I never knew before.A few easy days were very welcomed after a long journey back to Belgium on Sunday night. 

Pays de Savoie finished on the Sunday, I then had a few days easy before I raced IWT Jong Maar Moedig/Oetingen UCI 1.2 on Wednesday and the National Championships the following Sunday. It was a complete change of scenery at Oetingen. Going from a French race in the mountains to a one-day Belgian classic style race. Whether or not it was a welcomed change though is still a hard question as it was equally as brutal. On the parcour there were famous bergs such as the Muur van Geraardsbergen and the Bosberg - and with teams such as Topsport-Vlaanderen and Wanty Group-Gobaert the level of racing was high. Perfect preparation for the National Champs.

I recovered quite well between Savoie and Oetingen however, so my legs were pretty good. On all the cobbled sectors, and bergs I found myself in a good position. I always tried my best to follow Sven Nys and when the big splits happened over the Muur I was in the front end of the race. Even coming onto the finishing laps I had good sensations so I thought I was on for a nice result. Then that thought went flat. Literally. I punctured halfway through the longest cobble sector on the finishing circuits. My race was over. By the time my team car reached me and I got a wheel change I found myself minutes behind the front of the race. I was gutted!

At least now I knew that my condition was good leading up to the Nationals Championships. I was ready to go home to contest the u23 title and hope to gain selection for the European Championships... 

Stay tuned for my next blog covering the Nationals, Omloop Het Niuewsblad and the European Championships...

Thanks for reading! E