Romsee - Stavelot - Romsee, heart of the ardennes, taking in all the major climbs. 4-5km long, 8 catogorized climbs plus the rest. Hilliest race i'll do all year.
I had good legs on Sunday but was uncertain how my climbing legs were. Well that was answered pretty quick when after 5km on the first climb a big group jumped away, I rode across pretty easy, I thought there was another group off the front so proceeded to ride away with 2 guys on my wheel to chase the front.. IF someone had only told me we were the front. I figured pretty qucikly anyway after we were shown the first time check of 20sec on the chalk board the motorbike carries. Not wanting to be up there I preceeded to soft pedal my turns hoping the catch would come soon, 8km later we were back in the bunch. I believed I would be able to follow over the climbs so I was happy to hold back and go with the natural selection which happened 55km into the race. On the pretty exposed climb the cross wind hit and 20 of us split off the front, I was sitting pretty 5th wheel behind the beveren led peloton. There were still 10 guys up the road by 40 seconds.
Off the decent and onto the next set of climbs it proceeded to split. I was pretty safe, It kept like this until the finishing circuits, 3x10km.
I was still strong, I may have been paying too much attention to the rider who won on Sunday. He goes good and was a good wheel to follow, obviously hes strong, but in the process let a couple of his beveren team mates slip ahead with 3 other guys.
Situation coming into the last lap was 5 guys in front with 30 seconds, me with a group of 7 chasers, then a group of 4 with sundays winner and 2 of his team mates.
We were looking pretty good racing for 6th, I wasn't backing my sprint but it would suit me more than other finishes would being up hill for the last 2km. with 5km to go there was some cat and mouse going on, I saw the group of 4 coming across but didn't want them to catch so tried to attack out of the group. I got a nice gap, just holding at 10-15seconds. At 1km to go the group of 4 caught us, at 200metres to go I was passed by the group, I was pretty well spent. I lost 7 seconds to the group in the last 200metres and settled for 15th place.
I was happy as only 29 finished the whole course. I had a goal of a top 20 and I achieved it, I was strong and followed a lot of attacks, I am happy with my progress and can only keep building on it. Staying injury free is a good thing too!
My director was super happy and like l'oise finished best from my team. Was good that my team mate also took the mountains prize for the day!
Next up for me will be some low key races until the second half of the season kicks off. Normally I would take a bit of a break, but I had a month off when I compressed the 2 vertabrae early this year so my plan is to go right through till southland. Hopefully arriving there with good form and not too tired.
The tour of luxembourg has been cancelled due to lack of money so bit bummed but life goes on.
Hope everyone is well.
Ryan
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