How much bad luck can you pack into 3 days!?
Giro del Mon – not in Italy but in Shrewsbury – 3 day stage race 26th to 28th June
Starters: 80 riders
Course: 5 stages; 2 Time Trials; a race around RAF base; finishing with a brutal hilly 70 mile road.
We had two teams, a format we needed for the Team Trial stage. I was in the TBW Bottecchia team but we had also entered a team under the name of Wigmore CC.
Shrewsbury..didn’t really know where that was other than it was a long way away.
The team had elected to go for different options on accommodation – I was in the Airbnb option which ended up being in a small cottage in the middle of nowhere with no wifi, no view due to the mist/fog (owner did say ‘it’s such a shame because the view is so beautiful’. Not sure I ever buy these comments but over the 3 days I never saw it so maybe another time!) and the small matter of accommodation being for 3 and we packed 6 into it. Ooops and ouch!
My Mum was able to take me up and drop me off. 5 hours. Sorry Mum!
Stage 1 was a short, but uphill team time trial. What a brutal event it was compounded by problems we all had. Teams of 4, third rider’s time counted. Fabian had the misfortune of a rubbing brake and having to pull up and Daniel suffered muscle cramps. We ended up almost at the bottom of the GC with a lot to do over the next four stages. Really disappointing after riding for such a short time -it had to be put behind but it did play on mind a lot. The Wigmore team did ok on the stage but the TBW were sitting second from last.
Stage 2 was in the afternoon and a lumpy road race. Bad luck was with us and me again. At the start, in preparation I did one last check of the bike including tightening the stem – what do I end up doing ? rounding off the bolts – aahh! minutes to go. Fortunately for me I benefitted from Daniel not racing from his illness so his bike could be used for spares. Rapid change of stems with great and calm assistance from Michael Hall and I was ready to race. It was a tight, bunched race and we tried to get in some of the moves and start some others but with little impact. Meanwhile James Mckay had problems with neutral service which he was unable to recover from…and even when we finished Gabriel crashed after crossing the finish line from a careless rider. When was this bad luck going to abate? Let’s forget Day 1.
Day 2……………..Stage 3 was an individual short TT, finally something that should go my way. I enjoyed it and got 17th of 80 riders which in such an elite field I was happy with. I got 06:39 (MM:SS). The team did ok spread out between 7:00 and 8:30 (MM:SS). Gabriel managed to get lost on the course costing him about 30 seconds – that bad luck was still hanging around.
Stage 4, in the afternoon was flat fast kermes around Shrewsbury RAF Base. Racing up and down the airport runway and taxi routes. It was fast and wide with the main aim not to lose any time on a very wind exposed course - the main field was split to pieces with at times riders all over the wide runway – all a bit odd really. A small group did get way to gain about 20 seconds on the bunch in the end. Oh yeah, remember the bad luck bit…………Gabriel had a puncture and Rob managed to crash over a safety cone!
The final day………….Stage 5 was to be the day of complete reckoning with 4 laps of a brutally steep 10 min climb which saw me get down to about 60 rpm in my lowest gear and saw others walk up it just to complete the day! James McKay’s gears stopped working about 1 hour before the start of the race and was forced to retired before the start of the race. I tried to maintain my place in the race, but would get distanced on the climb before chasing back on repeatedly. The race finished in groups of 3s and 4s in a complete mess. I rolled in for around 24th on the day. From the 6 who started stage 5 from Bottecchia and Wigmore combined, only Gabriel and myself finished!
What a long (long!) weekend that was. An absolutely brutal race without much luck for the team.
We will all come back and have much better days and races in our racing days.
I am holding on to being 24th in GC overall which is better than nothing. I also finished 11th of the U23s, another thing I’ve decided to hold on to!