Paris-Nice
Lining up in my second ever WorldTour race,
I was thrilled for the opportunity and eager to race against the world’s best.
The ‘Race to the Sun’ is traditionally
known to experience miserable weather on route to Nice where conditions later
improve. The first day proved that to be true with filthy weather conditions
making it a tough day on the bike.
After 30mins I was starting to feel cold,
wet and after a couple of hours I couldn’t feel my legs, they were just numb
and it was a challenge to put down the power.
The finish was tough and the last 800m was
slightly uphill and on cobbles. Delio had a good ride for 18th and I
finished safely a few mins back and quickly took a warm shower. Bienvenue to Paris-Nice.
Day 2 saw the longest stage of the Tour and
also the slowest. In unusual circumstances, the peloton cruised the first 90km with
no one wanting to take the lead or make an escape due to the wind direction,
which was a head-wind for most of the 210km stage.
I spent my time making conversation with
many riders in the bunch including Australian’s Simon Gerrans, Alex Edmonson
and Mitch Docker and my former teammate Tom Scully.
One thing is for sure and that is, in WorldTour
races, when they go, they go!!! Sprinters teams got organised and before I knew
it we were flying along at 60km/hr with 30km to go, a crazy peloton charging to
the finish.
It was messy, banging bars at high speeds,
chops left, right, sharp braking, it was a real French sprint that’s for sure!
I was well supported by the team, with Kasper
and Evaldas my last two men doing a great job. Kasper unfortunately got held up
in a crash and I missed him in the finale but Evaldas did superb work to get me
near the front with 5km to go. I looked right, there is Dylan Groenewegen,
looked left and it’s Arnaud Démare, and in front of me was André Greipel. I
didn’t have time to be star struck but I was in good company.
What let me down was not boxing on hard
enough to limit my losses in positioning in the final 2km’s, being swamped by
more riders and their teams taking dive-bombs into the final roundabouts and
corners.
I was too far back and not in contention
but sprinted to 16th place. Lessons learned and positives to take
away from my post-race analysis.
For sure, there is pressure to perform, to
win, to get a result, but that’s racing and I don’t feel like the pressure gets
to me. If you could perfect every sprint it would be like winning the lottery
whenever you wanted - you’d be living the dream but that’s not possible in
reality.
I do know, that through perseverance and
hard work, I will eventually get the rewards I am working hard for.
Mostly, I just want to get the next result
for my team and supporters who put so much effort into supporting me. I can’t
explain how lucky I am to have a team with so much belief and faith in me and I
just want to finish it off for them.
Riding for a Pro-Continental team, you
don’t get much respect from the WT teams so you need to fight even more for
positioning and hold your own. It’s hard for sure, but that’s racing.
The best result of the week came on Stage 3 with my teammate Remy taking third place on the stage. He was in a late breakaway which went clear after the final climb and tried numerous times in the finale to go solo. He is an experienced rider and a good teammate, I was pleased to see him get a nice result for himself and the team.
The best result of the week came on Stage 3 with my teammate Remy taking third place on the stage. He was in a late breakaway which went clear after the final climb and tried numerous times in the finale to go solo. He is an experienced rider and a good teammate, I was pleased to see him get a nice result for himself and the team.
Stage 5 was a good one for me in terms of
riding well over the terrain and surviving to the finish in the main group. I
didn’t get a good run in the sprint as I lost all my speed from a chain
reaction in the bunch from a crash.
My legs were good, ready to make a sprint
and I was calm. I could have got to the front earlier, maybe looking back it
could have helped but then again I could have also been involved in that crash!
You can watch a race and tell someone what they should do, however it’s not always
the right thing to do or possible at the time but it’s also important to take
feedback and keep perfecting race craft.
I abandoned the race on the penultimate day
which was another cold and wet stage. I made sure I helped Remy and our
climbers out in the first half of the race and after about 90kilometres I found
myself at the back alongside a few others including Dan Martin who were all stopping
at the same feedzone.
Into a warm car, to stay healthy and start
my recovery before a block of Belgium racing that starts Wednesday.
great work Brenton - keep up the effort - Norm McLennan
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