Lamballe - Cyclo Sporfit - 12^th June 2010

Lamballe is about an hour's drive north of us in Guilliers. I was collected in the Club car at 06:30hrs after setting the alarm for 05:30! Eugh! There were four of us from the club all entered in the same race.

The race started at 08:45 hrs and there were over 1100 riders spread out over 4 different distances. The elite group covered 156kms, my race was 118kms (about 73 miles), and there were two other shorter races for the less serious cyclists. The races were over a single circuit and followed more-or-less the same route, with additional loops depending upon the distance covered.

The weather was perfect for cycling, light winds, light cloud, dry and cool. I worked my socks off for the first 20 miles to stay with the big peloton (about 200 of us - very claustrophobic and technically tricky), and rode at an average speed of 22.5mph (really fast for me). The peloton was really motoring at this stage and I was keeping out of trouble in the middle. Then the hills started.

There were quite stiff hills for the next 20 miles or so, and the peloton disintegrated; I found myself alone climbing, climbing.

At the 30-mile point, my legs felt really tired and I wondered whether I was strong enough to finish at all. Then I remembered my lunch (a fruit cereal bar - my favourite), and felt better after eating it. I started to work harder but was soon swept up by a group of about 20; I dug deep and managed to stay with them. We started working together by taking turns in front and began sweeping up other cyclists along the way. Then the route flattened out, but we turned back into the wind.

Surprisingly, I started to feel quite strong at the 50 mile mark and took many at turn at the front of our group. At one stage I found myself at the front working hard for a couple of hundred yards and looked around and was gobsmacked to find that I had actually dropped the group and was on my own. I wondered whether I should wait for them, but thought "What the fu*k" and put the hammer down for a mile or so and eventually caught up with another smaller group and we stuck together, sweeping up cyclists from the shorter races all the way to the finish. We worked hard with little burst of speed all the way home.

The course was gently undulating at this stage so I could maintain quite a good pace - along with the other riders in the group.

Then we saw a '5kms to go' sign and the hammer was really put down with little sprints and attacks. The group was about 15-strong at this stage and I honestly thought it felt like a stage of the Tour de France, with proper racing along the road into the finish. I made an attack with about 1 mile to go, but was caught before the finish when there was a left turn at a mini-roundabout 300m from the finish line - I need to work on my bike-handling skills. But I finished strongly - we were travelling at about 35mph for the last couple of miles - exhilarating!

At the and of the day, although I certainly was not competitive overall, I am definitely stronger and faster than I was in April. I felt much better at the end considering I was 'in the mix' as it were. After the race we had a great meal which was included in the ticket price. It was a very professional organisation and a lovely event overall.

Name	Time	Race Position	Percentile	Comments
Yves Oger	3:16:26	28th	14%	One of the Club’s strong men, late 30’s and big.
Kerry Donovan	3:43:34	128th	63%	Me – a rank beginner
Mickael Crete	3:51:23	147th	73%	The Club President – mid-40’s a thoroughly nice chap – accepted a great deal of ‘ribbing’ from us all about finishing behind the novice Irishman
Daniel Dunot	3:58:36	152nd	75%	Good climber – 58 – suffered from cramp half way around the course. Says he’ll get his own back next week at the much hillier St Brieuc Sportif. We’ll see!