IOM and Junior Peace Race

After the stage race in Belgium we travelled to Isle of Man with the Scottish team for the Isle of Man Junior tour. It was a three day stage race with a TT and two road races. We got there Thursday night after a long ferry journey which was made even longer due to the necessity of study; ahhwell had to get it done. First stage was a short 1km TT along the promenade on Friday night, it went as well as I could hope and I finished in 17th place 8 seconds of the winner, although lots of people were on similar times due to the short length. Then we got lots of munch and went to bed ready for Saturdays race. Race start at 9 meant an early start and soon enough it was underway, it was a windy day and the bunch soon started to diminish, as it was a British race the main difference to Belgium is that the racing was much more negative and nobody wanted to commit to the racing and bring breaks back, so as soon as I realised this the only chance was to try and get up the road. It was a hilly course and with two breaks of 5 up the road I finally got away on a climb with two others and we started working together to get a gap over the bunch and that’s how it ended up finishing, I crossed the line in 12th place which put me in 12th overall. Now the final day of the stage race and it was much flatter course and with two lads attacking from the flag the bunch just stayed together and rode round with no one willing to chase. In the final 3km it was evidently going to be bunch sprint and the bunch was getting nervous with people trying to fit through gaps that didn’t exist. Then soon enough in front of me a Dutch boy crashed and I went straight into it and ended up rolling around on the road. It wasn’t the most pleasant experience and ended up sitting on the road for a while with road burns etc, never good. As it was inside the last three kilometres I was awarded the same time as the bunch which ended up putting me in 14th place. Although I now had another problem as I had broke my Boardman frame and shifters, some broken spokes and a helmet in pieces, and I was due to travel to Czech Republic in two days for my next stage race. So I spent the whole Monday in the local bike shop, Bspoke Cycles fixing up my old trek that I have used in previous years so that I could race that instead. Then on the Tuesday morning I got on my flight to Czech to compete in the junior peace race which was a nation’s cup event with British Cycling. I managed to get selected for this race was because it was going to be rather hilly and with me being skinny it should work in my favour. It was going to be hard though as it was a 6 day stage race over 5 days. As it was a nations cup this meant we would be racing in GB kit which is always good, as we arrived in Prague it was 2 degrees and there had been some snow, not so good that! Although the town we were staying in was an hour north and we arrived to find out that the accommodation we were supposed to be staying in had no one there which meant a nice hotel upgrade for us to a fancy place. Anyway the first stage started in the local town and there was about 120 folk racing from many different countries in the world. The first stage started well but I had to spend a bit of time getting used to the change in bike and hoping my legs would come round as they were still suffering a bit from the isle o man. The course was supposedly the flat stage which still had plenty of climbs, in the end though it was going to be a bunch sprint and a technical finish meant there ended up being crashes, cobbles and some roundabout jumping, crazzyyyy! Finished the stage in 33rd on the same time though. The second stage had some real long climbs that lasted about 30min and that soon split the race to pieces, and the descents were just as scary with a lot of people taking some crazy lines that soon ended up with them off the road... I managed to get myself in the front group of 22 and we built up a lead of over a minute to the chasers and that’s how it finished, I finished in 20th place towards the back of the group, this put me 13th in GC. There was also a crash in our group sprint and the picture below shows the damage...

The next day was a split day with a TT in the morning and a road race in the afternoon. The TT was 12km with some small hills but mainly flat. It went as well as I could expect and I ended up finishing in 55th place losing just over a min to the leader. This moved me to 24th in the GC.  The afternoon’s road race stage was relatively flat with some drags to spread the field out. The first couple of laps had a lot of crashes due to the poor road conditions and with potholes you could see china in, but after the first few laps everybody worked out how to avoid them and it became a bit safer. My legs were beginning to suffer so I spent most of this stage surviving in the bunch and finished in 66th place in the bunch sprint on the same time. The next day was one of the main stages of the whole stage race as it was the longest at 80miles and also the hilliest! The first climb we arrived was straight up and at the top it was split into small groups which formed into a group of about 30 people, throughout the rest of the stage the group gradually got smaller as the hills got harder, one of the main climbs was next to a bobsleigh run and was steeper than 25%. The stage was an uphill finish to a ski station in Germany and by the time we got there, there were no real groups left as everybody was spread out up the climb, I ended up finishing in 12th place about a min down on the stage winner who had been a sol break. This also moved me up to 17th in GC. Going into the final day it was still hilly but with the main day being the stage before people were rather tired, the stage started and finished in a death camp which was a new experience and a bit weird. The stage turned out to be a day of suffering for me as there was nothing left in the legs and I just hung on to the bunch until the finish and ended up finishing in 42nd place in the bunch sprint. This meant that I finished the overall stage race in 16th place which I was quite pleased about. Next up is two world cup rounds on my MTB being held at Dalby Forest Yorkshire and Offenburg Germany.
Thanks for reading
Grant