Paris-Troyes UCI catageory 1.2

Our day began with a 6:30 departure time from the team house in Oostkamp, Belgium and a 3.5 hour drive to a small town outside of Paris where the race was to start. Upon arrival to the race start and parking lot the calm and collected felling I had in the car steadily started to give way to every WRONG emotion one should have before a race.... anxiousness, nervousness, fear, ect. and this was all later confirmed with some of my Australian teammates. Not to help matters, we were also racing with Jimmy Casper who is a Tour de France stage winner and has multiple other large titles pinned on his resume'.  After a short race prep, our team of six lined up on the left side of the start and waited for the neutral start which our director and others assured us would be extremely aggressive and hectic in efforts to jockey for position.... it was. Riders (including myself) were flying up onto sidewalks, through alleys, and around cars, all while on tiny cobbled town streets. Upon leaving the town the neutral start was stopped at a seemingly random spot on the road and then started again from a dead stop. This dead stop was just as aggressive as a large crit in terms of finding position and after about 5min we started. 

Over the first hour the average speed was 46km/hr and at points the group was ripping at over 60k/hr. This was a very very fast start and for the most part the tempo never really slowed. The end speed was around 43k/hr for a 178k  race (about 104 mi) with some sustained climbs and continuous rolling hills. Basically a 4hr crit. 

My start wasn't exactly in the best position but not really the worst either, but in these races if you are not in the first group of about 40 in the front, your efforts are amplified ten-fold, and this was no exception. Having problems with my rear brake sticking and locking up on turns caused me to rapidly loose placing and soon I was more towards the back than when I had started. Towards the 40k mark I made my first real UCI race mistake. I left the safety of the group for the following caravan for mechanical help. The only reason this was a poor move was because before moving back I failed to notify out team car over the radio, and as a result had to drift all the way to the back of the caravan. Upon finding that there was nothing that could really be done for my brakes, I began to make my way back towards the front of the cars. After getting within roughly two cars of the group again I was told over the radio that one of more experienced riders was coming up behind me and I should wait for him and we should then help each other return to the group. Sounded like a good idea right? Teamwork! Well teamwork doesn't work so well when the caravan begins to accelerate and teammate flies by you at 70k/hr. Not long after this acceleration i was well off of the pace with very little explosive strength left to try and pace back on to any of the cars and was soon off the back. This experience in the caravan taught me alot. Mostly, that whenever you have the chance to actually get back in the group from the cars... take it. Moving in and out of these cars was one of the hardest and scariest experiences I've had on a bike and not knowing what you're doing makes that experience even worse. But the caravan can be used to get advantage and hopefully by the next race I'll have a much better grasp on that concept. 

After my departure from the group, I was joined by an Estonian rider and French rider who had also suffered the same fate as myself. We paced each other up to roughly 70-75k and then were told by the notorious broom wagon to jump in.... we were 15 min behind the lead group. After only about 3-5 min in the van I was a little more relieved to see my three Aussie teammates with a group of about 8 or 9 were off as well. The end of the race didn't include anyone from our team, but we all took away enough experience to fit into an entire season out of this one race.... and we get to do it again this weekend :)