Monmouth Junior National:
Felt great in this race. Loads of attacks early on in the race which were unsuccessful however I eventually managed to get away with 3 other riders. We stayed away for around 20 miles achieving a gap of about two minutes. Unfortunately the break fizzeled out as we hit the climbs and the peloton gained on us. Having spent so much energy I spent the rest of the race in the peloton which finished on the final climb with a sprint to the top where I finished towards midway in the by now very depleted bunch.
Tour of Basque Country:
I was looking forward to the Basque Country in which I did had a very strong result last year however had not anticipated that very high temperatures combined with high humidity would affect me so much this time. I was feeling strong going into the tour and made sure that I was taking on copious amounts of water however the humidity was simply too much to have anything left when it kicked off on the big climbs. I spent the tour looking for an individual stage result but unfortunately the climate got the better of me this time. The best result was to get 23rd position from 180 riders on the mountain time trial which I was reasonably happy about.
Bath Road Race Junior National:
I had planned to sit in and wait for the usual attacks but when I saw one of the race favourites attack early in I decided to bridge across and join the break. Despite it being so early in the race breaks like that have won before and we got 8 riders away with the break. Unfortunately one major team was missing in the break and they drilled it to bring us back. In spent the rest of the race focusing on staying at the front of the peloton. Most of the big names were around me and another small break got away which I thought would be brought back. Unfortunately not. I had to be content with fighting for position and a minor place on the final sprint.
Assen Junior Tour:
At the time of posting this I’m halfway though Assen Junior Tour in the Netherlands. I’ll include a full write up on it in next months blog post. The tour is currently going well finishing 12th in yesterday’s stage and 16th today out of 114 starters, however I think I’m capable of stronger results in the coming days.