An easter weekend in Scotland

Phew thats over!

Got back last night from my weekend in Scotland where I was riding the Girvan premier calender stage race.

With wintry conditions hitting the country, the race was affected by a change of course for the last day with snow sitting on the top of the highest roads. However all things being considered , the race got pretty lucky with the weather with it staying cold but clear all weekend. The sigma team were struck down by a bug which meant that from 7 starters only myself, Mike and Alex finished.

In the racing I was caught out on the first 3 stages by splits in the peleton by positioning myself too close to the back, but managed to get something positive from the weekend on the last stage.

I had climbed the last major climb on the first stage with the front group (of around 20) so still didn't feel I was going badly, but got caught out when the field split in crosswinds in the last few miles of the stage, and lost 30s to the stage winner.

2nd stage was a crit, and again I got caught out again by a split in the peleton on a pretty technical course. I ended up riding into the wind for most of the 40 minute stage trying to limit my losses and keep myself in contention for a possible GC position, tiring!

3rd stage was the longest @ about 90 miles, with half distance covered the race split on a slightly downhill section. I was only a few riders back when it split but couldn't get across the gap which was initially about 200m, the speed at this point in the race averaged 50 km/h for 4 minutes with just about all the main contenders and their teams up in the front and riding hard. The next two hours were spent crawling towards girvan across the moors into a headwind, just sat in and ate and recovered and felt miserable knowing that any position on the general would be gone now.

On the 4th and final stage managed my best result with a 7th place on the stage. I'd climbed the main climb starting about 40th place and reaching the front group of 12 by the top after making my way through quite a few riders heading backwards rapidly particularly on the steeper early sections.

I then had a go at breaking away trying to follow Tom Southam (Halfords) another non GC threat had a go with 20 miles to go. My legs were already starting to slow at this point, and when Kristian House who was only a minute down on GC came across I knew I had to try and save my legs to get over the last climb of the day. Up this final climb Oliphant (PCA) absolutely ripped it up, bringing only himself and the yellow jersey (Russ Downing) across to the front group. On the run as I wasn't being marked I tried jumping away a few times however ended up missing the four man stage winning move. Did manage to get away in a two man break chasing group but blew up with 2 miles to go and crawled to the line getting half swamped by the big hitters as they wound it up for the sprint. Did get myself in their sprint photo through so a bit more publicity :)

Good experience, but a bit of an eye opener about what I need to work on to compete with the top guys, particularly in terms of tactics and positioning in the pack. Hopefully will come out of it a bit stronger. Racing the tour of the reservoir next weekend so will need to recover quickly.