From stage racing to track.

Again a relatively long break from blogging, but relatively productive block on bike. After the road nationals it was a week until the U6 Cycle Tour in Tidaholm. That period I spent just getting ready to roll from the first to last stage.

The race itself clearly itself provided me with definite highs and lows as well. The highs included prologue, first road stage and especially last road stage. The criterium and second road stage were the lows and the finishing time trial landed somewhere in between being neither good, nor bad ride. In the prologue I was 10^th with a solid but shy overall performance. The road stage was quite nervy, but I managed to get through with no problems. Second road stage was simply terrible. Cold, wet, and even colder – I ended my race shivering at around 115km. The criterium next day went at the beginning from break to break until I had to gasp some air inside the bunch and during that period I locked my brakes and destroyed my rear tyre and was eventually flagged out.The last road stage was good. I was in the first break and rode actively. Some nervy moments inside last five kilometers, however, cost me a chance for real good stage result. In the time trial I gave my all, but the active road stage made a notable difference and I just wasn't hitting the right watts and ended up being 18^th.

After U6 Cycle Tour it was time for a two-week track cycle to complete the nats. In the mean time, my training had made me slower and slower and actually the only idea of the two-week cycle was to get at least some speed to my legs. It worked okay in the end. On Tuesday before I rode a solid kilo in almost perfect conditions. Come Friday and the national kilo champs my time was enough for fourth, meaning that the sprinters had got the better of me– as I expected, but managed to forget at the time. My sincere congratulations go to Juhani for his first jersey. You really deserve it, wear it well buddy!

On Saturday I had two disciplines in my schedule – individual pursuit and match sprint. Individual pursuit to win and match sprint for fun. I qualified fifth in the match sprint in the morning and first in the individual pursuit with a controlled ride, despite my too quick opening. In match sprint I was dropped by my friend Antti and then solely concentrated on the pursuit final and especially starting calmly. The final was good for me, and I even got to enjoy the last three laps of the race. It was my third, but still felt superb. The day on that was getting only better and better when I watched Antti riding like a boss in his first ever proper sprint competition. At the end of the day, he was crowned the champion. Congrats Antti! On the last day we had the team pursuit in the program. We rode it safe and got gold to wrap up the weekend. Then it was time to enjoy the rest of the competition as a spectator.

Good couple of weeks are now bagged and I'm looking forward to the future.

My Sunday on bike.

Waking up at five o'clock on a Sunday morning is not in everyone's mind, I guess. It was in mine, as it was the national road race.I had to, as I had opted to travel to Pori on the two race days from rather than staying there for the whole weekend. Being smart afterwards, I think it was a good choice for many reasons. Firstly, we had time to solve and manage the technical issues with my TT-bike and secondly, it was very much a stress free day and there was no such boredom nor intentions to go to watch others racing on the day between our races. Besides, there was a lot of food in our fridge.

To the race then. Total of 15 laps and 180 odd kilometres on a relatively easy course in sunny weather was ahead of the peloton. On a personal note: that's the longest race ever for me. I had my own targets set for the race and I took it pretty relaxed as the only message from my support (mum and dad) was to have fun, have a good training and stay safe. Actually, I would have wanted to get into some early break, but as it so often happens – I missed it. I was in the top 15 when it went after some three kilometres, but got stuck in the bunch and the it was too late. Gutted I was. Then it settled down for a while until the strong guys started to make their first moves. I managed to follow one and another, but when those both came down I simply had to the bunch to rest for a while as we had still some 140 to go. Somewhere there those guys went again and then we never saw them again in the bunch. Then again, it settled down for a longer time.

Coming to the last hour some guys from the early break had dropped back and apparently one of the teams, V8, wanted to start moving again in the bunch and the intensity picked up again. I felt okay and found myself in the front several times, but never got away. Then, just before the last lap, there were couple lone guys in between the top six and the bunch. I managed to get there for my surprise with some others coming up there a tad later. I feel that I did a fair share with some guys skipping their turn in the front in the, lets call it, middle group and had no legs going to the final sprint. Had I had some legs, I dare to reckon that the result would still be the same with my sprinting abilities, that are actually non-existent.

I was 14^th in the results and happy with that. It actually was a place better than in the time trial. I didn't expect that. I'm pretty happy with my ride yesterday, and I think it is safe to say it was my best road race this far. All in all, my road nationals were okay if not good, when I consider where I was a week or two ago and yes, leave alone the technical problems on Friday.

Now a week until U6 Cycle Tour. Training, resting and eating until that.