Season memories – Chapter I

At the moment of writing this up, I am sitting at 10k of altitude, on the seat of row 19 on my way Arlanda and quick run through the airport for another flight back to Helsinki. As some of my friends already know, I'm just trying to grasp the moment, as only this morning I handed in the hard copy of my Master's thesis. The piece of work that has eventually taken over of pretty much going on.

So that is has been the purpose since the last blog really. And now it is time to get to new challenges – in terms of riding and professional development. It all looks good and motivating at this point. Before going to detail on those things (which are still to be confirmed, admittedly), I thought that I'll go through a bit of racing over the spring and summer, which I regrettably have to split into two or even three bits of babble as I realize my lazyness and at times, conscious decision not to write anything. Any way here we go....

So, the last races for my period in UK were the BUCS track, which I honestly were a series of comical incident more or less. Although, it is only pretty recently that I've been able really see it that way. I admit being pretty frustrated with all that, hence no photos. In short, three start and three unlucky incident that could and should have been avoided. The most irritating was that I had no control over any of those.

Moments before misery.

Then I came to Finland, and was desperate to score some good results and did an awful time trial in Mustio, which also happened to be the longest in Finland. So be my guest and, double the misery. Then I carried on to a stage race, which was even more hideous from my part. Catastrophic prologue, technical mishap and a missed split during next days stage. Not the easiest of spring, and it goes without saying that I really was not really happy at that point. However, as far as it went, I decided to well, rest for a day and train more with a minute change to the regime. A minute, maybe not quite. I just left the intense stuff for a while and did some steady rides, which made miracles – at least sort of.

Bianchi Cup / Kuusijärvi

During a stage at Hikiä.

The main classic of Finnish summer is Porvoon ajot. A lengthy race on an undulating course. Nevertheless, it was a kind of turning point to my season. I felt strong and rode actively all race long and despite not getting a result, I was all too happy to bounce back only with 23^rd place. Most importantly, though, I gained a fair bit of confidence back four weeks before the main event of my summer. It was a trip, which really, really deserves its own chapter.

End of Chapter I.