Tour of Brittanie - 17-20th June - France-  Final GC 26th

         My first race with my new team ESGL-Gestion was the Tour of Brittanie 4 day stage race in France.   A full field of around 125 girls from across the globe set the pace for the 4 days of racing. The first stage went well for us with 4 of us finishing in the main peleton,  it was just a case of finding our legs after a few weeks of rest.  
         I was involved in a crash on stage 2 which was only 2k from the finish so I got the same time as the front bunch and thankfully my LOOK 585 was not damaged just a few scratches on me and just a bit of road rash!   The next few stages were very fast with the American national team setting the pace whilst defending their GC contenders. Jo, Christine and I finished in the first group but were not very organised in the sprint which saw us finishing in the top 30.    

British rider Emma Pooley took over the Yellow Jersey on stage 3 which she was sure to keep as the final stage was a 9k Individual Time Trial followed by a 80k road race in the afternoon. 

 Stage 5 in the afternoon was hard especially on the finishing circuit which climbed up for about 1k to the finish and continued to drag up until it dropped down a fast descent towards the finishing climb.  3 of our team finished up in the first group just losing a bit of time on the sprint lap were the final sprint split the group.    British rider Emma Pooley finished in 1st place with Christine (ESGL) 13th overall and me 26th a great ride for the Brits in Brittanie.
 
 

                                             Back to Diary index