The Italian World Cup Race was the final round of the UCI World Cup. The course was steep, hard and fast that involved some solid short climbs mixed with some neat wee downhills that kept you on your toes and eyes wide open.
During the week I had a serious problem to sort with my bike. I had a cracked frame on my hands, this was also the case in the Czech WC race last weekend which I found out the day before. With the help of dad back home he was able to communicate to the Trek Reps and with the expertise and professional business that Trek represents I had a frame couriered to me over night! I can’t thank the Trek Family and everyone involved enough as this weekend’s race was going to be good – no dodgy frame on the back of my mind.
During practice the days were very hot! But luckily our race was at 9am so while the sun was out shining it certainly wasn’t as bad as what the Elites had to deal with in the afternoon..
My race went pretty well – I was pleased with how I rode especially after a chaotic first lap! There were about three sections where I had to get off my bike (along with many others) as all it takes is one muppet to make a mistake and the rest of the field pays the price while the riders in front simply ride ahead! So while I would have lost over a minute just like that on the first lap with all the bottlenecking once this was over I started to make some solid momentum. The first main climb up the open grass was one of the sections I rode very strong. Most riders’ small ringed it up here but I smacked it up in the big ring and passed a lot of riders and was improving my position.
The race was a 5 lap race and on my second to last lap the legs were starting to feel it after I had been attacking most of the race. I knew the last lap was going to be a bit of a “well here we go!” but after a couple of climbs and some sketchy down hills with the concentrations levels dropping, I was back over the line with very little left in the tank. I finished 61st out of roughly 100 riders.
After last weekend performance I am very proud of the way I rode, as mentally I was positive the whole race and remembered a couple of quotes and words “pain is temporary, winning is forever!” and “attack attack attack!”. For myself today I won my own race and the biggest thing was overcoming the lows of racing such as last weekend but as for today it was a huge turnaround physically but mostly mentally. With just under 2 weeks of training left till World Champs in Champery I am looking forward to a solid result and will be aiming for a top 50 as a first year under 23 of 4 years.
Big thanks to Mum and Dad back home and to the Trek family for getting me a new frame in no time. Also to Mark Wallace-Bell for the mental side of things and to my coach for a bit of a motivation kick also! Thanks to all my support back in NZ also – the motivating emails and messages really do help!
As for me now, time to knuckle down into my last couple of weeks of training, I have a Swiss Bike Trophy race on Thursday night on a street course and after that am off to World Champs. Time for me to keep on attacking!
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