MTB Tour de France day 3

Today's stage took place in a little village called Mortagne sur Sevre
in the Vendee region. Having had little sleep the night before due to
a stinking cold I wasn't really up for the race at all. We arrived at
the race in good time, had lunch at what seemed like a truck stop
cafe, then headed to the venue to pre-ride the course and buy some
anti-cold tablets. Having been caught out by a couple of sections
ridden at race pace in stage 1, I was keen to practice the course more
before this race. After swapping the slick Furious Fred tyres Luke
and I had been using for stages 1 and 2 to more grippy and Racing
Ralphs we set off on the practice lap. The course went up a steep
path pretty much from the start, then through the town and,
unsurprisingly, down some steps. These were the longest and steepest
steps we had ridden so far. Thankfully, there was a smooth line to
the left and right hand sides of the steps down a concrete rainwater
channel, so it was a simple matter of weight back and control the
speed. After the steps, the course headed along the Sevre river, over
a bridge and into the woods. The trails on this section were
brilliant - a few sections were too steep to ride and so running made
an unwelcome return. One section in particular was even hard to carry
the bike up as the rocks were so large and jagged. The flat and
downhill sections in the woods more than made up for the running
though - they were much like a trail centre in feel, just with steeper
hairpins and steeper climbs. Eventually you came out of the woods,
crossed back over the river using a concrete dam which was covered in
moss, very slippery and had no edges to stop you ending up in the
river! After a final climbs which started out as a clamber over rocks
and ended with a good ridable section, the course headed back into the
start arena via a couple of drops and climbs over steps.

The race, which was at 6pm, started badly for Luke and myself as we
were boxed in behind someone who didn't seem to notice the race had
started. When we'd negotiated our way around him, we found ourselves
riding with the leading women for a bit. We kept attacking and trying
to bridge the gap between us and the group ahead. Unfortunately, my
chain came off on one of the runs up some steps, so I dropped back a
lot of places while I unjammed it and got back on. Luke was long gone
by this point. I was so cross as by now we were making good progress
through the field. It took me 2 laps to catch Luke again, then we
rode round together for the next 2 laps. On lap 5, I managed to drop
Luke on the final hill. All the while we were passing people who had
gone off too hard and blown - it was a tough course. At the end of
lap 5, I caught Billy who was just riding round as he didn't feel so
good today. We rode together until the leaders came past to lap us -
then Billy tore off after them leaving me to ride the last 1/2 lap
alone. His change of speed was most impressive! At the finish, Frank
said that Lee was having a great race - he was the only one of us not
to get lapped and so the only one to ride all 7 laps (we did 6). Lee
was really pleased with his ride today - even if the spectators lining
the course thought he was Italian (it's the jersey....).

Stage 3 really was a brilliant race - it was nice to finally get some
proper MTB trails to race on. Having so many people cheer you on all
the way round the lap was awesome. Now we have a rest day before 3 XC
races in a row on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

GB