VOLTA A LA COMUNITAT VALENCIANA - 2018
I can’t believe the first race of the season is already finished and in one week I’m on to my next. Once the season starts it’s insane how fast time passes by as you are always focussed on the future. Everything you do today is to be better and faster tomorrow.
Here’s how Valenciana went.
Pre race days
We arrived a couple of days earlier to do some TTT specific training. We stayed in a hotel in Oropesa del Mar, a ghost town during the winter months. Hopefully also the last time I have to stay in that one. The food was terrible and everything was dirty. I even had my doubts eating the boiled eggs not knowing how old they were. The fact that none of us got food poisoning is a miracle.
The Monday we did a couple of hours on the TT bikes getting our positions dailed in and smoothing our train. This is always a hard and intense training session. We did 3 x 5km sectors at race speed. It’s easy having a smooth train when you riding relatively easy. It’s at max effort when everything seems to go to shit. That’s why we have to train it.
Our daily routine was basically: Breakfast- Training- Lunch- Massage/Siesta- Dinner- Sleep.
Stage 1
Flattish stage meant for a big bunch sprint. It was. I followed a couple of early moves to see if I can slip up the road. 9 of us eventually got a bit of a gap, but that was too big of a break for the sprint teams so they shut us down. 4 guys went up the road which made it an easy break to control. The stage was relatively easy and stress free until the finale. 7km to go we turned off a big national road. This was a crucial point to be in good position as from there on everything was strung out and in one line. Lots of corners and guys crashing every couple of hundred meters. I did my effort to position the guys at the 7km to go drop-off point. It was a messy finale.
Stage 2
On paper this looked like a tough stage. The first 30km dragged all the way up to the first KOM which meant for a hard start. The break took a couple of kilometres to go. It was important to ride in a good position all day to not have the ‘elastic band’ effect. On every downhill the peloton stretches in to a single line. I guess 160 riders in single file is more than 500m from first rider to last!? So as the downhill ends the guys at the back have to ‘catchup’ again. This is energy draining. Everybody knows this so everybody wants to ride near the front. This picks up the speed as we all trying to be at the front at the same time.
Our job was to position Merhawi in a good position at km 114. This was when the last steep climb started. From the top it was all downhill to the finish. Bernie, as always, did an incredible job and dropped Merhawi in the perfect position. He went on to finish 6th and claim the White jersey.
I dragged my arse up the climb. With ramps up to 20% this was never going to be a day where I can make an impact.
Stage 3
Woke up to pouring rain and wind. It rained so hard that some sections of the parcour flooded. We couldn’t do a route recon in this weather so we all did a short spin on the indoor trainer to loosen the legs. Most of us already rode the TTT parcour during our Calpe camp anyway.
Finally, they neutralized the stage. A difficult disicion to make. Some are happy, some not. It’s impossible to please everybody. The first teams raced on wet roads while the last teams had dry conditions.
We had no reason to take any risks as we knew we won’t podium. Thus, we got through safely and conserved our energy for the next stage where we had a better chance.
Stage 4
With Merhawi still right up there on GC our goal was to protect him all day so that he can let loose on the final climb. The race split about 60km to go. We entered a narrow climb on some icy roads followed by a technical descent. That lead us to the cat 3 climb we had to do twice before the final ascent. Merhawi, Igor and I made the front group. I tried to keep Merhawi out of trouble as long as possible. Astana went full gas the second time up the cat 3. That’s where I got dropped and found a group to ride to the finish. The final climb was again very steep. I was on my spare bike as I had a mechanical earlier the stage. With ‘just’ a 28 gear and not the 32 it was quite a struggle to get to the top.
Stage 5
Final stage. Wet and windy yet again. We started in Paterna just outside of Valencia. We must have gone through 1000 roundabouts during the stage. Wet roads + wind + roundabouts = a nervous peloton. We were strung out most of the day. The sprint teams weren’t happy with the break composition so they kept them at less than a minute all day. The race split again going over the cat 2 climb 30km to go. From there it was mostly downhill on wide roads all the way to the finish. Again, the role was to make sure Merhawi keeps his GC position and if possible move up if there are splits in the finale.
In general I’m happy with how the first race went. It’s always hard to judge how it went compared to the previous edition if you had some sort of success before. I wore the KOM jersey for a couple of days last year. This year, no trip to the podium, so automatically it feels less of a success. But, if I look back and see how I could contribute to the team’s performance then 2018 is already better than 2017.
Next up- Algarve.
