In a bid to try and improve my UCI ranking and my start position at the World Cups I thought I’d head along to an HC French Cup round 3hrs away from Morzine in Lons-le-Saunier. I realised that in all my 15 years racing in Europe that I hadn’t once yet taken part in a French Cup so was excited to see what it was all about.
There was a short track race on Friday afternoon which would decide the start positions for the XCO on Sunday. I raced well, finishing in 7th and earning myself a front row start for the XCO.
After being bone dry and a super-hot 35 degrees all weekend it decided to bucket down on the start line of the XCO and with my dry tyres on I was screwed. I had no traction whatsoever, my 2.4 tyres were too wide and wouldn’t clear, clogging up the frame, lifting the chain off the chainring etc and making it impossible to ride.
A race that would have normally taken less than 90mins took over 2hrs to complete and I walked away (literally) with a 15th and just a handful of points. Frustrating to say the least when I believed I had a good chance at a top 5 and big points haul.