Stage 10 – Niort – Bressure   84km

I woke up with stomach cramps and decided on only a small breakfast.  I headed back to bed for another 2 hours to rest as we only had a 20 minute drive to our race start today and didn’t need to leave until 12.30pm.  Some little beast had bitten me all night and I was covered in bite marks and itchy spots.  But on a positive note, it was only 35C today so it was much more pleasant.

After a rest day, my legs felt heavy so I did a few hard 2 minute efforts to open up the system.  My legs didn’t appreciate these efforts and I could feel every km of these last 9 days of racing.

We had a 5km neutral roll out and then off we galloped at 30km/hr up the first climb – ouch.  I sat in for the first hour and then started to find my legs.  In fact, I felt pretty good and on a windy narrow section of road, attacked hard and Ali Wright came with me.  We were quickly chase down.  I was then given instructions to sit in and wait until the end while Christina, Meredith and Trine were to cover any moves.

The peloton were keen to keep it together until the end and it wasn’t until 6km to go, that Margaret Hemsley flew off the front and got a 200m gap.  Although the initial plan was for Katrina and I to wait for the final 2km to have a shot at the finish, we were subsequently told to close the gap to Hemsley, and as Katrina and I were at the front, Katrina a dig.  A Pratto rider countered Katrina’s move and I shot out with her.  A Powerplate rider and 4 others got a across to me and Katrina yelled in the radio for me to keep going.  No-one else pulled through and with 3km to go, I decided to ease up rather than drag everyone to the line.  In hindsight I should have kept going and let one or two go around me to sit back in 2^nd or 3^rd wheel.

The last 3km took us onto really narrow roads with sharp dangerous turns.  It was so fast and strung out that it was impossible to move up.  I was 10^th wheel with 2km to go but on a steep 600m power climb I was passed by 4 riders and finished 15^th.  I was disappointed that I hadn’t dug harder with 4km but tomorrow is another day so maybe things will turn out better.