The Plage Vendeenes 2009 for me started with a 6.30am wake up followed by a 3hr drive down the west coast of france. This would probably usually have dragged on but i was quite buzzing as it was the 1st days racing of the season!

Thursday 19th... fairly flat race with 3 big circuits followed by 5 smaller circuits or something along those lines. We rocked up with one van, one van/wagon thing, and 2 pimping green team cars ready to rock! First thing to get sorted tho was handing out the new kit! Gud times! Once suited and booted, we mounted our steeds and rolled out to the start. 135k's with 160odd starters was on the menu and we didnt hang about in getting going! The orders for today were to make 2 big efforts during the race but in general just to get in the flow or racing again as the series is known for being very sketchy with everyone starting their seasons being nervous and taking chances, resulting in a fair few crashes on the day! ( o and the stage before we arrived a local lad crashed and hit an electricity pylon causing seven breaks/fractures... including 2 broken wrists! ouch poor fella.) we rode well as a team bringing back a couple of moves that we missed and each of us was off the front at least once but in the end it was all brought back for a bunch sprint. normally i wouldn't get in the mix in a sprint like this but i squeezed through a hole in the lead out trains and found myself cheelily on the wheel of the belgian, at 250m to go, who'd already won a bunch sprint there the week before, all was looking good until BANG... some knob head put their front wheel into the spokes of my back wheel, ripping half of them out and so i grinded to a halt! i dont think that many people understood the expletives i used but they certainly heard me! so stage 1 for me ended up being finished on foot! Not a happy bunny! still didnt crash tho and the team were impressed that i got up there... o yea the belgian who i was on won the stage... damn it!

the next day was a rest day so we rolled out for an easy 2h and ended up passing the harbour where the finish of the Vendee Globe boat race was going on. I dont no anything about boat races but apparently its one of the biggest around.

Saturday 21st was Chantonnay, the hardest stage of the series, with 3 big laps on rolling/hilly roads followed by 6 small laps which included a climb of 16% for about a 500m. Todays plan was to watch any early breaks and make sure we were represented in anything with over 6 riders that looked dangerous, if not bring it back. as it turned out an early break of about 8 got away and yep .. we missed it. we werent too worried as a couple of the big teams werent represented and 140k's of hilly racing would soon take its toll on those out front, so we set a steady chase tempo and pegged them back gradually. we were then passed by Nogent who are one of the biggest amateur teams in france who proceeded to set a blistering pace and bring back the break coming onto the smaller finish laps. they did good but they all nailed themselves in the process and were left with only one or 2 riders in the front group after the 1st time up the wall. I was climbing well but was badly positioned at the start of the climb so i had to dig deep to get past a lot of riders going backwards very quickly. i got on the back of the front group over the top which was about 50/60 riders but people were getting shelled on each climb. we had 4 riders in this front group but we were all pretty cooked and missed the 3riders who clipped off on the last lap. i finished 24th, in the front group 20secs behind 2 off the front. a good day but very tired after! the winner Yann Guyot from the french national team won the race the year before and was super impressive being away with 2guys from the same team but dropping one then wrapping up the sprint from a long way out!

Sunday 22nd started with an early wake up call from "the vampires"! we had been chosen as one of the teams for random dope control and had to get up and go and have blood samples taken! first for me! interesting tho seeing some of the teams going out training at 7am... dodgey or what! turns out riding hard before the blood test lowers your haematocrit levels... its a sad sport! the final stage was a 145k pan flat windy ride with a good lot of echelons (this is when there is a cross wind and you get no respite from sitting behind a rider so u hav to sit to the side but the road is only so wide so you get groups of riders all over the place trying to keep up with the pace being set!) unfortunately we had our first crash of the week today, with Matthieu Jeannes coming down with a couple fo others and proceeding to abandon. Not a nice way to end the week. a front group formed and most of us were still there so we followed the attacks and had some good digs ourselves too but nothing was sticking. but at about 10-15k to go i got across to 2 riders just off the front and a couple more came across too forming a group of about 12 with all the big teams represented. this looked good and we soom pulled out to 30secs after a couple of k's drilling it but then everyone stopped riding and jsut attacked each other; game over! it all came back for another bunch sprint and i was pretty nailed after my late break so i eased off in the last couple of k's... luckily too as there was a late crash on a roundabout bringing down a fair few riders. I ended up finishing about 45th for the day, 2nd from the team.

i got the feeling from the way the DS was talking that he was impressed with how i got on and the way i'd fitting straight into the team. just have to keep up the good work now though the elite classics in march, kicking off with route bretonne on sunday! however im sitting here in bed writing this with what is turning out to be a pretty nasty cold... man flu! i was having cold sweats all night feel like poo on a stick today so not sure how my weeks preparation with go :-(

hopefully ill be feeling better tomorrow after an easy rest day today.

ok, think i've babbled on enough now, time to go try and eat something. something i normally dont have a problem with at all!

tom