Close again in Pontevedra

Sunday 18th of april, my 3rd race and another spanish cup, 143km with a HARD 3km climb at 10km to go.
The team was looking after me and one other in the team, which was nice when i punctured mid way and was given a wheel right away then had someone to tow me back on!!
I just had to wait for the last climb really, which turned out to be alot harder than i thought, knowing i had to attack as i wouldnt win a sprint i hit it with just under 1km to the top and had maybe 15secs at the top.
I hit the descent hard and had 3 guys chasing behind, definitely not quite feeling the strength of the week before but the km's were counting down fast so i just kept giving it everything.
It wasnt to be though and my time was up at 800m to go, the tank was empty and wasn't able to contest the sprint.
Another solid performance though and our team worked really well so a little disappointing not to deliver for them, so a 4th this time round, never mind i will try again!! as you do.
Here is a link to a video from the race. www.roadcycling.co.nz/RaceTalk/caught-before-the-line-michael-torckler.html
Cheers
Mike

Clásica Ciudad de Torredonjimeno - Copa de España – A Win

Winning needs afew things,motivation, good form, a little luck and ofcourse a race!

This was my 2^nd race since arriving in Spain and my 2^nd Spanish Cup, a series of 10 races with the best U26amatuers in Spain. This was round 6 and a fairly bumpy parcours of 153km, so was suitable for the task at hand.

The motivation was to make the mommoth drive wothwhile and also was my birthday-eve!

The trip set off on a bad note though, both our team vans had been vandalised with each having 3!! flat tyres.....that sorted and we got on our way.

Not a whole lot happened in the race for me until 100km, it was too fast and not hilly enough to get away, also needed to shake the legs out a little after the drive. The first and main climb was at 97km, it was a cat.2 of about 8km, I was feeling pretty good so about ½ way up I jumped away and rode through afew people until reaching the lone leader, the 2 of us reached the top with a 30sec lead and 50km to ride, not much to work with but there was a lot of damage behind us. We stretched our lead to a max of 1min over the next couple of cat.3 climbs but the gap was decreasing slowly, at 15km to go we were on an easy climb with about a 40sec gap, I was starting to think about going solo after my team told me this guy was quick in the sprint but decided to wait, I thought id blown it by not going thinking that was the last climb but fortunately there was another at 10k to go, the gap was closing and the two of us were kind of looking at eachother not willing to give it %100 just to tow the other guy to the finish(well thats how I felt anyway), 1km from the top when the gap was just under 20secs my companion said something in spanish which I interpreted as 'im going back to the group'. Great....time to go! I hit it just incase he changed his mind and the gap started to increase, pulling back out to 35secs on the 15 or so remaining riders.

The last 2km were abit of a false flat hill and the finish couldn't have come soon enough, I did get there though and with 25seconds to spare!

The team had won a race the day before aswell so were a bunch of happy campers.

Next up is another Copa in Galicia in a weeks time, another big drive so will be trying again.

Cheers, Mike.