I am a bit late with this update... sorry!
Last week Sunday I left home for another journey, fist stop was in Stockholm to visit some old friends I worked with in Dublin some years ago, two of which I had not seen in 8 years, it was very nice to see them all!! Thanks Helena and Anders for accommodation, even though the cat was there and I was afraid of not being able to breath…
Monday morning Helena took me to Arlanda airport where I got on the plane with my first ever business class ticket, I had points with SAS that I had to use otherwise they would expire, so don’t think that I became rich from my cycling or anything;) It was well worth using the points to fly to Paris and only have 3 hours in the car to St Amand which was the race village, instead of sitting in the car for days…
Trophé d’Or is a 5 days and 6 stages long UCI 2.2 race, it is a relatively flat race including one time trail and one hill stage. Once again we got to stay in a school, 3 girls in every room, this place was a bit cleaner then the last trip to France, this time we were 3 teams (27 people) sharing 6 showers and 2 toilets! Some people might think it is luxuries to be a cyclist and travel the world… You can only do this if you really love your sport!:-) From Alriksson GoGreen it was me, Monica, Madde, Malin, Linnea and Jessica, unfortunately half the team had a bit of a cold when we got there and Jessica had to stop the race after just 2 stages. At this race was also the South African national team, it was nice to see them in Europe!!
Stage 1: We had set a goal for the week to win things, and we tried from the start. I attacked after the first hill and Madde conter-attacked and got away for the first sprint of the day and won that one, Monica then took the bunch sprint so Alriksson GoGreen got first and second from the start! I was very active during this stage, was always at the front attacking and going on attacks, a few times I thought a group would go but everything got back together. We had a few laps at the end which were very technical and fast. The last lap I worked for Monica, our sprinter, I took her to the front a few times and made sure no one got away, the last kilometre I set the pace and thought I had her on my wheel but she was a few wheels down and we missed our sprint, so we got 14th and 17th.
Day 2 was the hardest day with the longest stage of 102km in the morning and 7,5km TT in the evening. I had another stage with a good feeling in my legs. 2 girls got away and stayed away for about 30 km, when we had about 3km to the stages only sprint I went first through a sharp corner with high speed, I looked back and saw that I had about 50 meters on the bunch and I could see the break away, so I decided to try and catch them, and I did and passed so that I could win the sprint for my team! We stayed away for another 7km before the bunch caught us. It was a technical finish and I tried to help Monica but did not manage to do so, I then gave up a bit and just rolled over the finish at the back of the bunch.
The time trail in the evening was hard with a 800 meter uphill, a fast down hill and some technical corners. The shorter the TT is the harder one have to go, so we could really feel this in our legs!! I love time trailing and it is my speciality and I am happy with my 8th place, even though one can always squeeze out a bit more… I climbed up to an 11th place in the GC.
Stage 4 was a bit of a recovery stage for everyone. It was very slow and no one was interested to go hard in the strong wind of the day. The speed only picked up at the end when we once again had laps in a town. I felt a bit tired until we went out on the last lap, I suddenly woke up and were close to the front all the time and closed a few breaks. I should have been a bit more brave with 200 meters to go and gone on the side, cause now I got a bit boxed in and had no where to go and got 14th, could have been a bit better if had been free to finish the sprint. Anyway, one always learn….
Stage 5 was the hill stage, I was really looking forward to this day cause normally I like hills. We had 6 hill-sprints and the bunch split into pieces on everyone of them but it always came back together and on hill number 4 I was not paying enough attention cause I was too far back in the bunch and somehow I did not think it would split as much as it did, I thought it would get back together again, but it did not… I had to chase downhill and was tired when I got to hill number 5 and saw the bunch about 400 meters in front of me but could not gain anything uphill. After a while we were 15 in a chasing bunch but it felt like I was the only one wanting to chase cause we were all the time 20-40 seconds behind and could often see the bunch but we did not get closer! So we kept the same speed as the 30 girl big bunch!! Very frustrating and I was very very disappointed with myself and the day… Fell down to 32 (even tho we only finished 58 seconds behind the bunch) in the GC for a stupid mistake.
If yesterday was a big disappointment, today was a success!! It was a very flat course and 2 girls got away early, 2 teams were chasing so it was an easy ride for the rest of us, until we caught them 25 km from the finish just before a hill and the final laps in town. That’s where the speed picked up! When Monica managed to get both the sprints in town I realised that she could win the race, I helped her on the second last lap and shouted to Madde to take her up the small hill on the last lap, it worked perfectly and Monica could take the first UCI win of the year for the team!! Brilliant stuff!!!
So it was a week with both ups and downs….
At the moment I am back in Falun until Friday when it is time to drive down to the island Orust for a 3 day stage race, which is also the last in the Swedish national series, I am in the lead at the moment so hoping for good legs there.
Take a look at the video that our advertising agency Rekyl made after we had been there a few weeks ago.