Girls on Tour: France, May 2010

Jemima Leach, Gemma Derrick and Kim Ashton ’s first outing in France this season

On Sunday the 3 of us set off to France (Plouezec) for our first race in France this season. We had a great trip over on the boat, no sea sickness was had and it was a chance for me to get to know Jemima and Gemma a bit better.....I quickly found out how bad Jemima was at playing Flight Control on her iPhone, that left me and Gemma to try and beat a score of 71 that was apparently held by Moffaman. Before we knew it we were back in the car programming Suzie Sat-nav and driving off the boat to hit the road for roughly a 2 hour drive.

On the way a couple of pit-stops were made and fortunately for all Gemma had her hand-sanitising lotion at the ready (I think you will all know why it was needed!). We thought we would get some food on the way and it would be an easy task, how wrong we were.....the first stop had a wonderful selection of dodgy sandwiches; I knew the toughness of the race would be enough to be making me feel sick so we passed on those dodgy sandwiches as we didn’t need any extra help to bring on the sickness. Luckily we found some food which did the trick and off we went to find the course.

Once we found the course it was time to sign-on, thanks to Jemima’s French skills this was all done fairly swiftly. Time to get changed and get the bikes ready....I foolishly said “Were are the changing rooms?”, Jemima’s response was a chuckle, so the car it was!

Race time! 25 laps of a 2.7km course with a wonderful hill half-way round. A nice lap around the course to warm-up and a few efforts later and we were all on the start line.....I don’t know about the other girls but I was definitely getting nervous, mixture of excitement and apprehension of what to expect as those girls looked the business, and they didn’t disappoint. Un, deux, trois....we were away! The first lap started slow and it was strange being in a big pack of girls all trying to get a spot near the front, before I knew it bam, ladies were off the front and the pace changed and then it slowed down, this was the first lap done. The second lap the big girls thought they would tear it up a bit, and that they did. When we hit the hill for the second time the group split up big-time and the pace was high. A group of girls got away and we all got split up around the course, I found myself in no-mans land behind the leaders but just ahead of a main group of girls behind, with Jemima and Gemma in. It carried on like this for the rest of the race with all of us picking up riders who had possibly gone off to hard and were starting to suffer so we soon climbed up in the positions. We all had a great race and achieved personal bests and we will definitely be back for more!

That just left a car journey back to St.Malo for an overnight stay before the boat in the morning. All that was required was food and sleep and some more getting to know each other and giving out of nicknames mixed in with a bit of analysis of our race. Three tired bodies got on the boat in the morning, this time we were way too tired for some Flight Control so it looks like Moffa’s record will stand for a little while longer.

Personally, as my first ever trip to France racing at that level it was definitely a shock to the system however it was a great shock! We will all be heading over again in the very near future so if any of you ladies are out there and want to join, speak to me, Gemma or Jemima and come and join us!

Thanks to Kim Ashton for this report.