national champs was a gud day. it was really cool to ride with the big guys and really be involved in the race with them! the day before i went out for an easy ride on the course and ended up riding back with millar and havin a little chat about the course! he seemed a pretty nice guy contrary to what most people say!

the race itself was ok, break went after about 80k's that was going to pull away. it turned out that they would pull out to over 4mins with dan lloyd, dean downing, kennaugh, mcevoy, both hayles and southam! and some other big hitters in there, but no pinarello or plowman boys there, however they didnt seem to bothered about chasing too much and looked to the pro's to bring it back. so with about 70 or 80k's to go, millar hammond etc started to really drive it on the front (and wen i say drive it... millar was an absolute train!) i remember lookin down at the speedo on a hard uphill dragand we were doing about 48k's an hour/30mph! i was sitting in the wheels whereas millar was out in the wind pulling for mile after mile at that pace! pretty awesome. the bunch completely exploded when they picked it up and i nearly missed the split as i was trying to get some food from dad but i saw it surge and forgot the food jus to try and catch the back as they shot off up the road. i managed to get across after leaving behind some very dead legs. so a group of about 50 rolled away from the rest and soon we were well up the road and eating into the break. by the last 20k's there was only 5left from the original 17 up front and our group had shelled a lot of riders. we didnt bring the break back in time for the finish which was on a 2k uphill drag and that was when the distance finally caught up with me! i wasnt the only one as when the pace surged at the bottom, a lot of ppl went pop! i kept goin to the finish and passed several other guys cramping and grimacing and finished a not so shabby 32nd and 10th espoir. Shame i popped on the finish otherwise i would have been copmpeting for the espoir podium.

so all in all it was a good race and a really good experience and from going into the race just wanting to finish, i spent the last 60k's in full on race mode mixing it with the countries best.

it was a real shame matt couldnt have rode it because i think he would have been pushing for the espoir podium as he has more longer distance races in his legs than me which at 205km's was a big deciding factor come the finish!

not i'm packing my bag again for the ferry to go back to france for the 2nd half of the season. shame couldn't have caught up with many of u guys but i posted a win last thursday and a 2nd place on tuesday night (with dead legs after the weekend, and a heavy head from the night before!!) all in the development kit just to add to the results you lot will sure to be adding to very soon.

have a good rest of the season and ill be sure to stay in touch on here as normal.

salut!