Tour de Fra...Okay not quite.

My last race for the year in the Aussie colours was the Tour Féminin en Limousin in rural France. A UCI 2.2 category four day Tour consisting of four slightly undulating road stages. I went into the race excited as always and a little nervous after my last tour experience.

After a rotation of riders the Aussie team once again had a different line up. Under the direction of Martin Barras, the Australian national women’s coach, the Australian team this year has adopted a different approach to previous years. Where in the past 6 or so girls raced for the Australian team for the entire season, now girls are given the opportunity to race two or three races with the team and then others are brought in.

I think it’s a great opportunity for all the girls involved, giving them international racing experience and exposure to the European peloton. It also enables Australia to show off the depth of talent we currently have coming through the sport.

Tiffany Cromwell, Miffy Galloway, Shara Gillow and I all returned from the previous races. We were joined by Ruth Corset, who rides for the American professional team Jazz Apple, and the U19 rider, Kendelle Hodges who was invited to race with the senior team in preparation for the junior World Championships in a little under a week in Moscow.

The depth of the field while not at the same level of the Giro was still respectable with a number of UCI teams taking the start line and over 170 riders. The first stage quickly established the General Classification (GC) for the rest of the tour with 10 girls escaping on the first Queen of the Mountain and staying away for the entirety of the stage.

Ruth, who was the designated GC rider, finished third in the Stage 1, setting herself up well for the rest of the tour. In the remaining stages all the girls worked hard to try and move Ruth up on GC. The 18 second time gap that Grace Verbeke from Lotto-Belisol gained on Stage 1 proved too difficult to close, however Ruth was able to gain enough time bonuses in intermediate sprints to jump over the Russian rider Alexandra Burchenkova and move into second overall, a position she held until the end of the tour.

I was glad to be able to help position Ruth and give her a wheel to follow coming into these sprints so as to give her the best possible opportunity to gain time over the riders sitting only seconds in front of and behind her in general classification.

On our way to second overall the whole team seemed to get a chance to show what they were made of. On the second stage, Shara, chasing attacks to protect Ruth’s general classification place found herself in a break and claimed second in an intermediate sprint. Shara being better known for her hill climbing and not necessarily her sprinting received a text message from the Australian coach ‘Shara, a sprinter?’

Miffy Galloway was forever present at the front of the bunch, jumping on anything that moved. Miffy ensured that Australia was always well represented. She showed that the nervousness she may have once had about big bunches, fast speeds and narrow roads are all but a distant memory.

Kendelle Hodges, at only 17 years old and not even in the senior ranks was the youngest rider in the race. Kendelle while finishing respectably in each stage improved each day and showed she has a huge future in cycling. She had a successful crossover to not only European but also senior racing. On the third day of the tour Kendelle was challenging for the ‘Aussie Cup’ for best positioned throughout the race and found herself covering numerous breaks, no small feat for a girl who isn’t even senior yet.

The ‘Aussie Cup’, while being a complete fabrication by Nico, our charismatic mechanic, was a competition between all Australian riders in the race and could be awarded for anything from most embarrassing crash to best placed.

Tiffany’s convincing Stage 3 win from a breakaway of five and her tireless and selfless effort throughout the entire tour to help her team-mates showed why she is such a valued member of the American professional team Colavita and the Australian team. Her amazing lead out effort for me in Stage 2 where I claimed second was a sight to behold. After having chased for much of the race to protect Ruth’s general classification position, Tiff again made her way to the front to help me in the lead up to the final sprint. With 3ks to go Tiff was on the front driving it to give me the best possible chance in the sprint. A phenomenal rider and an awesome team player, Tiffany is definitely an Australian cyclist to watch.

And me, after claiming a few sprint points in intermediate sprints and finishing second in Stage 2 the team thought I might be able to have a crack at the green (sprinters) jersey. However, Rochelle Gilmore proved too strong and things were quickly reassessed. My role changed to help position Ruth and also attempt to lead her out for the intermediate sprints which carried valuable bonus seconds. Since the riders around her on GC were 3 seconds ahead, and 1 second behind and Ruth was able to gain more than the 3 seconds needed to move herself into second overall through bonus seconds and small gaps at the finish I’d like to think I did my job well.

The whole tour was incredibly enjoyable, from the people I shared it with, (the Aussie girls and staff, parents and sister), to the success of the team it was a great way to finish off my stint in the green and gold. I can only hope that there are many more opportunities for me to pull those stripes over my shoulders and race with these girls, some of the most talented athletes Australia has to offer.

For now, I’m back to Belgium to race for the Moving Ladies team. It was sad to say goodbye to the girls (who have been good company and excellent training partners for the last month) and my family (who were some of the best groupies one can hope for while on tour) but I’m looking forward to some more Dutch racing and trading the gelati for stroopwafles.