Team Cyclingnews.com - 2005

Team Journal Entry - July 5, 2005, by Cam Jennings

Chady's strong win at Tour de Jura

Hi all,

Summer time in Europe. A time of good racing and training, the Tour de France, killing afternoons watching the Tour on telly, rock festivals (ie Rock Wercter just down the road) and a time when the Belgian farmers get to whinge because it hasn't rained for two weeks. Two weeks...some of the farmers and graziers where I live in Australia have not had decent rain in two years. Two weeks here and it's a drought. Rest assured it rained a full day here a couple of days ago as we were travelling to our latest race, the Tour de Jura.

Team for Jura

Chady (Glen)
Coat-D (Cody)
Bok (Hamish)
Steve (Sven)
Tank (Leigh)
Dag (Jeremy)
No name yet (Hamish)
and yours truly.

Got up and left early, and if you have read Glen's latest report you would have seen that we were told that it was only going to be a 6 hour trip. Well due to road works it took four hours to get outside of Belgium so our total trip was going to blow out. Arrived at our little hotel in the region of Jura just over the French border in Switzerland and got ready for a gentle roll. Good ride, feed and sleep and we were all looking forward to the race.

Woke up to a fine day and a good brekky and drove 30min to the start up a 10km climb and to 1000m. Rain started to fall while we were getting ready but luckily the rain stopped and the race was raced in dry conditions.

The race was quick from the start. The first 75km was raced at 1000m over a few little hills and a few long descents. Leigh was doing a great job up front covering all the breaks and not letting anything go. Glen and I were trying to stay out of trouble and stay relatively fresh for later on in the race. After 85km we descended for 10km down into the valley and to where the race would finish after a few more laps here and there.

Hit the first major obstacle of the day - a 7km climb that was steep at the start but levelled out. This climb thinned out the bunch and after good work from the other guys in the team, the climb left Chady, Dag, Steve and myself in the front group of 60. After another climb that whittled the bunch down a little more we travelled over some exposed roads and the bunch unexpectedly split. Fortunatley Chady and I made the split comfortably and 20 of us got away with 50km to go.

The finaly 20km of the course included three laps each with a steep 1km climb and a tricky descent to the finish. We had 1 minute 40 on the chasing bunch as we climbed the first hill which reduced the group by a few. Second lap was pretty similar with a few more guys dropping off the back. At the start of the last lap a few guys slipped off the front. Glen was looking good so I hit out and closed the gap to the guys up front with Chady on my wheel. As we made contact Glen jumped and the group let him go.

Two guys gave chase and caught up to him before the climb but Glen simply sat on the front up the hill and blew the guys off his wheel. He had 15 secs by the top and after the descent hung on comfortably for the win. There were a few guys between my group and Glen but I lead the bunch home for seventh, 40-odd seconds back. So a good day for the team. Jumped in the van...arrived home in Booischot 3am Sunday morning.

Have just had two easy days. Today was not all that restfull as myself and a few others were required to go to Brussels and finalise our visas for our upcoming China trip. Did not really want to fight my way through Brussels and all the seedy-looking kids coming back from Rock Wercter but it had to be done. A week of fine tuning and finalising will now be had before we head to China next Monday. All looking forward to it.

Till next time we meet,

Cameron