On August bank holiday, the 28th-30th of August, the 2021 Junior tour of wales commenced. The biggest junior race in the UK with past winners including Dan Martin, Tom Pidock, Fred Wright, Hugh Carthy and many more. I headed down on the 26th with my dad towards South Wales, it was one of the longest drives all year which over a long yearcan put strains on me and my family but lucky I get great support from organizations like Pedal Potential and IOM sport and also to make things better the weather was good and spirits were high.
Stage 1 was an 8k road Time trial finishing up the tumble, I felt like I paced it well and got everythig out with finishing 4th but only 1 second away from 2nd place and 2nd place on the final climb toput me 2nd in the KOM competion. Then it would be about heading back to the hotel for all things recovery.
Stage 2 and 3 were on a split day with stage 2 being a circuit race with 1 KOM on the course and the race was an hour long. My tactic for this was to just get stuck in and go for the KOM to get the lead and the jersey for the following stages, I did thatr to perfection with getting in a lot of moves but saved as much energy asI could andcame in 30th around all the top GC guys. After that Ijustr tried to fuel as much and put my feet up for as long as I could before stage 3 to try and physically and mentally relax as it was startinfg to get hotter.
Stage 3 was an 100Km race finishing on 5 laps of a kermesse style circuit, there was a KOM 10KM in and then it was really fast and it was up in the mid 20 degrees so i decided to go and extend my lead in the KOM competion and then sit in and take it as an active recovery ride but make sure none of the top guys on GCor dangermen went and gained time on the road, I did just that with going down to 5th on GC and keeping my KOM lead and coming in 20th on this stage
Stage 4 was the queen stage finishing up the tumble and one that I had my eyes on after good form at mendips two weeks ago. A break of 7 went up the road but with only being 20 seconds down on the GC leader I told myself to stay calm around 30K into the 95KM stage, I saw one of the lads who was high up in the KOM competiton and saw that he was strong as I knew him (Lucas Towers) and that he rode for a strong team so I decided to follow him and we put our head down for 15K to get across to the break before being joined by 3 others and we put our heads down to close the 3 minute gap to the leaders, we were catching the reminscence of riders whilst being told our gap to the peloton was going out and out and it started to give me hope as I knew I was the highest on the GC, Once I found out we had a chance I started missing a few turns to save energy. We hit the bottom of the tumble with 6 and with it being so steep at the bottom I set my own tempo and that put us down to 4 and I just told myself to go for it and then one lad attacked and I followed and we dropped the 12 other riders and I knew from then all I had to do was stick on his back wheel and i managed that and came 2nd on the stage and just counted in my head 20 seconds to double chack
Once I crossed the line, the first person I saw was my dad and i shouted in his face I did it with eleasticity and once everyone crossed the line, it had sunk in what I have achieved and Icouldn`t wipe the smile of my face.
Once again, big thanks to Pedal Potential for their help all season with all different kinds of support with helping me and my family to get to races when I could with being as stress free as possible.
I have one race left this season planned with it being chrono des nations in france before getting my head down to winters graft to prepare myself for 2022 with CC Etupes.