JULIAN KERN

Because I changed my shoes from black Bonts to my personalized white/light blue ones, I thought its also time to write a little report again. Last weeks have been really busy! Since the beginning of March I had 13 race days, mainly one day races in France. The shape though went constantly down.

The weekend Classic Loire Atlantique and Cholet Pays de Loire was probably the last good weekend I had. I abandoned Loire Atlantique but not because of bad legs, just because of the weather circumstances. Starting with sun and 10 degrees I didn’t put so much clothes on. After three laps though, hail, rain and strong wind started and temperatures decreased to around zero. I was really cold and went to the car to get some additional clothes out of my rainbag. But than it was over. Since some of riders dropped already, the race direction made „barrage“ and a sidewind bordure developped, I couldn’t reach the peloton again affter fetching my clothes...
Cholet though was a nice race. I felt strong, riding over the little hills next to the Loire. The longer the race was, the stronger I felt and when we had just 20 K’s left, I talked to Huta and we stated to try to catch the breakaway again. Me and Lloyd pulled strong on the final circuit but unfortunatelly our tactic didn’t pay of and the breakaway came down to the line – we started too late.

Two days at home and than again two travell days. For the Criterium International, we started early because it will hold the first three stages of the Tour de France this year and my teammates had to make a recon of the parcours.
The first semi stage was pretty good also. As everybody knew it was going to be a sprint, the breakaway never had more than 1:30 advance. Also the speed was really high. It didn’t even take us two hours to complete the 89 hilly kilometers. Since we had no real sprinter, our plan was to launch Christoph Riblon or Maxim Bouet. To make it short, we lost Christoph who helped our leader with mechanical problems and in the hectic final, me, Romain and Maxim couldn’t stay together and everybody made his own sprint. While sprinting, I already started to be angry at myself. This kind of sprint matches exactly my qualities. I took 25th place even tough I waited for Maxim and was in a really bad position entering the last 500 meters. And Criterium also featured two more stages. An ITT and a mountain Top finish which I wont mention any further...

From that point on my legs started to feel really heavy. La route Adélie de Vitré was just catastrophic. I told my teammates I had really bad legs and we stated that I would be the first one to pull to catch the breakaway. After 110 kilometer, of which I pulled 70, I was empty. I couldn’t pass for taking a rolley and abandoned.
Fortunately, the next day at Val d’Ille Classic was way better and I worked for Huta, placing him in the front and protecting him form the strong wind. Three K’s to the line my job was done and Lloyd replaced me guarding Huta.

After a little restday, the Circuit de la Sarthe started. This was the week, winter thought he might have a chance to defeat summer this year. It was really cold and the last two days were just nasty. I was in the breakaway on stage two, the half stage in the morning. It was probably my strangest breakaway ever. The guy that attacked wouldn’t take a rolley the first 20K’s. He told me we wouldn’t go down to the line anyway. I knew, it would be hard but since it was a half stage with just 87 kilometers, the group featured five riders and we were all not too bad, I saw at least a chance to finish. I never ever rode so slow in a breakaway and after 70 K’s we were easily caught again by the peloton. On the second last day, my body was empty and from that day on, it did not managage to fill the batteries again.

Two days at home and again 8 days France followed. From the following four races I did, I finished only one. Pretty sad. Not because of my performance. More because of my contribution to the team. When the race started to be hard and they really needed my help, my batteries were already empty and I was already close to getting dropped.

Right now I’m in a difficult period. The enthusiasm of the beginning is leaving and every little mistake I made in terms of training or other things catches me now. The fatigue is sitting in my body and all that helps at the moment is calming down and resting. As my teammates told me: „profit de la maison!“ This is what I’m going to do the next days! I’ll benefit from the time with my girlfriend, my friends and the great weather at the moment. Today there’s the Flèche on TV and I’m positive that its me on the couch!