Sean McKenna’s OVO Energy Tour of Britain Diary – Stage 7 – Hemel Hemstead to Cheltenham
We had another wet day today. They seem to be coming thick and fast.
The last two weeks or so, I had a bit of a knee injury which kept me off the bike last week. So, I came into the race a bit stale. But today, I actually felt good. It was probably the best I felt all week which sounds strange after seven days of racing.
I wanted to get in the break and tried to give it a lash. But being what was probably on paper the queen stage, a lot of other lads had the same idea.
The first 45 minutes to an hour were on hard roads and were very, very quick. A lot of the WorldTour lads planned to get in the break as well, so I probably did a bit too much, too early.
The break took a while to go, but thankfully the ever-reliable Jacob Scott got in the break again and picked up a few more King of the Mountain points. As I said before, he’s riding out of his skin so hopefully will be able to finish the job off tomorrow and win the jersey.
The break went and then it was just standard procedure from there. It was well controlled and brought back just before the last Cat. 2 climb with about 30 kilometres to go. There was one last Cat. 2 with about 10 kilometres to go and that’s where we assumed it would kick off for the last GC shake-up. However, the climb wasn’t super-steep so it didn’t really break up.
The bunch had been whittling down for the last 50 kilometres or so and coming into the last climb, there was a small crash. Unfortunately, Matty Teggart came down. I got caught behind it but managed to get back in.
So, it was just myself and Mark Stewart who were left in the bunch. The plan was for me to help move him for the last climb and he managed to get over in the front group and he finished in the bunch. So when I got to the bottom of the climb, that was more or less my job done.
So, we’ve just one more day left and we’ll be fighting to try and help Scotty win that mountains jersey.
