Nicole Cookle Vision 1 Racing Blog: 4 Hard Days Of Racing.

Here’s a quick update from Nicole Cooke’s Vision 1 Rider Debby Van Der Berg who’s been out racing solid for 4 days on her Focus bike.

After a period of a bit of rest and some training after Tour de L’aude it was now time to race again and well in Spain!! 4 days, 5 stages so quite exciting!

The first day was a short stage from 76km with two category 3 climbs in it. The team did very well here with Nicole finishing second in a photo finish and Christel and Vicky were also in the lead group of 19 girls helping Nicole with a lead out in the final kilometres. Aurore and I were finishing in a second group and with this result we were the best team of the day!!! So a great day to start with!!!

The second day was 92km with a category 2 climb in. Only one categorised climb today but there were a lot of “little” hills today.

And we won today!!!! Everybody was riding really well and at the end Nicole won the sprint!! And with that she won the green jersey and the jersey who everybody wants the yellow one!!! Vicky and Christel were finishing well up there as well, I was just a couple of seconds behind the bunch and Aurore was in a nice group behind that.

Third day was a split day first a short up hill time trial of 2.2km and then in the afternoon a 79km stage with 2 category 3 climbs. We are all not really specialists in those kind of time trials but we did good with Nicole finishing 12, Christel 18, Vicky 40, me 55 and Aurore 65.

Then in the afternoon stage we were showing again how strong we are!! Riding well again and with a great lead out from Christel and Vicky Nicole won again!!! And because it was a really hard up hill finish she took back some seconds and went up in general tio 4th place and took the green jersey again!! With Vicky finishing 10th and Christel in the front as well we had another a great day!

Then the last day everybody was a bit tired but really motivated to get a great result again. This day a long stage of 122.7km with a category 1 climb and two category 2 climbs. It were three very nice hot and sunny days but today no sun shine but showers which made the Spanish roads wet and very slippery. Today it wasn’t an up hill finish but a downhill!!

Again a strong ride from everybody with Nicole finishing 4, Christel 5 and Vicky 9th. Aurore and me just behind the bunch. Finishing with 3 girls in top ten Nicole 4th, Christel 7th and Vicky 10th in general.
This made us second team after Colombia!! So a great result for a hard but really nice race.

I’m already looking forward to the next one!!

Debby x

Debby Van Der Berg & Vision 1 Racing are being sponsored by Focus for all their Bike Frames