1996 Coupe de France

La Coupe de France is the national team time trial championships and is the traditional season-ending race. It's a big deal. I wrote about the very first one in 1992 here. Back then it was for teams of five. With at least three athletes required to cross the line together.

But when I raced La Coupe de France for the first time, with GT Vesoul 70 at Ancone in 1996, teams were comprised of seven athletes. With five athletes having to cross the finish line together to stop the clock.

I swam on the front most of the way. Then with larger teams, bike speeds were super-high on the half main road, half twisty lane course. On the run we did the lower-back-push-thing that Scott Molina spoke about here.

The results in 1996 were: 1st TGV St Quentin. Rob Barel’s club. 2nd Tricastin. Simon Lessing’s club. And 3rd TC Boulogne Billancourt. With Greg Bennett. I think we were 9th, 10th or 11th.

At the time it was definitely the hardest race I'd ever done. Probably still is. I’m number 636 in the photo above.