Joe Brookes journal #04: wins, wipeouts and wisdom

Second-year under-23 Joe Brookes rides for the French AVC Aix-en-Provence team, and is supported by the Rayner Foundation. In his latest journal post, Joe reflects on the second half of this season, sharing experiences from France and Italy, highlighting progress, challenges, and lessons learned.

Writing this towards the end of August, I have a growing feeling that my racing season is drawing to a close. The early season intensity has softened a little as I feel the effects of a long season in France.

Thoughts have shifted from the excitement of upcoming races and what opportunity they may bring, to plans of a late holiday and heading back home to the UK. This does not come with any sense of winding down. My training programme remains unchanged and race preparations continue, but there is a definite lessening of race frequency in the French racing calendar, with fewer Elite Nationales listed.

Fewer races in the French calendar means we look to race elsewhere, which for me has meant heading to Italy

That’s not to say there are not still great opportunities to be had and there certainly is still plenty of racing to do. Some of my teammates will be racing for their national teams in September, and for my team, AVCA, along with many other French teams, fewer races in the French calendar means we look to race elsewhere, which for me has meant heading to Italy.

A few weeks ago, I was told I would be racing two consecutive weekends in Italy, to include the GP Capodarco, my first UCI 1.2 race of the season.

However before heading off to Italy, I had a race in France: La Motte, an open category race. I don’t often race the open category, but recently had a couple in my calendar and a week prior to La Motte I had turned up to one expecting it to be relatively easy and as a result I got quite a reality check when the neutral ended and everyone set off full gas. Despite the field having lesser depth of quality than Elite Nationales, the open races are still a challenge and as I learnt that day, shouldn’t be underestimated.

We would have to pack our bikes into the team Renault Twingo – an old, beaten-up car our team manager lends us for the year – to drive ourselves to the race

The day before La Motte, we learned that our team wouldn’t be taking a support van and we would have to pack our bikes into the team Renault Twingo – an old, beaten-up car our team manager lends us for the year – to drive ourselves to the race. With temperatures nearing 40 degrees, it was going to be a long, hot day, and to compound things we had no soigneur in the feed to hand out bottles. Fortunately, we were lucky to find that a teammate’s parent had come to watch and he volunteered to help.

With all this disruption, I hadn’t given as much thought to the race as I would usually do, so it was just a question of turning up and seeing how things panned out. Once the racing kicked off, I found myself in the early breakaway and drawing from everything I had learned over the year; I was able to execute a perfect race strategy and cross the line with my hands in the air.

This set me up well both physically and mentally for my next race, the GP Capodarco in Italy.

I have learned that a key aspect to adapting to new racing styles is identifying the strongest teams and riders and watching how they like to ride

In the lead up to this race I had nervousness and excitement in equal measure; a new country to experience and a level of race that would be more intense. With my morale high following my win in France, I felt ready to take on Italy. This year I have learned that a key aspect to adapting to new racing styles is identifying the strongest teams and riders and watching how they like to ride. However, as everybody knows bike racing can be quite unpredictable at times, and in this race, it was a new field of riders and teams that I had no experience of racing against, so it is also key to sometimes just go with your instincts. My goals for Capodarco were simple; ride at the front and not to be afraid to get involved when opportunities arose.

The course consisted of a series of flat laps followed by larger laps with a tough climb. Surprisingly, I was able to get into a good position going into the first climb and was riding well. I repeated this on the second lap, staying comfortable at the front leading into the climb and maintaining a good position throughout the laps. But on the third lap, I was overconfident. I was fourth wheel as one of the teams put all their riders on the front on the flat ahead of the start of the climb. Their timing was good as the early break had just been caught and I sensed this was a decisive moment and felt my position was perfect.

It wasn’t long until I blew, and the gap that had opened quickly vanished just as quickly with the group I had left not long before riding past, leaving me in their wake

The rider who had his teammates working for him kicked at the beginning of the climb, and I made the mistake of trying to follow the move, taking myself into the red. As I was riding, I looked back to see a gap had formed but looking at my power I was pushing well above my limit. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t long until I blew, and the gap that had opened quickly vanished just as quickly with the group I had left not long before riding past, leaving me in their wake. By the time I crested the climb, the leader and chasing group were gone. Thoughts of this being the end of my race crossed my mind, but after a 10-hour car journey and preparing well for the race I knew I couldn’t just give up. I dug in, caught a few riders ahead and we formed a group that worked with good cooperation and after a hard chase caught back on to the main group at the base of the climb.

I was tired from that effort and this time, learning from my earlier mistake, I rode at my own pace and limited my losses over the climb. Despite being dropped for the second time, I was still in the convoy and was able to bridge back immediately after the crest. Conserving my energy and despite the fatigue, I got into a rhythm and soon felt much stronger, doing well on the final climb to finish in 15^th place, a result I was very satisfied with in my first UCI 1.2.

Pausing now to look back at my season, I’ve seen steady progress throughout the year. For sure there have been ups and downs. I began the year battling to get into breakaways but struggling to stick with them. More recently, that evolved to me getting into breaks and remaining strong but struggling to convert that into results. After each race, my DS would break the silence in the car on the journey home with an explanation of how I could race smarter and give me advice on where I could improve.

A good coach sets the training plan to develop the physical side of performance but, as I have learned over the past two years, a great coach is so much more than that

The recent win in La Motte and 15^th in GP Capardoco have given me a huge boost which is good for my self-belief, which at times has taken a few hits. But those results are not just down to me or learning from my DS’s words, I also owe a huge thank you to my coach, Dean Downing, who has worked with me for the past two seasons. A good coach sets the training plan to develop the physical side of performance but, as I have learned over the past two years, a great coach is so much more than that. This past year Dean has been invaluable, helping me analyse my riding style, offering counsel when things have not gone to plan, advice on how to approach thing differently, teaching me how to race based on my own strengths and most importantly of all, being that friendly voice on the other end of the line on our weekly calls, helping smooth the peaks or troughs of racing.

And talking of troughs, my second weekend of racing in Italy was two back-to-back one-day races. Day one saw me hit the deck on some loose gravel. Thankfully no major injury, just some road rash and bruises. I was able to get back up although by then I was well out the back of the race and would have crossed the finish line if it wasn’t for an Italian rider in our grupetto taking us on a wild 20km detour! After cleaning up my wounds and getting as good a night’s rest as I could have hoped, I made the start line the following day and felt fine until the last few kilometres, when the prior day caught up with me and I crossed the line in around 30^th place. Not ideal but ok given the circumstance.

So now onto the final few weeks of the season, which will see me back in Spain for a 3-day race and then concluding with some French races.

Then it’s time to start planning for 2025!