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George Bennett in Switzerland 2009
George Bennett - what's next?
A few people have asked about mountain bike worlds and the plan for the rest of the year so thought id keep people in the loop
MTB Worlds:
pretty gutted but im not going, 100% because of the back injury thats been bad on the mtb all year, i think it would of been a cool trip and think the team will do good. especially seeing how a santa cruz team mate of mine from Rotorua Dirk Peters has been riding over in canada hes taken two seconds in world cups in the u19 so congrats to him thats a pretty good effort
New Caledonia:
after i decided to pull out of mtb worlds i tried to change my flight to mid october to race u23 tour of lombardie but for some reason it would of cost too much so heading home on 4th september for one night in chch then back on the plane early the next morning heading out to new caledonia for two weeks to do a 10 day tour there and have some fun on the islands.
Southland:
after new cali i will try keep the form going untill club nats in nelson and southland i will be riding with kea motors again it looks like we have a really cool team sorted for this year with heaps of experience between the riders and a great support team so would like to give it a good go.
George Bennett secures French Division 1 Team Contract for 2010
From George in France the latest race news..
Right photo - George ponders over team cr4chroanne.com contract after Tour de loir Pillar....his 19th place in the tour was enough for the team director to offer a contract.....the story below...
arrived here yesterday before the team tt, first impressions its a pretty big tour with a awesome atmosphere and good crowds and good teams. the opening prologue was 3.1km 3xlaps of a stadium with a pretty hard hill then drop down and back up the hill to do it again. we were up against some really good teams and with our team being worn down by a pretty hard season we only had four riders before the tour even began one of them coming up from the junior ranks. the guys all put in pretty good effort as a couple of them were doing pretty well to stop them selfs from vomiting at the end so it was a good sign, we finished 11th out of 30 odd teams loosing only 8seconds. it turns out it didnt count for g.c just to decide who got to wear the jerseys for todays stage. clement the junior in our team gets to wear the maillot orange (juniour leader). todays stage looks epic with two category one climbs the one they raced over in paris -nice and heaps of other cat 2 and 3 climbs.
i think it is going to be a cool race there are cheerleaders and mascots walking around and live singers on stage so its pretty cool.
1st road stage- the trail
cr4c roanne a really good team in france are at this race they are the team im pretty keen to get into next year, anyway they have my c.v and said they would watch me at this tour. it turned out i had a pretty good race. the first 40 km s were spent hanging on in the gutter at the back of the bunch trying in vain to move up. we hit the first climb and it started to bust up. we did 6 pretty harty climbs in total. a break was up the road and ended up staying away. i nearly got across to it up a hill.. i kept following some good attacks and with 10km to the finish the 130 rider peleton had turned into about 15. it finished up a slight up hill i managed to get away and put 4secs into the bunch. a few more had slipped up the road and i finished 13th in the stage. not a great result but i think i had one of the best races i have had just felt really comfortable on the climbs and had legs for the finish. i rode really hard but think i payed for it as i was pretty smashed after and felt crap this morning for the tt. my recvory seems to be shot at the moment but probably just the long season or that i have run out peak fuel recovery formula (seriously go try it it is bloody magic) it was a truly epic race with big mountains, strong riders, super strong winds and allot
at stake being the middle of singing season, every rider going hard to find new
contracts for 2010. we lost wade early in the peice he just had one of those days.
stage 2 chrono 16km
well i blew this one....
it was a super good course for a tt bike, disc wheels, areo helmets, skin suits and
good legs. unfortunatly i had none of the above.
it was a small hill then down a valley into a head wind then up a shallow gradient
climb to the finish, my heart rate hardly went up and my legs didnt really burn that
much either they just felt like i had been injected with lead. i couldnt get on top of a big gear and had no rhythm. i lost allot of time and dropped into 21st place.
stage 3.
the profile of the course looked harder than it was. the climbs were not steep but the wind was back and the riders taking it to each other for round 3.
again they pegged it off the line. (they closed a highway for us to ride down that was pretty sweet) i felt average after a bad tour lunch (i hate the tour food, we get over cooked greasy pasta, bad french sticks, and a bad attempt at meat) and moral wasnt at its highest,
it was my last race in france i should of been amping but was pretty smashed, so it
was controlled by cc etupes whos rider was leading the hills wore down the bunch to
about 25 riders with two riders out in front the winner eventually coming from team
ag2r- la mondiale i attacked pretty lamely a few times but was covered suprisingly
strongly. in the bunch kick i finished mid/back pack not sure if i moved up in g.c i think a few guys in front of me dropped. we lost our 2nd rider with brad pulling the pin.
i was tired, my arms have been real sore all week and keep going lactic my legs we
similar. i finished 19th in stage and moved into 19th on g.c
i talked with the directior sportif of the cr4c roanne team after the race and was
pretty happy with how i rode after talking to his riders and he said he would sign me for next year. they are one of the top amature teams in france and have division
national 1 status (that probably means as much to most of you as... well something
irralevant)we ride LOOK bikes and the team seem like nice guys. they won the coupe de france last year and are doing well this year. they have a pretty impressive calender throughout france spain and italy. heres the website if you want to have a snoop around
www.cr4croanne.com
George
George Bennett wins again, Prix de Chatelneuf, France, 25.8.09
 so far august has been a good month to me and yesterday was no exception. another win this time in a rond de jura (a race in season long series we are kind of doing inbetween cat one races) it was a different feeling winning this race i felt like i got lucky and didnt have to really out ride anyone. long story short 3 long laps finish up 3km climb each lap i attacked up the hill going for gpm points (which i won) final lap 15km to go i was still up the road by myself after leaving a escape group that was playing around to much. a group of four riders came across to me and for some reason the peleton just completly shut down and we rolled away. it was no secret the guys who had ridden across to me couldnt climb they were all big boys who could go in the cross wind but thats it. i wound it up at the base of the climb riders dropped one at a time and i eventually finished with a gap of a minute. i felt i just got lucky really but thats racing, sometimes what i always saw as a crap side of racing can turn around and become benificial. the win had another huge upside that was my fourth win since arriving in france and in france if a rider wins 4 races in one season they have to move up into category one. i think they give a few days grace so i can do this crit today (i wish they didnt im in the car now we are driving 4hrs for a crit would of been better cranking out some kms for next weekend) so im now offically a cat one rider wich is cool. i suppose me having to come home early isnt as bad now because not allot of point being a cat one rider on a cat 2 team we dont do enough cat one races to keep me busy every weekend. its also good because it helps me with the talks im having with bigger teams for next year hopefully can post some news next week, so far i have one cat one team keen but am waiting to hear from a strong team hopefully after next weekend.
it hit home hard that im leaving really soon after yesterday being my last race with some of the team that arnt in the tour squad for next weekend.
ok so good race in the end k.o.m win and overall win i think although i wont do anymore races in the series i will win k.o.m overall and should finish top ten overall. hope we can pull a good race today i have demoted myself to team dutys for this one just want to have a hard race for training.
Heading home 4 Sept and then off to New Caledonia 10 day tour, Cheers George
George Bennett wins Tour de la Drome, 7- 9 August, France
 150 riders took the start of the weekends 3 stage cat 2 tour in southern france. one of the premier cat 2 races in france.the tour had a bit of everything, some heartly
climbs in the alps, some hard cross winds and some extreme heat. anyway somehow i won the race overall (just) heres how it unfolded.
Stage one.
cross wind section at the start of the race split a group of 20 riders off the front, i rode across to the split with a team mate. a bit of time in the gutter, some more attacks left me with in a escape group of 12 but no more team mates. we rode well untill we hit the alps the first 7km climb riders started to drop. i attacked with about 3km to the top 2 other riders came across to me. i was gutted to see that the numbers of the two riders had both been written on my handle bars to watch out for. i we rolled together up some more climbs down a seriously cool desent and then into the final block head wind home. we had a gap of around a minute on a chase group of 5. final 10km i started attacking did it lots didnt work we got caught by two riders from beind in the last 50km i finshed 3rd in stage.
Stage two.
11km tt not allot to say apart from it had a hill and allot of wind. i finished 5th
which i was ok but now 4th equal on g.c 16secs down. i manged to find a tt bike for the time trail but my first ride on it was in my warm up so not ideal.
 Stage 3.
had to gain 16 secs on the yellow jersey. the stage again was super hot and windy with no hills bigger than 3km but there were a few nasty steep ones thrown in thrown in the mix. i tried a few early moves but always had riders from the leaders team reacting every time i even thought about attacking. at one stage we nearly blew it the yellow jersey was up the road with the 2nd place on g.c and were going fast team morteau started the chase. we didnt know there was a bloody steep 3km hill around the corner. the boys did good and smashed the peleton untill there was 5of us at the top with 2 of my team mates. we caught the two leaders and then m orteau started a flurry of attacks forcing the others to chase. eventually wade got away with another rider, we had set up a pretty good trap for the yellow jersey. with 20km to go we came up the final hill with wade and another rider 20 secs up the road i started attacking. i went maybe 10 times always covered by the yellow jeresy but kept riding hard and eventually he dropped. wade looked back and saw me riding across and waited at the top of the hill. from there we pinned it down a dodgy decent and into the final 10km of cross wind. we rode hard and caught some random guy who had been up the road. we smacked it two the finish wade won the sprint and the stage and i got the yellow jersey and and every one was happy (except for a few of the french riders that definatly didnt like foreingers winning there races) winning was good but it was only a cat 2 tour. i was more happy that the team rode a great race and every won did there part. the crap fight for points is now over getting more than enough from the weekend. focusing now on a 3day cat 1 tour at the end of august.
cheers
g.b
06 April 09
ok, on the weekend had two races. both near the french border. saturdays race was an amateur race only so would be comparable to a benchmark homes races but without the variation in strength, some other uni students who race in the team were heading over to the race so i managed to hook in with them and make the trip early on sat morning, we got to where they thought the race started but there was nothing there. after some navigating, phone calls and extreme swiss driving I made the start line with about 1min to go, before the race i was sitting in the van getting ready and heard someone speaking bro (language native to rotorua) it turns out two kiwi mates had come over from France with their team for the race so that was real good to see them. the race was 4x 30km laps around a roly circut on often on roads no bigger than 1-2 riders wide, we rolled out alot of attacking at the start and eventually a break went away, they got out to about 1 min at the end of the third lap. A few teams set up a structured chase but wasn’t having any real effect so when two riders attacked of the peleton I rode across to them and then my kiwi mate also got to us. we worked together to ride across to break. me and Wade(kiwi) jumped them before we got there but i think they still made it. So there was now 11 of us about 50 sec in front of peleton. Up the next hill i just went as hard as I could and brought it down to 8 I kept attacking every rise and they went off in 1s. with 3km to go there was the last small roller in race. again I went superhard and this time no one came. I waited for this english guy at the top and we worked hard and got a gap on others the finish was slightly up hill so I hit him about 500m to go he didn’t have allot left so i ended up winning by 12secs.
It was cool but it was only an amateur race, however they pay enough to cover hotels, food, and race entry.
After the race they have a flower ceremony. Basically a podium but we get flowers, had a chat to some riders then drove up the country to a place called fully. Stayed in a hotel and got up in the morning for a 8am start. this race was an elite race. I would compare this to tour of wellington/southland but where everyone is good. it was a 5x 30km circuit. dead flat with one short but hard hill in it. At the start line they were calling my name over speaker and then some official told me couldn’t start (I think that’s what he said) but a uni student talked to him and it worked out. there was an issue because I had race an amateur race the previous day. was a bit nervous because no other riders in this elite race had raced the day before and there was some pretty strong riders in the field, we took off pretty quick but not alot happened until 3rd lap up hill when the uci team tried to split the field. They did only eight of us madeover top but when we got to the bottom everyone looked at each other and we got caught straight away. the exact same thing happened 4th lap. last lap was one of the hardest climbs I’ve done. it was super fast and i was cracking. again a small group made it over and this time we worked but still got caught by what was left of the peleton so there was 25 riders going into the sprint finish, I tried my luck getting away about 3km out but was fairly ruined by this stage and finished 19th in the sprint. I think it was still in the money.
On the whole a good weekends worth. Despite mum dads and jims best efforts my hanger didn’t arrive so i was still on cannondale hopefully it will arrive in the next few days. on returning home to were I live the team owner got pretty worked up about me racing elite, i assumed he would rather i raced elite but I got one of the team to translate and he said that now i can only do elite races. elite races are good I’m still competitive, and they are the level of racing i need to help me step up.
Anyway next weekend is 31 laps of a 3km circuit. despite all the hills here I talked to a few riders who said they mainly stick to circuit races with just rollers, I’m sure some big hill races will come though,
oh yeah its stopped snowing.
George
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