That is what Cicero said and what smaller way to kick-off my season at Hog Hill and Cyclopark in their respective winter serieses. I will first begin with Hog Hill my first race of the season and a place where I usually go pretty well. It was cold on Saturday as all of you are aware, but this did not deter from 20 people turning up for the E/1/2 race in the afternoon. Not that many, but enough to not simply make the race processional, except if you are Rhys Howells who stormed away from the field on the first lap, who I nearly got across to, but the Wales training camp definately made sure that I was not in any physical form to be at 90% for more than 45secs, so he soloed to a great win. I however was constatnly attacking throughout the race and as one of the better guys there, no one was willing to let me get away or have a free ride. In the end I grabbed third place, second in the bunch sprint which I was fairly chuffed with considering how hard the last week of training has been and how much work I did during the race. I could of and should of got second, but I launced my sprint from a bit too far back and didn't quite have enough to sneak in for second, but nevermind. The whole point of this race is to get used to racing my bike again before heading out to Brittany, because how you handle your bike during a race, espcially on a closed circuit, is very different to how you handle it during training. So plenty to take away from the race.
Today, I was racing in the SERRL Winter Series at Cyclopark, unfortunately there were only 11 of us in the E/1/2 race although there was a great turn-out for the 3/4 race with what looked about the 30+ mark. Anyway, it was the same conditions as yesterday and with so few riding and with 3 of the rivals being from the same team, Dulwich Paragon, I thought what the hell and do what I do best, which is attack. So after about a 2 laps I started my series of attacks, really trying to spilt the group in the crosswind. This worked really well and on my fourth attack I got away with another rider where we gradually began to pull away from the chasers. However after a couple of laps what remained of the bunch caught us, about 4 riders, but everyone was suffering and right on the rivet so I again went on the attack opening up a large gap pretty quickly, fortunately with the next strongest rider there right on my wheel, Andy Betts of Felt Colbornes, a really good older rider. We quickly began to pull away from the pursuers ecking out a gap of around 20seconds, this held steady, for about half an hour (me and Andy got away after 25mins) and by the time we both finished we probably took nearly a mintue out on the three behinds. Anyway, me and Andy worked well, with two laps to go he launched a series of attacks which I held on to, but unfortunately I did not have the legs for the sprint, probably due to the huge amount of training I have done recently resulting in me getting second. Nevermind, I'm pretty pleased with how I rode, using the elements and my strengths to my advantage and it's not a bad way to begin my season with a third and second. The one thing that I was disappointed on was my lack of physical form on the bike today at Cyclopark, my body was just all over the place and was not pedalling or sitting unaware near as comfortably as a) the day before and b) how I really should be.
I'm doing all the final preparations over the next week for France, so it's a really exciting time for me at the moment and it's not a bad way to start my season with these couple of performances. It really shows where I am at in all sorts of ways, just can't wait to start racing on the Continent.
No comments:
Post a Comment