Rather than following the recent trend of new ACC racers picking up points at their first attempt, (George, Paul H, Stu, Adam, etc), I decided to take a more traditional approach to my first ever road race by disappearing out of the back at the earliest opportunity.
It was clear as we gathered around before the start that it was not quite the “beginners†race I was expecting, looking at the massed ranks from Charlotteville CC, London Dynamo, as well as our own Mr Viney masquerading as a 4th Cat (yes, I know what it says on your licence, Richard).
The start itself was a little unorthodox as the 70+ riders rolled on to the circuit from various points close to the start line and the first riders probably had about 100 metres on those of us at the back. The pace seemed fierce from the off as I was doing 27 mph as we rounded the first bend and the speed seemed to keep rising down the long straight. I struggled with the pace from the off and really must be better prepared to suffer much more at the beginning if I‘m going to have a chance of holding on to the bunch. By the time we got about half way round the 2nd lap the elastic between the bunch and a sizeable number of us who were struggling finally snapped.
The first 2 laps of purgatory were followed by a couple of reasonable ones, alternating the workload with one other guy, before a large group of stragglers appeared from behind, glued to the wheel of Warrick Spence (from the host London Dynamo club) who was acting as chaperone and encouraging those of us off the pace to keep it going. We jumped on to this group and the last laps went much more quickly with some decent through-and-off and a final sprint to avoid the wooden spoon.
So, it was a bit of a rude awakening to the further physical fitness and mental application required even at this beginners' level, but it was good fun to ride (relatively
) fast on a closed circuit and get a first taste of what this racing lark is about. Let’s hope for an improvement next week…..
then we regrouped and went off in larger groups of 20 for another 2 laps. Finally we were sent off for a race of 6 laps but told to stay together for the first 4! This resulted in a short race of about 12 miles 
but the pace was high enough at about 23.5 mph. there were two other ACC in the race, Rich v and Paul (?) time triallist. Anyway I stayed with the bunch the whole time but the final lap was a bit scarey with 3 crashes (~ 70 4th racers?) !! Rich was almost brought down. It seemed a nice course so will probably go again some time soon. Nice to get a 'race' under the belt for the year.
, had to accelerate to get back on and then decided to come down left hand edge to try and avoid the inevitable crash in the middle of the bunch. At about 200m I was too far back and heard the crash go just to my right managed to avoid the rider who swung away from the crash into my path and started my poor time-trialler's impression of a sprint.
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