Dunsfold Breakaway

[George]

Dunsfold today 3rd cat race and the presence of Addiscombe was LARGE!!

We had Paul T, Paul H, Kevin, Adam, Sylvan and myself all out in force.

Paul H and I were feeling pretty confident after our outing last week, we knew that we had to try and dictate the race to our advantage.

Straight away the breaks tried to go off the front from lap 1. I stayed up near the head of the race where Marek, Sylvan and Paul were from the start.

Sylvan then went pretty hard off the front and a few other riders joined him. Us Addiscombe riders were sitting on the front of the group slowing it down, but this was very early in the race on the first lap I believe.

Sitting in the top 5 or so of the Peloton seems to be getting a bit easier now, riders tend to give way to us a bit more maybe it’s because the other guy’s are starting to respect the Yellow Agreeables after recent exploits.

After a lap or so Sylvan and the other breakaway riders returned to the fray but a couple of riders from the break had gone ahead, at this stage we didn’t know about this!

We tried a few times to go off the front in the next laps but just seemed to drag the Peloton along quicker. I thought it was going to be a lot harder to get a group off the front this time as surely our numbers had been marked.

Still with 6 laps to go, Paul sprinted ahead with Marek and some others and suddenly there was a little gap. I knew I had to be in there. I gave a 100% full blast to bridge over then we all acknowledged each other and dug deep.

We seemed to easily pull away from the Peloton and realised there was still nearly an hour and a half to go.

Six of us together we were really motoring along and dropped one guy off. In the breakaway there was Paul H, Marek, a Dynamo, another guy and me.

I was feeling good and a couple of times I went too strong and nearly pulled away from the others oops. It was me, Paul, Dynamo and the other (in red) doing all the work, Marek was shot (too much beer this week) and was along just for the ride in the back seat not taking any turns up front.

The marshals signalled 2 mins then we realised there must be 2 guy’s up the road ahead of us so we cracked on upped the pace a bit but not enough to catch them. At one stage we had it doen to just over a minute.

2 laps to go Paul and I were feeling very fresh, the Dynamo Guy was SHOT he even told us so! and said he was thirsty and had no water. Guy in red was looking a bit poached as well but still doing his turns.

Then Paul suggested an ADDISCOMBE STRATEGIC PLAN.
At the start of the final lap where there was a short climb we were to attack right at the top into the vicious head wind after letting the Red guy pull us up the hill.

This is exactly what we did and it worked a treat!! Within the space of 300m we were almost out of sight of the other 3 we rejoiced almost gave a high 5 then nailed down to the riding.

I was starting to feel a bit weary in the legs, Paul was doing more effort in our through and off, still I was not out of breath. We were hitting 30mph as we turned left into the last road, we were lovin it!

One final climb to the finish line each man to themselves we were head to head big ringing it up to the finish.

Light Paul easily pulled ahead up the hill and crossed the line first.
We saw the 2 riders who stayed away from the start shook hands and were happy we managed to pull off an Addiscombe 3 4 ahead of the rest.

[Stu Merckx Man]

well done you 2, you are going to be 2nd cats in no time!

[Andrew G]

Great read George. It's good to see that not only are you and Paul riding strong and finishing at the front of races, but you also seem to be really enjoying yourselves and having fun too.

[Marek]

The view from the back of the breakaway was impressive, I was struggling today, although pleased I managed to get the break going with the guys again.

George is not telling a lie, I did hardly any turns once we were away and I was struggling on the hills a bit, although it was fun to be able to sit in and just enjoy the ride.

When Paul and George made there move, the London Dynamo guy basically gave up and died. The other guy and me tried to keep Paul and George in sight, which we managed. All of a sudden with about 3 miles to go I was caught by three other riders who were motoring. I sat in again. They were shouting at me to take a turn, but after sitting with George and Paul for so long there was no way I was going anywhere near the front much to there annoyance.

As we got to the final hill one of the guys who was in the earlier group sprinted off the front, I went after him and managed to beat the others who had dragged me a bit to get 6th place. Am really pleased as did not touch the bike for the whole week, need to get some training in this week so I can help out a bit more in the breaks.

Well done Paul and George, great effort on the last lap, although at one point I thought that the three that had caught my group were going to catch you up.

Cheers

Marek....

[Ian A4size]

Well done you guys, really intelligent racing by the sound of it and also fair play to Marek for sitting up and doing nothing- that is not how he normally rides.
It must have been hard for George and Paul to sit in yesterday to save their legs.
Paul- was that your mate who was as red as his bike.

George thanks for towing Jo home yesterday- a gentlmen indeed.

[Dr Frigo]

[img]http://www.stuff.co.nz/images/285050.jpg[/img]

Once John "man in green" is racing with you guys we'll only be left with the small issue of finding a fast Ringo

Hats off to you two and Marek, I got to realise how hard it is to ride in a small break on open roads. I didn't even intentionally attack at the start, just found myself ahead taking a turn and then those two guys only joined so just went for it ... it didn't last very long till I had to let them go No way I could keep up at that pace for two hours (well maybe off-road ).

I forgot to check that my computer was working which was annoying as I had no notion of the time, distance and kind of average speed we were doing. I also realised at some point I didn't know where the finish was, but thankfully Paul T was there with all the relevant info to hand! He was riding strong and a couple times did some useful pushes to get back onto groups that were about to get away.

Adam was also there and stayed with the bunch this time, so did Kevin who I'm sure must've been the most recent father in the race. It was all pretty hard work, very windy, a couple times I almost got swallowed and spat back by the bunch on the climb immediately after the fast downhill towards the end of the lap, having been left to do too much work on the flat/downhill section before, luckily I hung on to the very last riders - after that I always let people ahead on that section even if it meant once slowing down to a near-freewheel - no-one seemed to want to lead!

There was no real organised through and off, except on the final lap when a small group of us tried getting away from the bunch. I wasn't looking back, I think we managed to stay slightly ahead which meant the sprint uphill wasn't too mad, just a half-dozen of us contesting it where I think I came in the middle.

Legs are really shot now and outside of feet painful, never had this before, maybe as it's the first time I had such a long race (2h30 (?)) with road pedals/shoes.

Well done again it won't be long till you start winning races. Great report from George too.

[Paul H]

Had great fun today and cant add much more than what George said.

Marek did as much as he could and did some good turns on the downhill bits and was pretty impresive considering the beer training he's been doing. Personaly I like Marek being in the break just to see the pain in his face as I find it very motivating.

When we attacked with 6 miles to go, George did start to suffer and was no longer smiling but he did his fair share of work. Unfortunately for George the short steep hill 50 yards before the finish cooked him which allowed me to nip away for 3rd.

I like to thank the other ACC riders (Adam, Sylv, Paul & Kevin) who did some good blocking to help us get away. I will return the favour one day.

Yes it was my mate in the club run yesterday - he wont be doing any racing in the near future.

[Stu Merckx Man]

Inspiring stuff!

[Dr Frigo]

George forgot to mention how he was apparently giving some cow-boy inspired "YEE-HAAAs" whilst riding at the front, induced presumably by the sugar rush of some jelly babies.

[Marek]

That is true, it certainly got the others in the break worried. We were all dying whereas George was shouting cowboy chants at the top of his voice he was having so much fun.

Cheers

Marek...

[-Adam-]

well, i just cant believe how strong you two are at the moment. its just not fair! and marek, you spend a whole week pissed and still manage a decent break. fcuk me.

anyways, i enjoyed it today. felt 100% better than last week, which was nice. felt comfortable sitting near the front most of the race. and i had a quality time of playing team tactics marking some chase attempts on the george/paul/marek break. was great, i felt like a pro doing the right thing by his team. was right up there whe the three musketeers went clear, but knew i would not be strong enough to stay with them. so just sat on the front with sylv and we ambled along like a 17group on a saturday morning! then marked a few attempts to chase, much to the annoyance of one of the 'surrey league youth boys'. stu, you would slaughter them!

good day all in all, shame i had to rush off to my mum. nevermind ay! legs do feel a little sore now, there were times when i had to convince myself i could finish. but it was a long race, 2h 17m in the saddle, snd giving it some too.

nxt race for me is the addiscombe on the 31st, closely followed by cutmill on the 1st, april fool? probably, but i wanna race all i can this year...

see if i can get close to george and paul... i wish!

cheers,

adam

[Matthew Ives]

Well done to everyone who raced.
Again, another fantastic ACC effort spearheaded by Paul and George.

Don't worry Adam: Paul and George are on a completely different level to everyone else. They are essentially 1st cats in 3rd cat clothing.In a month or two they'll be doing E12 races and you won't have to race against them.

[Dr Frigo]

Do you have the race mileage too Adam?

Rode to work today and my legs are like jelly ...

[George]

Cheers to all the team for team for their work behind in the peloton which helped us stay up the road.

The guy Paul and I jumped on the last lap wasn't very happy at the finish, He said "I thought all 3 of us were gonna go together" We told him he wasn't weraring Yellow so he couldn't possibly have come along:lol:

Must also point out that Paul Tunnell won the bunch sprint when the peloton sprinted for the finish line.

Sylv I saw you riding along Wellesley Road today this morning I must agree you looked pretty shagged

[Dr Frigo]

Yeah that plus the northerly wind made me about 7 minutes slower than usual. Vauxhall Bridge was like Box Hill.

We forgot to say a photographer took us 6 ACC & Marek in photo after the finish, I think she said it would be in the Croydon Advertiser and some other newspaper.