Thames Velo RR

[-Adam-]

Still I am yet to race in Surrey!

Made the trip up to Oxfordshire yesterday afternoon, to take on another class field of riders. The 80 rider field included good entries from SportBeans, Sigma Sport, Corley Cycles and a few others, like ex-pro's Yanto Barker and Alex Higham. It was never gonna be an easy race, on top of this, I've just had the hardest two weeks training of my life, ever! So I was never expecting much from this race...

However, I didn't feel too bad considering. The course was about 15 miles long, pretty flat and open, with one big ring hill but with a long descent after to negate its effect. There wasn't much wind to rip the race up either. As a result despite many many attempts, there was never a break more than about 30s away. Even at one point, a high powered break including Barker, Higham and Gaywood (Corley) got away (I was on Yanto's wheel when he went, but just couldn't hold it up the drag to the finish, he was just super strong!), but even that got reeled in. There was plenty of firepower other than the big teams in the race to chase things down.

After 40km the race was neutralised, yep, you guessed it, for some ''white line crossing''. While the Comm had a go, almost the entire peloton decided to take a piss, not that we were taking the piss out of him or anything! Personally I didn't think there was anything that untoward that meant the race needed stopping, but there you go. He let us continue, so that was what mattered. This little break however was good for me, as I'd been feeling a bit rubbish for the first few laps, now I was warming up.

It was becoming clear that the race was going to come to a bunch sprint, so for the final 2.5 laps I just sat in, ticking over. Come the final lap I made sure I was in the right place at the right time, was in the top 10 riders as we hit the hill for the last time. As expected it blew up a bit there, over the top I was in a move a few seconds clear, on the wheel of Barker and Higham, I didn't even feel like I had to try that hard to match them at that point either which was good. On the descent the bunch gradually came back together. At this point I was in pure spinter mode, I was not surrendering my place to no one. With hind sight I was probably a bit too close to the front too early, but c'est la vie, lesson learnt. The last 200m were flat, but just prior was a drag of about 300m. Of course some muppets decided that 500m is an appropriate distance to start sprinting from! So I was forced to follow, but soon found my sprinters legs left behind somewhere in the last two weeks of training. Faded badly before the line resulting in another disappointing thirtysomethingth place. But the important bit was I was able to get myself in the right place at the right time.

So a fairly decent ride considering the field, but still no result, I couldn't hide my disappointment after the race. But it's coming... Simon Gaywood was the worthy winner, his team mates did a good job of keeping the pace high on the run in and he was pretty clear in the sprint. Off to Ireland on Thursday morning for the 4-day Rás Mumhan, some tasty looking dutch teams on the start list adding a somewhat international feel to the race, bring it on...

[Toks]

A nice honest report Adam. With such a hard 2 week training block is the race considered part of your training?..I see Sam Allen (AW Cycles) managed to get himself up in the top 10 positions - he's a good rider

[-Adam-]

Yeah, it was only ever going to be a training race. That said, it's still upsetting when you can get yourself where you need to be, only to not have the legs when it really matters. Had I been fresh, who knows...

Sam is a top rider, I'm hoping to get him on my team shortly. There were some discussions yesterday between himself, myself and the boss. So it's looking promising. It's just a shame he lives so far away (Swindon way), as it makes it difficult for him to really be a part of the team if we're doing training etc together from the squad base. He is a class though, got to know him at the beginning of last year, and keep bumping into him all over. AW Cycles is definately not the best place for him, as the older guys just expect him to work for them. Well, the result yesterday showed that ain't gonna happen, he blew away Martin Smith!

[Sylv]

Out of interest Adam, will you generally allow yourself a pint (or did you have more at the ACC race) the day before a race?

Oh and do you know what the average speed was?

[johnnyha]

121km in 2:29 means average speed of 48kph.

[Sylv]

So it seems ..

That is TdF-quick!

[-Adam-]

[quote="johnnyha"]121km in 2:29 means average speed of 48kph.

[johnnyha]

Got those details from Kevin Knox. Did you account for the comfort break?

[-Adam-]

I think my computer accounts for starts and stops, but I'm not sure...

It was never 48km/h av though!

[Toks]

[quote="johnnyha"]Got those details from Kevin Knox. Did you account for the comfort break?

[johnnyha]

I attacked quite a lot in the first half, got away with small groups a couple of times, but never for more than a minute or two. After the stoppage I resigned myself to finishing the race in the bunch and, not having Adam's turn of speed, didn't attempt to contest the sprint. It was my first race back from a two-week layoff after crashing in France, so the main thing for me was to get my racing head back on, and check that my body was in full working order. Both of those goals were achieved, so I will be heading off with Adam for the Ras Mumhan.

As for the average speed, whatever it was, the course was far too easy!

[Toks]

Wow - i had no idea about the crash, I'm glad your back racing again

[-Adam-]

[quote="Toks"]Wow - i had no idea about the crash, I'm glad your back racing again