May 3 day: Stage 1

Although my motivation to race has been dwindling since Kirdford 2/3’s, I enjoyed Kitsmead on Thursday, and strangely looked forward to the May 3 day, even though I had committed to doing only the first stage. I spoke to the rest of the Paceline team pre-race, and sussed out who could do what.

The Alfold course is shocking through the twisty sections. I sat in, and after the first prime, saw Albert Ellison’s Botecchia kit in the break, with a Southdown and Wyndymilla rider, and a Twickenham rider (James Bradley) attempting to bridge. With Wyndymilla controlling the front for the first 10 miles and being well represented, I attacked 13.5 miles in. It was a new strategy for me to go so early, but I hoped to get other teams doing chasing as we didn’t have a designated sprinter as such for me to bury myself for. On going, I thought to myself that I could really have used a skinsuit and my deep sections/latex tubes!

We worked well, and after 50 minutes, Albert put in a big dig coming into Alfold. The Wyndymilla began to miss turns after this, and the Southdown guy was doing shorter, slower turns. Our gap went from 1 minute, down to 25 seconds on the final lap of Alfold, and we could see the bunch, with Pat and Stu Spies between us. As they got across, we were now 7, and if truth be told, it took us 20 minutes to organise ourselves. Stu Spies was clearly getting agitated as this, and rightly so!

Onto the Dunsfold circuit, and Albert was also now struggling with Pat & Stu fresh and strong. Any gaps that were opening, I was telling Pat to stop chasing, and would try to put my nose into the wind at every given opportunity to close the gaps. I also told him to attack on the last lap with Stu Spies and the Twickenham guy, as it would be their best chance of staying away from Albert, the Wyndymilla guy, and the Southdowns. With 2 to go, I was feeling okay, like I could finish with the group. We were working really well at this point with a through and off until the back section towards the red phone box when it went tits up again. At this point I decided to do longer pulls and try to empty myself to keep the break away. I did 2 or 3 longer stints on the front through the twisty bits and on the downhill, sat on the back, but was totally spent. With the bunch clearly about 10s behind. We were joined by a rider from Army Cycling Union.

As we came onto the bell lap, I sat up and drifted back to the bunch, being towed by Jamie Lowden. Albert and the Wyndymilla guy also dropped off. I couldn’t even get into the paceline to disrupt the chase, so went through the peloton like a bowling ball, looking for our riders. I found Tom and asked him to get to the front if he could to disrupt the chase, and within 5 minutes, he was on the front through the fastest bit (twisty section), doing a fantastic job of blocking – he really helped Pat’s lead! Fantastic teamwork.

As we came down the descent, I couldn’t keep the pace, and rolled in, passed a crash, and was delighted to hear Pat got 3rd. I was empty. Just short of 2 hours at 270w/292w NP, and 3 hours at 250w, 282w NP.

[u][b]Stat Attack:[/b][/u]
TSS: 245
2588kj

AP: 250w / 282w NP
Avg HR: 172bpm (83%)
Cadence: 98rpm

In the break:
AP: 270w / 292w NP.
Avg HR: 178bpm (86%)
Avg cadence: 100rpm

[u][b]GC:[/b][/u]
1st James Bradley ~2h50m
2nd Army CU + 10s
3rd Pat Wright +20s
4th Stu Spies +30s
Rest of the bunch + 1 minute

Shame I’m a DNS for the last 2 stages and won’t further participate, but I feel like I’ve contributed!

Kingston Wheeler Dunsfold 3rds

Having volunteered or co-organised this event since 2011, this was my first opportunity to race it. I’ve always wanted to take part, so I put a lot of pressure on myself to win it. I woke up feeling very lethargic and achey with a blocked nose 48 hours before the race, which continued to yesterday. Thankfully I was feeling better this morning, but it didn’t stop it from getting me up at 05:55 with a blocked nose!

Longcross felt ridiculously tough last week, and wasn’t that enjoyable. I much prefer the rolling open road, so I welcomed my first road race since August 2013.

With no real obvious finisher in the race for us, Colin, Paul and I had a quick chat about attacking, and I spoke with a couple of Kingston Wheelers. On a narrow course where 1/4 of the left hand side of the course seems to be potholes or ruts, blocking would be able to work effectively.

As soon as the race was deneutralised, attacks were frequent. A lot of riders were moving up on the wrong side of the road and shouting “squeeze in/go left”, which is where all the potholes and ruts were! I found myself at the back of the race with Ed, who I reiterated our gameplan to. I saw Colin stop to fix his bars which had come lose in his stems bar clamp. He did well to chase back on. However, the problem required an allen key, and from what I gather speaking to him after, having fixed it, he wasn’t able to close the gap and get back on, sitting ~1 min down for a couple of laps.

Watching the attacks, groups of 4-8 were going off the front. Assuming these gaps were from tiring chasers, with an hour left, I thought I’d try to get among the action and bridged across into the headwind. Andrew Davies of Kingston Wheelers joined, but the group, which was well represented with many other teams, didn’t work at all well. Soon the bunch were with us again, which was frustrating.

I attacked again under the trees, just before the telephone box, going across to Paul Hone of Addiscombe and taking another rider came with me (I didn’t recognise the kit). The break wasn’t working as smoothly and coherently as I would have liked, and the unknown rider dropped my wheel, and my solo effort began. At this point, Paul Moore was doing a fantastic job blocking (competitors have told me he was a pain in the arse which is great!).

With 20 seconds on the bunch, and after horrendously overshooting the left hand turn at the bottom of the descent, I stayed away for a lap and a half longer before noticing 3 riders bridging about 10 seconds back. I couldn’t see the bunch behind them, and with 2 laps to go, I sat up and drifted back to them before we started working together. It was Andrew Davies of KW, Paul Hone of Addiscombe, and a Dulwich’s Matt Hammond. All committed to the break.

I was feeling tired, and unsure of the others capabilities in a sprint. I had also been out on my own for 25 minutes, so felt my top end was compromised. After the respite of sharing the work woith 3 others, I didn’t want to contest the sprint. I decided to jump hard with ~10 mins left. After seeing I had the gap, I looked back to see Matt Hammond doing a big pull and I felt Andrew may have been able to bridge, which spurred me on further. I was further gambling that they would then start playing games and not want to be on the front chasing.

As I came down the descent, I had about 10-15 seconds on the chasers. After scaling the hill, I was able to ease up and celebrate my return to road racing with a victory, gratis to Paul, who took what looked like a respectable top 15-20 finish. Paceline RT’s first road race, Paceline-RTs first win. Delighted!

Credit to ‘Digi’ Dave Hayward for this.

Longcross 2/3: A return to racing!

Since October, I’ve been trying to regain race fitness. After a 3rd place finish in the road bike category a fortnight ago at the Redhill 18 TT – my first competitive event in 16 months – I was feeling confident that I was able to race once more.

2014 involved co-founding a new cycle racing club for me, Paceline-RT, whose membership have an interest in competitive events, and also promoting and hosting events to give back to amateur racing. Having won the team prizes at both the Sporting 14 and Sporting 18 TT events, and producing individual winners, we had begun building a successful reputation early!

In our first race of the season, I was joined by Andy Lack, Sam Andrews, and Tom Whatley. Tom had raced the winter series, and recently been promoted to 3rd cat with a 2nd place finish at Hillingdon. With Longcross being exposed, windy, and not much chance to get out of sight, it’s fair to say its a course that didn’t really suit any of us.

My own goal was to get some race surges back into my legs, and also bunch riding. Having spent so much of the winter solo riding and on the turbo, racing is very different! With few team tactics except maybe to try some attacks, the field of 100 were set off.

The first few laps were quite quick, with ASL 360’s Pete Morris doing a lot of chasing. After 30 minutes or so, Alex Tinsley of Twickenham chipped off the front with 4-5 others. At this time, I was meandering the arse end of the bunch with no interest in going up the road so early, as I thought anything in the first half would be doomed to fail. I was talking to Pete Allen, and he agreed.

Slowly, the remains of the break were whittling down, but the gap was increasing from 20 seconds, to 30 seconds. With 45 minutes left, I attempted an attack towards the end of the headwind section. Over 3 minutes at 340w, and a look over my shoulder revealed the bunch lined out, so I sat up, not content to drag them. Clearly my jump wasn’t hard enough!

So I sat in again to rest up. The break had gone out to 40 seconds with about 30 minutes left. At this point, a chase was becoming more organised with individual members joining the odd Kingston Wheeler & our Sam Andrews in with London Dynamo’s strength in numbers. Andy Lack had a dig, but like other takes before him, it came to nothing.

Over the course of a lap, the gap had come down to 30s to the leader. On the penultimate lap, Alex Tinsley was out there alone and suffering as the gap continued to decrease.  One rider tried to bridge and had a gap of about 6 seconds. I attacked on the tailwind section and got a 15m gap. I tried settling into a rhythm, and was joined by a rider in fluro wet weather kit. We bridged across to Harry Ribbons of VC Meudon. It was 75 seconds at 410w, and I flicked the next guy through. The gap to the bunch was maybe 5 metres at this point, so again, I sat up.

Bell lap, and I kept myself out of trouble as the bunch swept up Tinsley after his heroic effort. I came onto the finishing straight in about 40th position. I kept myself out of the wind moving up with the wheels on the sheltered side, and then moved out into the headwind to avoid any spills, finishing 20-25th roughly. The race was won by London Dynamo’s Tom Hargreaves.

An 66.5kg, an expected result for myself. Feels good to finally get back racing. I spent too long pottering around at the back, mainly because I was worried about doing something stupid having spent so long away from racing, but also group riding in general! After 30 minutes, I felt comfortable when I did move up towards the front, but I’m not sure if was easier towards the front. I took the surging efforts on the hills far easier than everyone else, so naturally drifted back as mid-bunch, there was a lot of braking in the corners. At least on the back, I could take it easier on the surging lumps, and then get back in again through the corners.  With one break up the road, and few wanting to bridge, it didn’t pay to be in a decent position as it was quite negative racing.

With 2 other Paceline members, we’re helping assit the Cyclopark accreditation tomorrow for the 4th cats. They’ll probably be able to teach me a thing or two more than I will them!

Race stats:
1h 47m over 48.7 miles
Avg speed: 24.9mph
232w AP / 261w NP