Three Races, Four Days, Two Countries

It’s been a busy few days for me and my Giant, adventures in Richmond Park, a journey to Europe and some fun on the cobbled roads of Belgium. First off early on Sunday morning was round two of the Richmond Park 10.4 mile Time Trial Series organised by London Dynamo Prologue and sponsored by none other than Prologue Bikes. Richmond Park is a familiar training ground for most of the entrants, I certainly feel like I know every pot hole and bend inside out.

The event is held before the park opens to the public to allow us to go slightly faster than the usual 20mph speed limit which meant a 6:14:30 start time for me and a very early bowl of wheetabix. There are also distinct categories between road and TT bikes and as the last of the girls to be set off I was not only on a road bike chasing a girl with full TT get up but also being chased by a guy who looked similarly aero. Rachel Joyce was the girl off in front of me, a pro triathlete, and I was determined not to let her get away from me.

Along the first straight and up the long draggy climb from Roehampton Gate to Richmond Gate Rachel certainly wasn’t gaining any distance from me and I may have been making up some ground but as soon as she turned left to go down the long downhill the benefits of anything aero she had about her person came into play and she flew away from me. I was then stuck in a bit of a vacuum. There was no one in front in sight I could chase although this did also happily mean the man behind me hadn’t caught me either. At the finish I was feeling pretty disappointed so I was amazed to hear that I had won the ladies road bike category ahead of the previous round’s winner Elise Laverick Sherwell and Rachel Armitage from London Dynamo.

Full report

http://www.londoncyclesport.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1403:london-dynamo-prologue-richmond-tt-2&catid=38:time-trial&Itemid=92

Photos

http://www.londoncyclesport.com/index.php?option=com_phocagallery&view=category&id=365:richmondtt20102&Itemid=79

Thank you to Rebbecca Slack for organising such a great event and for the free tea from the café afterwards.

By Monday evening I was safely in Belgium ready for a couple of weeks of racing. The first one, a 94km leg opener near Oudenaarde with a couple of cobbled sections thrown in was the following day. The race was over 11 laps and I was pleased to see a few familiar English faces on the start line. Especially after the nightmare I’d had (a) trying to find the place and (b) trying to pump up my back tyre with a broken valve. After grappling with it for a while and straining a few muscles in my side a local kindly came to my rescue and helped me out. In fact he was so excited that his handiwork held out that he insisted on buying me a drink afterwards!

My plan for the race was to be wary of doing too much work and only work when I had to as I was unsure how my legs would be from the Tour de Feminin in Krasna Lipa the previous week. Unfortunately this meant that I was busy hiding in the middle of the bunch when the decisive break went up the road. Not a place I really wanted to be caught out in. To top it all off on lap 3 both my water bottles had bounced out of my bottle cages and gone off down the road leaving me without a drop of liquid for the remaining 68km in temperatures pushing 30˚. All I could think about what the taste of water – it was like I’d been stranded in the desert and started hallucinating about it!

Determined not to let that get to me and annoyed that I had missed the break I took an opportunity to attack to try and bridge the gap to the leaders. I made my move up a slight incline which at the top would have me hidden from view from the chasers and before long I had a gap. My move was to eventually become a chase group with about 6 of us, although it was disappointing to be in a group where not everyone seemed keen to work together. In a way it felt like some of the girls were content with a top 10 finish and would rather sit in and take it from the rest of the group at the end. I would have been much keener to work as a unit to make ground on the leading group but it is difficult when not everyone has the same aim. Even so we gradually picked up a few other girls who had been riding in no man’s land between us and the lead group. As we came in on the last lap a few kilometres out I made an attack at the same point as my earlier move to try and gain a decent result. Unfortunately this time it didn’t stick and instead I only achieved in leading the girls out to a sprint finish and a 13th place for me.

After a nightmare journey home around the Brussels ring road I was back out to Oudenaarde the next afternoon for race number 3. Wednesday was a national holiday in Belgium and the race the Province Championships so there was a lot at stake for the local riders. My legs were feeling good from Tuesday’s efforts and I didn’t want any similar regrets from yesterday and missing the break.

As we hung around the start/finish line watching the presentation for the junior race I suddenly realised that the riders for our race were beginning to line up down a cobbled side street down a hill. This was not part of the course but for some reason it appeared this was the start line, by which time the only place left was right at the back of over 80 girls. Not a great place to start and with the race covering mostly narrow farm tracks it was incredibly difficult to move up the bunch once it had started. A break went up the road pretty quickly and my terrible positioning again meant I wasn’t anywhere near it. I was pretty angry with myself and my bad position made my life worse for me every time after the climb into the side wind where I had to chase on from dropped wheels.

A couple of laps later and I was stuck behind a crash on the approach to the climb, a couple of girls went on the floor, luckily nothing serious, and I managed to put my brakes on get my foot out and onto the floor. There was a bit of a domino effect and someone went into my back wheel but I got both feet back in the pedals, back on the saddle, across a bit of field and began chasing the bunch down. This took a lot longer than I would have liked and it was practically a full lap before any contact was made again. Luckily Claire Galloway and I (another Brit racing) were able to work together to bridge the gap. After the effort I needed a bit of recovery time so sat in taking the opportunity for a bit of rest. This still wasn’t what I had in mind so after watching a couple of girls attack from the front of our group with mixed results decided it was my turn. Near the beginning of the section into the side wind I made my move and got a decent gap. Keeping my head down I was determined not to look back but curiosity got the better of me and I saw two other riders bridging the gap to me. A group of three would have been very useful and we began working together but soon enough the bunch had reeled us back in.

It was somewhere around here that I started to find the riding getting a bit tough in my legs but with a 94km race the day before I didn’t really expect anything else. I was just getting more and more annoyed that I couldn’t get away from the group. Eventually after the last time up the climb I was in 3rd wheel of our group, a good position, or so I thought. That is until we turned into the side wind and the stretch to the finish line and the two girls in front seemed to ride away from me. I couldn’t understand what was happening and so, like the day before I succeeded only in leading the bunch out for the sprint, this time finishing way down in 24th. This felt like a disappointing end to the race and I slowly cycled back to the car. The emphasis being on the word slowly as it was only when I stopped racing that I realised something really wasn’t right with my bike. It must have been when someone hit my back wheel but my back brake was rubbing and I had a split in the tyre with the inner tube trying to squeeze its way out. Looking at it now I can’t quite believe how lucky I am to have finished the race with a tyre looking like that and with resistance training thrown in too it’s no wonder my legs were feeling tired!

A few days off from racing now before heading towards Antwerp early next week for a Belgium crit race - 30 x 2km loops of a town. That’s not before a recovery ride and a whole lot of food!