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!

Tour de Feminin Krasna Lipa Day 3

Sorry, no time to write tonight. A very busy day today with a time trial this morning and a 104k road stage this evening. All in 44 degree heat. It's time for bed now for our team. We're still doing really well, right up there in the team classification. I bumped up to 17th on GC this morning after the time trial but I'm not sure about this evening as the results aren't out yet. Three of us finished in the front group again although the sprint to the finish was crazy with technical corners, descents and cobbles in the mix.

Tour de Feminin Krasna Lipa Day 2

A very quick update this evening from Czech Republic. Time is on the tight side, it’s dinner time in 30 minutes and I can’t seem to eat enough at the moment.

Another great day in the saddle for the Rapha Team with a few thrills and spills in the mix. We started off as the 5th placed team out of 29 and the route today was three large laps, with a long climb and a trip down the motorway followed by two and a half smaller laps.

Things started well when our warm up took us in to Germany and we got water bombed by some kids hanging out of the window of a house. It would have been nice to have got a little wetter as the weather was 33˚C at 10am! Things got worse when the whole team got boxed in at the start, then again when Rachel was caught behind a rider coming down in front of her less than 500m into the race and then again when we got stopped at a level crossing a few more kilometres in. For a while the race passed without too much incident. The climbs were fun and I was at the front for them but with the long sweeping descent afterwards there was ample time for riders to catch back on. Then, about 50k in a few girls went down on the level crossing. I was just behind and slammed on my brakes, stopped and managed to get round them, Corrine picked a line through them but Alli had a little less luck and after getting round the girls was clipped by someone else and promptly got flung into a ditch. She’s a little grazed with sore ribs but it seems the grass broke her fall even though she had to use her hands to clamber out of said ditch.

Getting back into the bunch was no easy task and it was the bottom of the climb before I got back on, even later for Alli. The bunch then continued on as before, a much bigger peleton than yesterday and it was 20km out from the finish that the next excitement happened. By this time I was absolutely gasping for more water as I’d missed the feed zone whenever we’d been passed it before. Then suddenly I spotted Cath Williamson’s Mum, Brenda (Who was helping to support us) but I was on the left side of the bunch and she was on the right hand side. Shouting out ‘There’s Cath’s Mum!’ in delight I powered past the bunch to make sure I could get to Cath’s Dad Tony who was just up the road. Grabbing a bottle and throwing away my empty I looked behind me to see I had a pretty sizeable gap and a quick look down at my bike computer showed we had 20k to go. The finish line was downhill and there were no sizeable climbs in the remainder of the route to break the peleton up so with nothing to loose and everything to gain being only 9 seconds down on GC I decided to put my head down and make an attack. I thought someone would come with me but no one appeared and after a while I was told by a following motorcyclist I had a 40 second gap! Being only 9 seconds down on GC this could have been a very handy 40 seconds. I powered as hard as I could up a long drag into the wind but it seems after a while, once they realised that I was a threat, Norris Cycling (whose rider Trixi Worrack is leading on GC) put the hammer down to catch me. Apparently the whole peleton was strung out in a single line and try as I might I just couldn’t stay away. I was away for a while but unfortunately caught with about 8km to go.

After all my effort I was determined not to get spat out the back and finished in the bunch which came down to a sprint as I suspected. I didn’t lose any time but didn’t gain that 40 seconds either. The Rapha team are still doing brilliantly with three of us finishing in the sprint and two just behind plus I've now moved up into 20th place on GC.

The dinner bell has gone in our boarding school and I must be fed. It’s a 7.30am start tomorrow with the Polish Police arriving to escort us to Poland where the time trial is being held. An early night tonight that’s for sure!