Life In The Saddle

After a scorching road race on Tuesday morning, we had a chilled day on Wednesday and spent the time cleaning bikes, having lunch out, and trying to rest the legs before the town centre criterium on Wednesday evening. I decided to sit out of the mountain bike criterium on Tuesday night, in a bid to try and get some feeling back into my shredded legs and core. It was a good call for me, to be honest; because watching Adam, Stu and Sean take part in the incredibly testing obstacle course didn’t leave me yearning to be racing in it. As mentioned in the previous post, my MTB bike handling skills are still in need of some work! Road Town Centre Criterium  Thursday rolled around quickly, and despite a pulled hamstring, I was feeling in decent shape for the criterium. The lapped circuit around St. Helier was set to be an incredible spectacle, and the crowd support was superb. We lined up in the 50 deep field, and waited for the flag to drop… The race went from the gun. Neither...

I raced in the support race before the main event Photo Credit: Island Echo Tight corners and fast downhills made for an ultra technical course Team mate Andy Shackel had a great race, off the front for most of the 40 minutes duration Despite his early effort, Andy pulled out a great 3rd place in the sprint Then the big boys took to the course... Blistering pace Greasy corners A brave solo breakaway by Tom Stewart A thinned out field Union street was a killer A very nice Felt AR1 Strung out from the gun Stewart (pictured) was eventually pulled back in, but then Tom Scully his team mate attacked and took a classy win

In the style of Jens Voigt: "breakaways don't often work; but , in order for a breakaway to work, there actually has to be a breakaway!". Bike racing is a numbers game, and today I decided that although breakaways don't often work, neither do my sprints; so, I was better to try and make a break stick, than sit in and wait for the bunch gallop. An open airfield circuit race, with an uphill section into a Force 6 headwind, probably isn't the best place to try and instigate a solo break, but it seemed worth a shot... Bike racing is a numbers game; and I knew the more attempts I made at breaking away, the more likely one would come good. Straight from the first lap of the 11 lap course, I tried attacking. One, two, three; I would go off the front, sometimes with others, sometimes on my own, but all three times I got swallowed up by the chasing pack. Finally, on lap five, it came good. Just after the chicane, and as the bunch had slowed a little, I went... hard...

I know that I struggle with crits, and today confirmed that. Racing round Winchester Park and Ride was hard for me last year; the constant accelerations, cornering and sprinting proved difficult for my diesel engine, this year was much the same. Last Sunday I asked my legs to keep going for 11 hours of riding, this Sunday I wanted them to go flat out, time after time for an hour of racing. Those kinds of mixed demands are difficult to deal with. To cut things short, the race went off quick, and a combination of bad positioning, poor cornering and a shock to the system put me on the back foot almost straight away. A rider a few wheels in front of me dropped the wheel on the hairpin on about the 10th lap, and then we lost touch with the front ten riders or so, and didn't get back into the group. Once you're off the back in a crit, it's difficult to get back on. The group of four or five I was in tried, but failed, and eventually we were lapped and back in the "m...