Life In The Saddle

Last week I gave a summary of my " 2012 Season Objectives: What did I tick off? ", it's now time to look forward to 2013 and see what's on the cards, and what I would like to achieve both on and off the bike next year. On the bike Objective #1: 1st Cat Road Race Licence (or maintain 2nd Cat) On the road, this will be my main objective for next year. I went from 4th to 2nd Category this year and hope to make the big jump up to 1st Cat next year. I realize it will be a big step, and with final year university studies, the prospect of getting a job and other commitments I know it will be a big ask; but it would be amazing to get there, or at very least maintain my 2nd Cat licence.  Objective #2: Do a hill climb season After this year's rather poor performance in the BUCS Hill Climb , I'm keen to make amends. I would like something to extend my season a bit, and the hill climb season seems like the perfect fit. I'll aim to put in ...

Perplexed, annoyed and relieved. Those three words seem rather juxtaposed, but that’s kind of how I felt about my result from Saturday’s BUCS hill climb championship at Curbar Gap. I came in with a time of 06:28, which was 21 seconds slower than last year, and a long way off the pace of the best riders, who were clocking in times around the 05:50 mark. I say perplexed and annoyed because I’m not really sure what went wrong. I’ve had a strong season and have been going reasonably well on the hills if the CRC Mountain Bike Marathon and the Seven Hills Killer was anything to gauge it by. Rather than being overly disappointed with my result, it was more a case of confusion, much the same as when you get a piece of coursework back that you think was good, and then it turned out to be a C grade. So I tried to pin it down on the long drive back from the Peak District. It could have been expectation; last year it was such an unknown of how I would do, and as a result there w...