Life In The Saddle

The first race of the season is always a tough one. Your legs normally feel like they've been pummelled with a hammer by the end, and it leaves you mentally mixed up too. Today was no exception. I suffered like a dog at times, felt good at others, and was reminded by a big crash at the end, that you need to be on your toes at every single moment during a race. Luckily for me, the crash was a few bike lengths back from me, and I rode away untouched. I really hope the guys that weren't so lucky are OK and heal fast; it's everyone's nightmare and very sobering, especially at the start of the season. The race... E.1.2 circuit races are a mix of flat out attacks, and lulls of moderate (25-30mph) speeds. If you're a punchy rider you can jump on the attacks and hopefully one gets away. If you're a diesel engine (like me) you tend to motor around holding onto as many attacks as you can and hoping the bunch splits with the pace. Today was very much like that. I...

It's been a long time coming, but last night saw me take another top podium spot at Portsmouth Track during a hard but rewarding race. It had dried out nicely by the evening, after the day's torrential downpours, and whilst a strong wind promised to make for an interesting race, there was a full field of 40 riders present on the start line of what was to be my last 3.4 Category race. Several breaks went in the first part of the race; a few of them I was in, the rest the team and myself did a good job of chasing down and controlling. When a break I was in got reeled back in about 25 minutes into the 40 mins + 3 laps race I was just about ready to sit up and coast along in the pack for a bit. Fat chance! As the break was absorbed, I saw we had left one rider just off the front with a few metres gap. It was the same rider that had gone with me in the race a few months back when we had a successful two man break, and I had won and then been disqualified for celebrating ( Report...

Good race last night, just glad I made the start line, as I've started work down at the sailing club now and it makes getting over to Portsmouth a bit tricky. The legs didn't feel great from the off, not sure why, but I was struggling. I've put in a fair few miles in the last week and I think that I overdid it a few days ago and was still feeling the effects. Anyway, I was having to work hard to pull a few attacks back throughout the race and the legs were feeling the strain. It amazes me how different each race over at the track is, this one seemed to be a 'to-and-fro' i.e. a break would go, the pack would wait a while to see how it was working, then a few individuals in the pack would decide that enough was enough and pull the break back. It seemed that Wightlink Race Team did a lot of work to pull back break after break throughout this race, which at least proves that we are all getting stronger! I say that the race was a 'to-and-fro', but I got it ...

After last week's horrific DQ I was back to try and take revenge at Pompey track on Wednesday evening, in what proved to be an interesting race. For the first ten minutes or so I rode in the pack, warming up and getting a feel for the track and who was riding. Once again there was a strong headwind on one side of the track, which promised to make a break difficult. At about ten minutes into the forty minute race I got in a break of about six riders and we began to work well together. I thought it could work and for about twenty minutes we stayed away from the bunch; but certain riders in the group weren't pulling their weight and as the workers in the group began to catch onto that fact they too tried to take shorter turns on the front and as a result the pace of the group slowed. The peloton kept chasing and the hopes of staying away were gradually lost as we were reeled back in. For a few minutes I sat back in the pack. Then Robbie, one of the lads from the Island, cam...

Think I've calmed down enough now to write a blog on Wednesday's race. Which was possibly one of the most gutting experiences of my life. My first race back at Portsmouth Mountbatten Track after exams and sickness didn't start that well. The legs didn't feel like they were there for the first ten minutes of the race, I wasn't surprised given the lack of preparation that I have had in the past month. However, by fifteen minutes in something was coming, I was active on the front chasing down breaks and I was able to ride in the wheels fairly well, dodging the brutal headwind that was hitting us on one side of the track. The majority of the race was fairly standard; a few breaks went off the front, but we chased them down reasonably well. The only thing that I did note was that the bunch really wasn't working very well together, certainly compared to the E.1.2.3 BUCS Road Race that I did back in May (the last race I rode). There was a select group that was work...

The plan for yesterday's race was to sit in the bunch and just get my top eight finish that I needed to move out of 4th Cat...It didn't quite turn out like that. I got the result, but it was a bit more of an exciting race than I expected.... The weather was grim as six members of the Wightlink Race Team travelled over on the ferry for the race. It looked like similar to last week we would have a wet race and be covered head-to-toe with Pompey grit. Turning up at the track the turnout looked like it was down on numbers, but by the time the race started, the full field of 45 riders was filled and it looked set to be another hard race... I started right at the back, keen to sit-in and conserve energy as a lesson from last week. As attacks started going off the front though, I began to move up. Fifteen minutes in, a group of three riders went off the front and got a good gap; it looked promising, and looked like they might work together, so I bridged across to them and once a...

Photos Courtesy of Neil Andrews - He takes some great pics! This Wednesday saw eight Wightlink Race Team riders travel over to Pompey for the Ray Martin Distance League series. It was my first time there, and it turned out to be a bit of a baptism of fire... Arriving in Portsmouth, black clouds were brewing directly over the Mountbatten Centre track, and as we rode in the gate the first spatters of rain fell....then the heavens opened and hailstorms came pouring down. The Juniors were out doing their race on the track and it didn't look like much fun; in fact their race was cut short as the conditions worsened. Luckily by the start of our race it had stopped raining...just, and after one quick "warm-up" lap (I didn't warm up at all), we were lining up to start. The pace from-the-off picked up pretty quick, it wasn't long before we were rolling round the track at 25mph or so. I sat in the main pack for the first few laps, then as attacks started going off t...

It might be a 3hour drive from Warwick down to the National Velodrome in Newport, South Wales...but boy is it worth it! The facility is almost brand new - built just a few years ago and inside it is an impressive sight, even more so when you walk in to the spectators area to see the Olympic Youth Squad training on the track - very impressive lads and girls, all pushing some serious speeds up to 40mph as they practised their 500m times on the 250meter track. After getting suited up in skinsuits and collecting our bikes we headed into the centre of the track - a little daunting to say the least - the angle of the banking is pretty damn steep! The coach got us riding round the flat area on the edge of the track to get used to the fixed speed bikes. Then gradually we moved up the banking - first on the "Cote d'azur": the blue edge of the boards that isn't too steeply sloped, then moving up and gaining speed onto the higher levels of the track. Before long we were picking ...