You Don't Win No Silver - You Only Lose The Gold

Today was the second lincs league race of the season, unfortunately I missed the first one, but I think I made up for it today.

It was a smallish course so we did 6 laps I think, I lost count. I knew from the outset we had to ride fast to annoy the faster riders who expected us to go slow, so I pretty much controlled most of the race, sitting on or near the front, directing the motion of the group.

On each lap there was a nice climb, not terribly long but when you do it over and over it takes it out of you. I made sure that at the corner before the climb I was near the front of the group, then stormed up the hill in my usual attacking manner. By the last lap it was feeling tough, and a Boston Wheelers rider decided to attack. This is when it becomes apparent that a brain is definitely neccessary for road racing: I had to make a split second decision whether to fall back and conserve my energy for the final sprint or to use up some power now to get at the front. I decided to put down the power, then I sat on the other rider's wheel around the top corner and up to the 200 metre to go sign, when I leaped out into my powerful sprint to the line. 

The guy who won I think was a slow group rider who was actually faster than he should have been, but coming second just seconds after him didn't make my performance any the less impressive.

My legs burnt incredibly during and just after the sprint, so me and Joe (who broke out of the peloton to steal third just after me), span out the lactic acid then headed back to find the parents. I rode up to my Dad and basically fell on him as I couldn't really stand at that point.

After recovering on the ride down back to the race HQ, we hung around for a few minutes, handed in our numbers - I was 38 - and headed off home.

Happy Birthday Ride

A cyclist can ask little more than to have an enjoyable club ride run at a fast pace with some nice hills for his birthday, and thats just what I got. The weather could've come a bit earlier, the afternoon was great but the morning was a bit overcast and the arm and leg warmers had to come out.

My family came back from a week away that afternoon, earlier than expected, they were back already when I got in just after 1pm. Unfortunately this meant I didn't get to rest like I'm meant to after a hard training ride, but we did go out for dinner which I guess made up for it a bit. I did also get to watch most of the Amstel Gold race on Eurosport too, which turned out to be quite a good race. The dutch races are always a bit crazy: big pelotons around small country lanes and sharp corners, very dangerous and exciting.

A birthday well spent I think :)

Blowing A Tube

This afternoon I went out for a climbing training ride with Joe Moore. It's definitely taking me 20 miles to warm up now, but after I do my climbing is second to none, and I'm even beating TT man Joe up the big hills. I am going to up my training though I think, there's little over a month to the BUCS national road race and I plan on finishing in the top third at least the first time I race it. The climbing is going well, but that top end speed work needs doing now, along with a bit more endurance too.

On the way home I went to pay a visit to the Grandfather so now I have a bunch of stuff to research for him but its not a trouble: other than training I have very little to do right now. Although I have to fix the puncture I got with 100 metres to go to reach my front door!

Getting In Focus

I'm confident I've got a good base of fitness and strength now to make the training more focused, so to celebrate this I went out today and did a load of intervals which I can say confidently that no cyclist actually enjoys doing. Why do we do it then you ask? Because it builds top end speed and power and also makes your body recover faster from bursts of power in a race situation.

I did 10 minutes of 30mph+ intervals of 30 seconds high gear high cadence, 30 seconds low gear low cadence. Following that I did a few big hills and attacked each one, and on the fast road home I pushed it again. After a less than 30 mile ride I felt like I had ridden more than 50 miles. I must be doing something right then surely?

Going Strong

My second club ride of the season with Lindsey Roads, and despite a relatively poor turnout, it is Easter Sunday and weather wasn't looking great, it turned out to be a good ride. Average speed was over 20mph and considering there were a fair few hills thats not a bad effort. I attacked and won every big climb, some I won by a stangely large amount; either I'm in good form or everyone else has given up competing against my climbing.

After a quick café stop for the oldies we got moving again and the pace didn't slip much. There was a plan to do some through and off but we just set a reasonably high pace in the group as only 5 of us had survived thus far. Unfortunately there wasn't a spring at the usual place coming into Tetney so I thought I'd have a sprint myself on the way from Holten-le-Clay to Toll Bar just to give the legs a good burn out before getting home.

75 miles in total today, of fast flats and attacking on big climbs. Now I'm in my living room watching Paris-Roubaix on Eurosport. This is how Easter day should be.

A Hard Day's Work

What was supposed to be an overcast day turned out to be pretty nice, so in the morning my brother and I went for a mountain bike ride for about an hour and a half, which I was expecting was going to be a piece of cake, until he decided it was a good way to get tired and not do homework later on. So after he put down a cracking pace into the wind that even some road riders would be envious of, I could actually feel my legs. Not that any of this is a bad thing, its a good bit of power training for me and it gets my brother fit.

We came home, made some bacon and watched some Blackadder over lunch, then I headed out for hard training with Joe Moore, a fellow Lindsey rider and good friend. Joe wanted to go and find some hills to work on his climbing, which in Lincolnshire isn't always the easiest of things to do. However we managed to find some good hills, a couple of killers, and as always with me and Joe, it always turned into a competition, meaning we push eachother harder than we would in individual training, which is always good. On the flats we did a few hard efforts and sprints, or I did. It was just what I need to get my training back to normal, hard climbing and sprints, good focused training. And now in true cyclist style I've come home, had a hearty meal, and am playing Pro Evo on the playstation.

Back to Lindsey

Well I'm officially back in Grimsby now I've done a club ride. I was a little confused as to why the meeting place had changed from The Trawl to Nun's Corner, and it turns out there is still a group going from the trawl but thats the old men who want to go slow and spend an hour at the café, whereas I turned up for the fast group ride which should have gone to the café too but we ended up carrying straight on towards home, not that I'm complaining, it was a good ride and my legs burnt a little towards the end, but I still contested the sprint.

It was a beautiful day, and I felt sorry for those who turned up in winter kit thinking that it would stay cold, when I turned up in 1 thin layer of summer kit, meaning that after half an hour of riding I was comfortably warm. I think by the end of the day I actually got a bit of a tan going on; it builds up quick now anyway, so my arms and legs are getting their fantastic cyclist's tan lines already, just imagine what they'll be like by August...