So it’s Easter weekend already! Where does the time go? And of course, it’s also the weekend of Paris-Roubaix, my favourite one-day classic event in the calendar – it such an exciting race to watch, and it’s not as tactical as a lot of road races are – you have to be strong to win. It definitely appeals to the mountain biker in me, the idea of having to make the right compromise in equipment and training to ride a 260km road race with bike and body still able to survive over 50km of punishing cobblestones. It’s an odd favourite to pick for someone who has a delusion of being a climber (I think I only believe that because I’m quite light, sadly I don’t yet have the power or results to back it up!), but it’s just so enchanting. For people who I’d like to see on the top-step, it has to be Haussler – he’s been so close twice already this year, it’d be great to see him finally get the reward for his hard work in the Queen of the Classics. But it all depends…that’s the joy of bike racing!
I seem to say this every blog entry, but it’s been a busy few days since I last wrote anything. Most of my time has been taken up packing box after box with things for my new home in Orwell – I’ve become quite a dab-hand at taping up shipping crates now, although my careful organisation in packing the first few boxes has turned gradually into organised chaos, and then just chaos. I still have a sofa-bed to deconstruct, and the usual pile of odd-shaped things that don’t fit the crates, but I’m more or less ready for the removals men to come. It’s very weird to think that in 48 hours, I’ll be packing most of what I own into the back of a truck to head back to the county where I have spent most of the last eight years. I definitely view it with a mixture of excitement, trepidation and occasional dread. The cat, by contrast is aware that something exciting is going on, and wants to be in on the ground floor – I’m sure he’d pack himself if he could!
I went out for my last long ride around Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire yesterday; perhaps not the best of days to remember it by, given the grey skies and constant rain. For most of my four hours it was like a heavy scotch mist that soaks you to the skin without you even being aware that it’s raining. Every time I looked down, the water would run off my visor into my shoes – euch! I also got my second puncture of the season (my first one was sometime in January, but thankfully not on one of those days where it’s so cold you can only get the tyre off with your teeth!), probably from the grit washing off the verges into the road. I spent a happy fifteen minutes sitting in a ditch picking flints out of my tyre to make sure that I didn’t get a second one (I only had one tube in my saddlebag, bad plan – there are two in there now!) and watching soggy horse-riders go by. I managed to get home just in time to see the podiums for the World Cup XC in South Africa, which was quite exciting. It looks like it’s going to be a year dominated by the old guard in the men’s racing, with Hermida, Absalon & Sauser on the podium, along with fresh-star Burry Stander and surprise 5th place Wolfram Kuschat, who seems to have suddenly hit his stride in his mid-30s! For the women it’s all change, with Liz Osl on the top-spot, which is somehow more exciting. It’ll be interesting to see what the rest of the season brings. It was also good to see the brits scooping up some UCI points; hopefully we’ll see a few more brit women racing this year…
Whilst I was out riding, I also had a bit of a revelation when it comes to road safety for bikes too – when it comes to looking out for us two-wheeled brethren, white lines are no help. Aside from the recent controversy caused by riders crossing the solid white lines on the road at a recent Premier Calendar road race, and ultimately the race being cancelled by police as a result, white lines are not our friends in a more obvious and mundane way. Some of the roads out in the wilds are un-lined, and I often find that drivers pull wide to overtake on these roads, using the whole width of the road to pass me. But in the same situation, on a similar-width road with a while line down the middle, suddenly the drivers don’t pull as wide. I’d pondered this for a while, and then yesterday the answer hit me – people don’t like crossing the white line! If they can overtake, and stay within the line, even if the other side of the road is visible and clear for miles, then they will. I put my theory to the test, and sure enough, sit far enough out that drivers have to cross the line to overtake, and they’ll start passing wide again (albeit maybe with a grumble at “lycra louts” under their breath). Then it’s a case of taking a leaf out of the horse-rider’s book, and giving people a cheery “thankyou” wave and voila! – safe overtaking, and non-pissed-off drivers! Result!
Today, happy easter by the way, I’m off out to spend the day with my parents; today’s efforts will have to wait until this evening on the rollers, where the only hazard I ever have to deal with is falling gardening equipment. Quite how Rachel and I are going to fit all of our cycling stuff and the gardening tools into the shed in our new house is a mystery, I suspect it’ll involve quite a lot of box-tetris, but I’m sure we’ll work something out. Maybe we’ll have to find somewhere else to put the lawn-mower!!! I just have to figure out the best way of getting Eurosport hooked up in there for added inspiration...
Sunday 12 April 2009
Tuesday 7 April 2009
A good start
Having just logged on to write about our racing this weekend I see that Chris has, helpfully, beaten me to it and so I don't need to write anything in particular about the course. I will however add that it wasn't really my cup of tea either, with the fire-road climbs a little to short for my liking and the twitchy bits through the trees were for some reason a real challenge. That said I have done well on flat courses in general so I definitely went into the race not knowing what to expect.
The unknowns continued as I lined up on the front row of the grid with 10 other girls, a somewhat unprecedented number in my experience (congratulations Martin!). There were a good few faces I knew and it felt great to be lining up at the start of the race with so many familiar faces from the last couple of years. But equally there were a few faces I didn't recognise!
After the elite women, junior and youth boys headed off we were brought to the front of the grid. One start missed, then bang we were off. My start wasn't too bad and I went past Chris in 3rd wheel apparently. Once we hit the fire-road however I decided I wanted to be in the lead so I put the hammer down and got myself there. As we went up the first climb Jess came alongside me but I dug deep and went into the singletrack still in the lead. This was perhaps my first mistake since then as soon as we hit the next fire-road Jess came past me and I had little to respond with. Soon Emma Smith, the eventual winner, came past me as well but I was able to stay with her for a little while. I was a muppet through the trees however, stalling all over the place and not feeling very at home on my bike at all and she got a little bit of a gap.
For the rest of the first lap and the second I could see both Jess and Emma ahead of me and I seemed to gain on them on the hills but loose them through the trees. On lap 3 I lost sight of them and that was that for the rest of the race. It was at this point I starting making mistakes. I swept wide on a fire-road and hit the deck grazing my arm and a bit later caught my arm on a tree. Another nice bruise to come there! Like Chris I was also going for the hop and hope option with the log and by the third lap this was looking very messy and I stalled here too, damn! As I came through the start finish for the last time I spotted Lydia Gould behind me. I know she has a strong finish from previous experience so had to put the hammer down again to try and hold her off. Thankfully I did, although perhaps more due to her bad luck than my skill and I finished in a strong third.
There was some confusion over where I did finish but Phil Buick managed to convince me to hang around for the podiums and I sent him off to Chris with a bottle (would be great to have a little more time between races I think!). The podium was a bit of a damp squip as Emma didn't show. However, I got a voucher for a photo from Joolze (thanks!) and a nice trophy, so all in all not a bad day. The next two races were really exciting and it was great to catch up with so many friends.
The unknowns continued as I lined up on the front row of the grid with 10 other girls, a somewhat unprecedented number in my experience (congratulations Martin!). There were a good few faces I knew and it felt great to be lining up at the start of the race with so many familiar faces from the last couple of years. But equally there were a few faces I didn't recognise!
After the elite women, junior and youth boys headed off we were brought to the front of the grid. One start missed, then bang we were off. My start wasn't too bad and I went past Chris in 3rd wheel apparently. Once we hit the fire-road however I decided I wanted to be in the lead so I put the hammer down and got myself there. As we went up the first climb Jess came alongside me but I dug deep and went into the singletrack still in the lead. This was perhaps my first mistake since then as soon as we hit the next fire-road Jess came past me and I had little to respond with. Soon Emma Smith, the eventual winner, came past me as well but I was able to stay with her for a little while. I was a muppet through the trees however, stalling all over the place and not feeling very at home on my bike at all and she got a little bit of a gap.
For the rest of the first lap and the second I could see both Jess and Emma ahead of me and I seemed to gain on them on the hills but loose them through the trees. On lap 3 I lost sight of them and that was that for the rest of the race. It was at this point I starting making mistakes. I swept wide on a fire-road and hit the deck grazing my arm and a bit later caught my arm on a tree. Another nice bruise to come there! Like Chris I was also going for the hop and hope option with the log and by the third lap this was looking very messy and I stalled here too, damn! As I came through the start finish for the last time I spotted Lydia Gould behind me. I know she has a strong finish from previous experience so had to put the hammer down again to try and hold her off. Thankfully I did, although perhaps more due to her bad luck than my skill and I finished in a strong third.
There was some confusion over where I did finish but Phil Buick managed to convince me to hang around for the podiums and I sent him off to Chris with a bottle (would be great to have a little more time between races I think!). The podium was a bit of a damp squip as Emma didn't show. However, I got a voucher for a photo from Joolze (thanks!) and a nice trophy, so all in all not a bad day. The next two races were really exciting and it was great to catch up with so many friends.
One down, four to go...
So, believe it or not, the first NPS has come and gone already! The easiest way to tell, for me at least, is the fact that all i've had to do since this weekend's racing is lightly dust down the old frame - you never get weather like that later in the season. In fact, since i started doing the NPS races with my first one at Thetford a couple of years ago, there's been a definite trend of unseasonably warm weather for the first round. That, and a flat-out, fast offroad road-race style course. Well, 2009 was no exception!
Rachel and I headed up to check out the course on Saturday before the big day on Sunday, arriving mid-afternoon from my parent's house in Nottingham. After a quick chat and "check out how little my new bike weighs" session with Jenny (all three of me, Rachel and her had new steeds to show off!) , we headed off to spin around the course and see what awaited us. It was a pretty typical sherwood course, with the occasional energy-sapping little roller rising up to spoil your speed around the rest of the course. For my taste, there was a bit too much freshly cut trail, and not quite enough of the best of sherwood; there are some great fast, twitchy sections of trail that would really have added to it. However, i suspect they were sacrificed for the arena-return leg of the course, which made it a whole lot more spectator friendly, and were great when you were actually racing.
The only real noticeable technical interest in the whole course was a log-hop, not really my cup of tea, since i've been too lazy/useless to ever learn to bunny-hop properly since i started riding offroad (it's no fun when you have noone to learn with, and everyone i've ridden with is able to demonstrate perfect hops at will, which makes me even less likely to bring up the fact that i can't execute a single hop worth talking about). Having tried to hop it, and given myself a saddle in the kidneys to show for it, i decided i'd go for the "try and get over the low bit" approach when the time came in the race. It wasn't pretty, but it worked (more on that later!). There were some tight sections in the trees that i knew would be hard to ride fast, but being a little person these things always bother me less than most other guys (i seem to be developing some sort of inferiority complex here - everyone on the start line seems to be taller than me these days!). The only other bit of the course that stuck out in my head was the last 1.5km, which all seemed to be awful lumpy singletrack that was hard to ride smoothly, and unrewarding if you did, but maybe that's because i remember the same trails in the opposite direction (riding with gravity rather than against her!) being a lot more fun! Having been around once slowly with Rach, i then went around a second time with a bit more pace. Then it was home time, for a stir-fry dinner, an episode of the Wire (the most addictive series ever made) and an early night.
Race day dawned, there was no sign of any of the overnight rain that metcheck swore there would be and so the super-slick tyres stayed on. We got to sherwood just before 9am, perfect timing for Rachel to hit the course again, and get warmed up for her race at 10. I headed over to the pits with a bag of bottles, some tape, gels, a chair and a copy of "The Death of Marco Pantani". Having dutifully taped gels to bottles so that Rachel was the guinea-pig for the auto-opening gel technique and not me, i got down to a bit of reading, and just as i was getting to the stuff about hematocrits of 60%, i heard the call-up for the elite women. I headed over to get Rachel's warm kit, and give her her race bottle before the start, and got back to the feed just ahead of the field sprint of the elite women. Rachel's cat, expert women, went off next, with her sitting pretty in third wheel, and looking pretty comfortable (well, as much as could be expected). Third wheel was also where she finished, although Dan J. caused a bit of confusion by announcing her as fourth as she crossed the line!
By this time, i was out of the pits and getting kitted up - i felt a bit over-keen leaving before Rachel's race had finished, but i was ultimately glad i did, as i discovered from Simon we kicked off at 12:30, and not 1300 as i had thought. That could have been bad! I rode the course again with Andrew at midday, although unfortunately he ripped his shorts 3km from the end of the lap, and had to dash off to change asap (if i had a pound for every time Andrew has had a wardrobe malfunction at a race, i'd have at least four pounds! Probably the most memorable was at a thetford winter series race shortly after i started riding offroad, where he finished with one hand on the bars, and one hand holding what remained of his shorts together...the man's an exhibitionist i tell you!). I carried on, and headed to the pens to be gridded to be met by Rachel's proxy, Phil Buick who kindly took my leg-warmers and gave me a fresh bottle. Before i had time to think too much about what was coming, i was on the third row of the grid watching the elites start. Unfortunately, there was a touch of wheels and an almighty crash somewhere mid-pack, which brought down John, my mate from Bath - he's not had the best of luck lately, but hopefully that's the last of it for him. Once the carnage was out of the way, we were off!
The pace was pretty hot from the start, but i felt like (for once!) i didn't totally embarass myself with my start, and got into a decent position to cope with the dust clouds of the fireroads. The air was so thick at times, you felt like chewing your mouthfuls, but as the pack lined out as the pace at the front got hotter, it was less of a problem. I focussed on trying to keep with Eric, another friend in my category, figuring he'd be a good marker of pace. It was all going pretty well, and i was keeping pace with my little group including eric quite well until i overcooked it on a gravelly corner and ditched the bike (which kept going sideways) and ended up standing in the middle of the trail sans-bike. Damn, i'd lost the wheel. However, as fortune would have it, help arrived in the form of junior Kenta Gallagher, and i got rather a second-wind being towed along behind him, passing a couple of the experts i'd lost with my slip-slide. It seemed that selection had already been made on the little hill in my group, however, and Eric was gone. I kept up chase, but it's so much more mentally tough when you're chasing people that are out of sight.
Coming through the feed the third time, i grabbed a bottle from Rachel (i wanted to tell her to switch to the other, uphill feed, but with all the confusion over where she finished, i never got the chance) and whilst trying to get it into my bottle cage, hit a dip and went over the bars - bummer. What's worse is, i saw Mel Spath do exactly the same thing in the elite women, and made a mental note not to make the same mistake. More places lost, i set off with a throbbing right elbow, and a bit more adrenaline in my system. Sadly, it didn't make much difference, i picked up a couple of places in the last couple of laps, but then was gutted to be pipped right on the line by a guy from Pedalon who'd done much the same thing to me and Nick Evans the week before. I might have fared better had i been able to get into big ring, but still, he got me fair and square. Damn. So, all told, 28th place - not a flying start, but a good place to improve from on a course that doesn't really suite little 61kg whippets like me. I did get a front row seat for the amazing sprint finish in the elite men though; the speed Jody C came through at was incredible, and it was cool that the local lad came in 2nd in what looks like it could be the start of a good season for him. Andrew did as Andrew does best, and wheel-sucked his was to 15th place, which is a pretty superb start to the season for someone who was worried about being lapped before the start.
Talking of crashes, there at least a couple on the first lap in my race, as you can see from this excellent youtube video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XISobBbAxgs . As far as i know, Henry pulled after two laps as a result of his tumble, and poor Alex is nursing a broken collarbone - fingers crossed they'll both be ok in the long run. It might have been a good place to have a first-aider all things considered, especially given the lack of skill of the experts (myself included!). Here's hoping for some less contrived tech sections next round!
Now it's time to focus on moving - i spoke to the movers today, i'm all set to move out on Easter tuesday, so it's time to get packing the 30 or so boxes i have been given. It's pretty miserable seeing your worldly possessions all packed up in boxes, it can easily lead you to thinking "is this it?" but i'm sure i'll feel differently once i'm out in the countryside. It's also damned expensive this moving malarkey - hopefully this'll be the last time for a little while at least. Anyway, back to the parcel tape...
Rachel and I headed up to check out the course on Saturday before the big day on Sunday, arriving mid-afternoon from my parent's house in Nottingham. After a quick chat and "check out how little my new bike weighs" session with Jenny (all three of me, Rachel and her had new steeds to show off!) , we headed off to spin around the course and see what awaited us. It was a pretty typical sherwood course, with the occasional energy-sapping little roller rising up to spoil your speed around the rest of the course. For my taste, there was a bit too much freshly cut trail, and not quite enough of the best of sherwood; there are some great fast, twitchy sections of trail that would really have added to it. However, i suspect they were sacrificed for the arena-return leg of the course, which made it a whole lot more spectator friendly, and were great when you were actually racing.
The only real noticeable technical interest in the whole course was a log-hop, not really my cup of tea, since i've been too lazy/useless to ever learn to bunny-hop properly since i started riding offroad (it's no fun when you have noone to learn with, and everyone i've ridden with is able to demonstrate perfect hops at will, which makes me even less likely to bring up the fact that i can't execute a single hop worth talking about). Having tried to hop it, and given myself a saddle in the kidneys to show for it, i decided i'd go for the "try and get over the low bit" approach when the time came in the race. It wasn't pretty, but it worked (more on that later!). There were some tight sections in the trees that i knew would be hard to ride fast, but being a little person these things always bother me less than most other guys (i seem to be developing some sort of inferiority complex here - everyone on the start line seems to be taller than me these days!). The only other bit of the course that stuck out in my head was the last 1.5km, which all seemed to be awful lumpy singletrack that was hard to ride smoothly, and unrewarding if you did, but maybe that's because i remember the same trails in the opposite direction (riding with gravity rather than against her!) being a lot more fun! Having been around once slowly with Rach, i then went around a second time with a bit more pace. Then it was home time, for a stir-fry dinner, an episode of the Wire (the most addictive series ever made) and an early night.
Race day dawned, there was no sign of any of the overnight rain that metcheck swore there would be and so the super-slick tyres stayed on. We got to sherwood just before 9am, perfect timing for Rachel to hit the course again, and get warmed up for her race at 10. I headed over to the pits with a bag of bottles, some tape, gels, a chair and a copy of "The Death of Marco Pantani". Having dutifully taped gels to bottles so that Rachel was the guinea-pig for the auto-opening gel technique and not me, i got down to a bit of reading, and just as i was getting to the stuff about hematocrits of 60%, i heard the call-up for the elite women. I headed over to get Rachel's warm kit, and give her her race bottle before the start, and got back to the feed just ahead of the field sprint of the elite women. Rachel's cat, expert women, went off next, with her sitting pretty in third wheel, and looking pretty comfortable (well, as much as could be expected). Third wheel was also where she finished, although Dan J. caused a bit of confusion by announcing her as fourth as she crossed the line!
By this time, i was out of the pits and getting kitted up - i felt a bit over-keen leaving before Rachel's race had finished, but i was ultimately glad i did, as i discovered from Simon we kicked off at 12:30, and not 1300 as i had thought. That could have been bad! I rode the course again with Andrew at midday, although unfortunately he ripped his shorts 3km from the end of the lap, and had to dash off to change asap (if i had a pound for every time Andrew has had a wardrobe malfunction at a race, i'd have at least four pounds! Probably the most memorable was at a thetford winter series race shortly after i started riding offroad, where he finished with one hand on the bars, and one hand holding what remained of his shorts together...the man's an exhibitionist i tell you!). I carried on, and headed to the pens to be gridded to be met by Rachel's proxy, Phil Buick who kindly took my leg-warmers and gave me a fresh bottle. Before i had time to think too much about what was coming, i was on the third row of the grid watching the elites start. Unfortunately, there was a touch of wheels and an almighty crash somewhere mid-pack, which brought down John, my mate from Bath - he's not had the best of luck lately, but hopefully that's the last of it for him. Once the carnage was out of the way, we were off!
The pace was pretty hot from the start, but i felt like (for once!) i didn't totally embarass myself with my start, and got into a decent position to cope with the dust clouds of the fireroads. The air was so thick at times, you felt like chewing your mouthfuls, but as the pack lined out as the pace at the front got hotter, it was less of a problem. I focussed on trying to keep with Eric, another friend in my category, figuring he'd be a good marker of pace. It was all going pretty well, and i was keeping pace with my little group including eric quite well until i overcooked it on a gravelly corner and ditched the bike (which kept going sideways) and ended up standing in the middle of the trail sans-bike. Damn, i'd lost the wheel. However, as fortune would have it, help arrived in the form of junior Kenta Gallagher, and i got rather a second-wind being towed along behind him, passing a couple of the experts i'd lost with my slip-slide. It seemed that selection had already been made on the little hill in my group, however, and Eric was gone. I kept up chase, but it's so much more mentally tough when you're chasing people that are out of sight.
Coming through the feed the third time, i grabbed a bottle from Rachel (i wanted to tell her to switch to the other, uphill feed, but with all the confusion over where she finished, i never got the chance) and whilst trying to get it into my bottle cage, hit a dip and went over the bars - bummer. What's worse is, i saw Mel Spath do exactly the same thing in the elite women, and made a mental note not to make the same mistake. More places lost, i set off with a throbbing right elbow, and a bit more adrenaline in my system. Sadly, it didn't make much difference, i picked up a couple of places in the last couple of laps, but then was gutted to be pipped right on the line by a guy from Pedalon who'd done much the same thing to me and Nick Evans the week before. I might have fared better had i been able to get into big ring, but still, he got me fair and square. Damn. So, all told, 28th place - not a flying start, but a good place to improve from on a course that doesn't really suite little 61kg whippets like me. I did get a front row seat for the amazing sprint finish in the elite men though; the speed Jody C came through at was incredible, and it was cool that the local lad came in 2nd in what looks like it could be the start of a good season for him. Andrew did as Andrew does best, and wheel-sucked his was to 15th place, which is a pretty superb start to the season for someone who was worried about being lapped before the start.
Talking of crashes, there at least a couple on the first lap in my race, as you can see from this excellent youtube video; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XISobBbAxgs . As far as i know, Henry pulled after two laps as a result of his tumble, and poor Alex is nursing a broken collarbone - fingers crossed they'll both be ok in the long run. It might have been a good place to have a first-aider all things considered, especially given the lack of skill of the experts (myself included!). Here's hoping for some less contrived tech sections next round!
Now it's time to focus on moving - i spoke to the movers today, i'm all set to move out on Easter tuesday, so it's time to get packing the 30 or so boxes i have been given. It's pretty miserable seeing your worldly possessions all packed up in boxes, it can easily lead you to thinking "is this it?" but i'm sure i'll feel differently once i'm out in the countryside. It's also damned expensive this moving malarkey - hopefully this'll be the last time for a little while at least. Anyway, back to the parcel tape...
Friday 3 April 2009
NPS apprehension
Well its finally come round to the first NPS of the year and I'm starting to feel a little bit nervous. It looks like the women's elite race will be something to watch, which is great, although it does make me think I need to be sure I can at least hold my own before I try and make the move up. People should definitely try and get to Sherwood early to see how the race unfolds. It's really great that all the girls are going to be racing at the same time. We have a great selection of girls racing elite now and a number of them I think are going to race in europe this year with a view to getting enough UCI points for us to have a 2012 olympic spot. I have thought for ages it was a shame no one was trying to do something about this so well done BC for finally listening, fingers crossed we get a slot!
It's also going to be great to watch the main men's race and means I can support Chris properly. He had such a good start last weekend at the Gorrick I really hope he can do the same this time round. The key is I think, not to think about the competition and just to focus on your own race, but this is easier said than done. I've done my fair share of googling!
I'm off to Nottingham in a few hours and we'll then head up to pre-ride the course at Sherwood Pines tomorrow. I fear its not going to be a massively technical course which means the pace will be high. I've done well on these kind of courses before but I am not sure I enjoy them as much as more technical ones.
It's also going to be great to watch the main men's race and means I can support Chris properly. He had such a good start last weekend at the Gorrick I really hope he can do the same this time round. The key is I think, not to think about the competition and just to focus on your own race, but this is easier said than done. I've done my fair share of googling!
I'm off to Nottingham in a few hours and we'll then head up to pre-ride the course at Sherwood Pines tomorrow. I fear its not going to be a massively technical course which means the pace will be high. I've done well on these kind of courses before but I am not sure I enjoy them as much as more technical ones.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)