Over the last two weekends I’ve been racing in Stourport on their small circuit they have there, I raced there last year and thought I’d return for some (very) early season fun. The circuit is about 1.3 km long in the shape of a C with two hairpins making it tricky at times.
The first race there was, not an arse-kicking, but more of a welcome to 2016. The conditions were dry but very windy and it tore the field apart. Out of 42 starters only 17 didn’t get dropped, I felt average on the day, and lacked the top end speed I’d expect to have in summer which hurt me a lot. I felt like I was constantly chasing back on and it really wore me out. I ended up coming 15th which I was ok with, nothing too good. I celebrated with a 63 km ride home with a block tailwind, the perfect ride.
The next weeks race was much better for me, the conditions were awful, possibly the worst I’ve every cycled in, torrential, blinding rain (my glasses were basically useless) and a terrific crosswind on the course to liven things up. This probably explained the lower turnout of about 35 riders. Again I was expecting to be chewing the stem the whole ride but I was actually feeling good, despite starting last man due to a last minute urine break.
I spent the first five laps moving up, watching the race as two riders got away. The next lap saw another one make a jump and with no one willing to chase, I knew the bunch was going to be really negative. So the next lap in the hardest section of wind and uphill I got to the front and made a move. It wasn’t that much of a move, more of doing a strong turn with no one following and soon enough I had a gap. At this point we had only been going 15 minutes so I was a little hesitant of whether to go or not so I gave myself two laps to see what’d happen. After these two I saw I was putting time into the bunch so kept pushing on. I could see the three riders ahead and was gaining on them each lap. They had about five seconds on me atone point until I took a corner awfully and easily lost 2-3 seconds.
This wasn’t a disaster as after 15 minutes solo I was caught by a breakaway rider, last week’s winner actually so clearly strong. We worked excellently together and got into a solid rhythm pulling equal turns each lap. We managed to completely distance the bunch and catch one of the guys ahead. He was knackered; he’d basically blown up so we let him chill for a bit before taking a turn. Now when he did take a turn it was quite poor, so he was better just sitting in. With five laps to go we had a solid gap on the bunch which had disintegrated and the two riders ahead were out of reach unfortunately. We kept ploughing on and with one lap to go our fate were sealed.
The strong man made a move and it took a great effort on my part to get him back, but I did with less than half a lap to go, however I’d dragged the weaker one with me. I sat behind with 500 m to go when he kicked again,this time I couldn’t follow and I was distanced but only just, to make things worse the weaker chap shot around me to take fourth with me in fifth over the line in some harsh conditions.
Not a bad result considering it’s only February!
The first race there was, not an arse-kicking, but more of a welcome to 2016. The conditions were dry but very windy and it tore the field apart. Out of 42 starters only 17 didn’t get dropped, I felt average on the day, and lacked the top end speed I’d expect to have in summer which hurt me a lot. I felt like I was constantly chasing back on and it really wore me out. I ended up coming 15th which I was ok with, nothing too good. I celebrated with a 63 km ride home with a block tailwind, the perfect ride.
The next weeks race was much better for me, the conditions were awful, possibly the worst I’ve every cycled in, torrential, blinding rain (my glasses were basically useless) and a terrific crosswind on the course to liven things up. This probably explained the lower turnout of about 35 riders. Again I was expecting to be chewing the stem the whole ride but I was actually feeling good, despite starting last man due to a last minute urine break.
I spent the first five laps moving up, watching the race as two riders got away. The next lap saw another one make a jump and with no one willing to chase, I knew the bunch was going to be really negative. So the next lap in the hardest section of wind and uphill I got to the front and made a move. It wasn’t that much of a move, more of doing a strong turn with no one following and soon enough I had a gap. At this point we had only been going 15 minutes so I was a little hesitant of whether to go or not so I gave myself two laps to see what’d happen. After these two I saw I was putting time into the bunch so kept pushing on. I could see the three riders ahead and was gaining on them each lap. They had about five seconds on me atone point until I took a corner awfully and easily lost 2-3 seconds.
This wasn’t a disaster as after 15 minutes solo I was caught by a breakaway rider, last week’s winner actually so clearly strong. We worked excellently together and got into a solid rhythm pulling equal turns each lap. We managed to completely distance the bunch and catch one of the guys ahead. He was knackered; he’d basically blown up so we let him chill for a bit before taking a turn. Now when he did take a turn it was quite poor, so he was better just sitting in. With five laps to go we had a solid gap on the bunch which had disintegrated and the two riders ahead were out of reach unfortunately. We kept ploughing on and with one lap to go our fate were sealed.
The strong man made a move and it took a great effort on my part to get him back, but I did with less than half a lap to go, however I’d dragged the weaker one with me. I sat behind with 500 m to go when he kicked again,this time I couldn’t follow and I was distanced but only just, to make things worse the weaker chap shot around me to take fourth with me in fifth over the line in some harsh conditions.
Not a bad result considering it’s only February!
