The Nationals

After catching up with everyone back in the UK I was soon racing again as the days seemed to go quicker. I decided to partake in my local road race league on the Thursdays night to get myself warmed up for the weekend’s national road race. Unfortunately it was quite cold and decidedly wet when we got there but I decided to forge ahead and race. The South Staffs and Shropshire Road Race League (SSSCRRL) is great handicap race series that I’ve done all three seasons I’ve raced for and is great for beginners looking to start up racing, to seasoned pro’s who want a bit of training. On this particular evening there weren’t many of the big boys riding as they were either put off by the weather or up north doing the Otley Criterium. This suited me fine and I ended up a happy winner of the short race, taking full advantage of finishing on my own by pulling off a hardcore victory salute. The win was satisfying and gave me a little bit of confidence for the big challenge of the weekend and what a challenge it would be.

We drove down on the Friday evening and I stopped with my brother who lives York while my parents stayed in a B&B. On the Saturday I met up with Tom to ride the two circuits the race would incorporate. They were grim, constantly up and down sapping the legs with the wind always taking its toll. I had visions of riders in small groups grovelling round in the hope of finishing after riding round both the circuits and wasn’t looking forward to the next day...especially as my legs hurt and I hadn’t even started racing yet. I watched the women go through for their first lap and then headed back to rest and eat. We couldn’t decide what to eat as no one could be bothered to prepare anything, so we ended up ordering Chinese take away. Not Ideal to prepare for a 200km race the next day but certainly tasty. I ate as much fried rice and soft noodles as I could in the hope that they might at least have a few carbohydrates in them, if they didn’t, I also enjoyed the chopped chilli beef and chicken and the sample of chicken chow mein.

The next day was the race I had come back to do, the national champs, I was looking forward to riding with the well known pro’s but dreading the pain I knew I would have to experience in order to keep up with them for anything like a respectable time. I was planning to try and finish and in order to do this I would have to save as much energy as possible and sit-in to the max not showing my face at the front once. At the start it was strange seeing all the riders I had read so much about over the past few years, David Millar, Mark Cavendish, Roger Hammond and Jeremy Hunt to name a few. I felt pretty small, but caught up with a few riders I hadn’t seen for a while on the ride to Duncombe Park. The weather was initially pretty chilly but by the start wasn’t too bad and I was hoping it would hold out like this so the day wouldn’t be made any worse, if that was at all possible. We were soon off and away racing and I was happily sticking to the plan of sitting in for all I was worth. I watched small groups chip off the front that were instantly brought back by a big attack by one of the well known riders. This happened many times as we moved onto the first of the two circuits and I was well positioned to see all of it being in and around the front (one of the things I’ve learned from racing in France is how to ride in 120+ riders bunches).

The circuits seemed a lot easier sat in the large fast moving bunch and I was starting to get a little excited by being next to the big names. I started to get involved in some of the moves, following the occasionally counter but never initiating my own attack. I started to think that maybe what I was doing wasn’t going to help me in the long run but I couldn’t help myself. Then, after the first lull in pace for a while I followed a soft move by Jonny McEvoy, thinking that I might as well make the effort to go now as I would have to make it later if I didn’t...It was the start of a long day. We ended up getting something of a gap and looked at each other deciding just to take it easy as the two of us weren’t going to ride away any time soon. We kept going for a couple of miles until we got to the sharp climb lined by spectators, here Tom Southam (twice second in this very race) caught us and we started to ride a little quicker. The bunch obviously weren’t interested and we quickly opened up a 50 second gap on them. We caught and dropped Ian Wilkinson who had already been away and had a terribly pained look on his face. After a lap of freedom we were finally caught by a small group that had come across including Matt Stephens (a former winner) and Ben Greenwood (former U23 winner). This added some much needed fire power and the pace instantly lifted to something verging on painful, although we struggled to get organised. Then, a few miles later, Rob Hayles (Olympic medallist) rode past...hmmmm...where’d he come from. A few moments later, Dean Downing (Legend) rode past...oh dear. Following him was Dan Lloyd (second last year)...s*%t. As well as these were Peter Kennaugh (junior winner last year) and Kieran Page (Pezula Pro)... things just got a lot more painful.

After the initial shock of realising exactly who I was riding with we started to get down to some proper riding...this proved to be hard. The through and off we were doing was steady but fast, a pace you can just about hold on the limit of comfortable. But this was interspersed with lots of short sharp hills that made things even harder. Luckily I could cope with it and started to get time checks...we were pulling away from the bunch. By this point we moved onto the second circuit, this had two long drags that occasionally got steeper and were particularly hard, but we were still pulling away and at one point had just under four minutes on the peloton. It also had a couple of fast downhill sections that me and Tom had joked about the speed Rob Hayles would be powering along them the following day. Well now I was there on Rob Hayles’ wheel and Jesus did he go fast! I was hoping the downhill would give me a few moments of very necessary respite, but no, this wasn’t the case. He must have been powering along at near on 50 mph as I was looking for more gears to push before realising I was already in 53x11. It hurt so much; Dan Lloyd had to push me so I held the wheel. Dean Downing then rode past jovially laughing “He loves it doesn’t he!” How was he laughing?! I was nearly in tears! We continued to tap through and off round this circuit of which we were meant to do 4 laps, but things were starting to get painful. I was struggling to do my turns up the hills and going 100% at times to close small gaps, we were getting towards the 100 mile mark, the longest race distance I’ve done, I’d been away for nearly 75 miles and the turd was about to hit the fan.

The first attacks started on the flat section just before the smaller drag on the 3^rd of 4 laps, the pace was furious as I watched the front riders making it so much harder. I was holding it for a while but about 2 metres off the wheel before finally getting back. Then it went again, things got tough, a gap was left somewhere and suddenly four of us had been gapped. I knew it was going to happen sometime or other, but it’s always disappointing when it does. Three of us carried on riding a little bit but we quickly lost time and were eventually caught by the bunch being led by David Millar. I rode in here for a little bit, but I was in serious trouble. As soon as we got to the main long drag I went out the back of the front peloton, crawled my way through the feed zone probably looking like a commuter riding up Alpe d’huez, was caught by the second peloton, immediately went out the back of this group and settled riding with a few people happy to just to get to the HQ.

By this point it had started to rain and any thoughts I had of attempting to finish were literally washed away. I met my parents driving the opposite direction, got in, drove back to the HQ, showered and waited for some results. It turned out that 5 of the break had managed to stay away, with Rob Hayles taking the win. The rest of the original break had popped the next time round and apparently gone backwards in a not to dissimilar way to me.

At the finish I was pleased that I had got in the Dominating break of the day, but even though I knew I had given it 100% and couldn’t have done much, if any, more, I still felt a pang of disappointment when I heard some of the break had stayed away for the win. But there aren’t many riders that can say that they’ve held a three and a half minute gap over a peloton including David Millar, Roger Hammond, Mark Cavendish, Jeremy Hunt and Ian Stannard amongst others. I can be pleased to look back on that.

Until next time,

Hyvästi