Distance - 85 miles
Location - Bridgenorth
Course - Rolling with one main climb which is step and narrow
Conditions - Warm but Gail force winds
Finishing Position - 13th in the Elite Category
Winner - Liam Hollanhan (Team Raleigh)
To come 13th in the Regional Champs is something which i am extremally pleased with and even more so after a lot of injuries, bad luck a personal problems. This is a write up of today's epic ride which will be with me for a long time.
Rise and Shine
at 7.15 am the car was loaded up and i was on my way to Bridgenorth for the Regional Champs along with my good Friend and racing buddy, Tony Kiss who lives just down the road from me and was racing in the same race. After last weekends big day of riding and racing i decided to have 3 easy days as i felt pretty tired, on Thursday i was feeling great and did my last training session before today. I was feeling really good and did a super hard set of intervals and some race simulation stuff, on reflection i think i dug too deep during this ride as i didn't feel as perky as i had hoped for as we rolled out of the HQ and up the long neutralized climb before the start of the race. I was feeling dead when i got to the top of this so i was more than a little worried about i would fare once the race got going proper.
From experience i know that it takes me a good 40 minutes to get thoroughly warmed up, problem with this is that recently in my races, the decisive break has always gone early so i just end up suffering like a dog as my legs struggle with the transition from blocks of lead to nicely oiled pistons. Today was not much different.
The race was hard from the beginning and with the Gail force wind that were blowing across the course, even holding a wheel was tiring work. On the first lap, 2 group went away one after the other and eventually formed to create a group of about 20 riders. As usual, i missed these moves due to still feeling like i had just got out of bed but was not overly concerned as the 2 big favorites from the Raleigh Pro Squad were still in my group. However, with not much going on i was finally feeling good to take some initiative and attacked the bunch before the main climb on the circuit. This climb is about 1 mile long, pretty steep in places and is on a very narrow, rough single track road so it is vital to be in the right place. When i went off the front i took another rider with me but as we hit the climb i proved a bit to strong for him and by the top i was on my own between the tow groups and wasn't really sure what to do for the best!
Bridging The Gap With The Big Boys
As i got over the top of the climb i looked behind to see if the other rider had managed to get back on, as it was he hadn't but instead had been replaced with a fast charging group of 4 being lead by Dan Fleeman, ex Cervelo-Test Team Rider now riding for Team Raleigh, behind him was his team mate Liam Hollowhan who was followed by Richard Cartland of Phil Corley Cycles and another rider who i don't know. I knew this was my ticket to the front of the race so i made sure i jumped on the train before it left the station. I imagined in my head that this break would be hard but still like any other break i had been in were i would feel comfortable most of the time. I was so wrong it wasn't even funny!!!
Riding in this break with the calibre of rider that was with me and with the savage wind conditions as well proved to be one of the hardest hours that i have ever spent on a bike. I had never suffered so much as i did when we were bridging that gap. Pro riders are in a different league and the Pace they were setting was amazing. There was no let up, ever. even on the fast down hill sections in to a head wind i was down as low as i could go as still struggling to hold the wheels, there power was amazing. I tried to help when i could but for the most part i was just trying to hold on and praying that we would close the gap soon. In the end it took about 1.5 laps which seemed to last an age but finally we made the junction and to say i was pleased was a n understatement, not just because the pain was over but because i had just ridden in a select chasing group riding full bore containing 2 professional bike riders, one of whom had ridden for a pro tour squad, this made me glow inside just a little bit.
No Time To Rest.
Now that we had made the front group which now contained pretty much all of the favorites as well as my mate Tony Kiss who was in the right place and the right move ta the start, it was clear that the winner would come from this group. However, because the group was still quite large, co-operation was some what limited and know body wanted to take up the work. A few dig went in and i had to close a few gap which also hurt quite a bit, especially after giving everything i had trying to stay with that chasing group. Eventually a group managed to sneak away in mush the same fashion as it did when they went at the start of the race, it contained some big hitters who were working well together and soon they had a big gap and were out of sight.
Back in our group which now contained about 10, riders were still unwilling to chase and instead just decided to attack each other. At this point i was beginning to feel pretty empty, a lot of which was due to the lack of respite even when in the wheels due to the savage cross wind which was cutting us to pieces. If fact the wind was so strong that earlier in the race it actually lifter a rider of the road and blew him in to the verge, i was on his wheel at the time and to say it scared the shit out of me is again an understatement.
With half a lap to go the leading group had an unbridgeable gap so in our bunch the attention turned to racing each other. the 10 had been whittled down to about 8 and on the final ascent of the final climb the pressure was put on and 4 of us came over the top in front; Myself, Tony and two other riders. We only held a small gap over the other 4 but we kept the pace high before entering the final straight where all pretty much lined up along side each other in drag strip fashion. Next thing i know, the rider to my left decided he would try to come through the gap between me and the other rider which wasn't actually there, so in the process he made heavy contact with my bars and almost took me out. after pointing my self back in the right direction the sprint had gone, i tries to make up some ground but ended up rolling in behind Tony who rode another great race to take 12th and putting me in 13th. Its always nice when Friends finish close and i don't think you can get closer than that.
The race was won overall by Liam Hollowhan of Team Raleigh who, to be fare, deserved it after bridging the huge gap and then being able to take the sprint, it just shows how good these guys really are. The nice thing about today's race was that it really was the strongest guy who won and i feel that this trend continued down the other places. This was a race where only the strongest survive and only the hardest finish so it was quite a satisfying race.
The Junior race set off about 10 minutes after our race but was 50 miles long not 85 like ours. Still, it was a hugely contested race where our very own Joshua Papworth powered to a fantastic 2nd place only just being pipped to the win by half a wheel. Well done to Josh.
This was one of the hardest races i have done but also one of the most rewarding, here is some power data that was taken using my Quarq+Garmin 800 set up
Time - 03:36:54
Distance - 85.4 miles
Average Speed - 23.7 mph
Ave Cadence - 87 rpm
Work - 2805 kj
Ave Power - 216 watts
Normalised Power - 249 watts
TSS - 331.2
Intensity Factor - 0.959, this is high for a 3.5 hr road race and shows why the race felt so hard!
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| This is the power file from today's race. |
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