Plan A Fails!

Well plan A failed within 3km! of the start!

A recap of plan A do as little as possible but stay in the race, the winning break was gone the first time we hit the cross wind, 3km?
The course was essentially two straights, the home straight with a bit of sub standard ‘clinker’, one end connected by a 200m straight. So only three real corners on the course. The home straight was mainly cross with a bit of tail off the right, so quite fast, the back straight started cross headwind off the left and finished mostly block headwind with a little cross off the left.

I was in the start chute in good time, not at the front, probably 30 back; there were just under 100 names on the start sheet, although I don’t know how many started. We had a dry race, later races weren’t so lucky, the weather was warm enough but the wind was right up and we just about had open water on two sides, so I was expecting to spend some time in the gutter!

Well we were off the first straight was OK, even a bit of bunching which can make things a little nervous and I lost some positions as the back starters tried to make ground. We turned into the back straight and it was on for young and old, I really wasn’t worried, I’m usually pretty good in the gutter but I was 10 or 15 places further back than I wanted to be at any stage of the race.

So we are hammering along the back straight in one long line, as the road moved about a bit I thought to myself, I must be further back than I thought, I could see riders way up the road. I swung out of line to get a look and bugger me the line was in pieces, gaps everywhere, the riders I could see was the winning break! 10/12 riders at that time. First things first I had to start crossing gaps, attacking them one at a time, some were riders that just couldn’t hold the pace and didn’t let the riders behind know, some of them riders at least doing the right thing and pulling out of the line as soon as they realised that they couldn’t hold the wheel. You still have a gap to cross but they are much smaller if you get into it early. One of the guys that I chat to at the races, pulled out of the line quite early which surprised me, he said to me after that we were sitting on 52kph, that seems a little high to me but it was fast and b..... hard, I’ll check it when I download my data.

The end of the back straight, on the ‘rivet’ all the way, I just managed to get on the back of the chasing group of 40, as they kicked out of the corner onto the home straight I flipping well got gapped again but back on again by the time we hit the finish line about 750m up the road.

That was me just about cooked, the usual debacle followed with individual riders trying to bridge up on their own, not today I thought, I was doing everything just to hang in there, we must have lost one or two each lap. I worked through when there was some semblance of an organised chase, but it’s just not in their racing DNA to do things that way, we exploded at about two to go and split into ones and twos which came back together eventually as two groups, one of around 10/12 and the rest of us which was 12/14.

So there was the front group had shed a few although it was so confusing out there I never noticed them coming back, the first chase group, then my group, there was no way either chasing group was going to make up any leeway on the lead group, they were long gone. I was told that there were guys climbing off the bikes after one lap having lost 5 minutes? Riders too far back were getting hooked out apparently to prevent lapped riders getting in the mix, standard practice.

I didn’t even sprint, cutting a corner deciding it was a bit irrelevant really the race was decided by that stage. Even if I had been in the first dozen on lap one, I’m not sure I had the power on the day.
Hell of a day, maybe I could have done better if I had had the power I had in 2009, possibly not, some of these guys are just incredibly strong, speed and fitness is usually my thing not pure power. It is of course the O60 race as well and each year seems to be more important as they count up!
There is some talk about introducing more age groups into the championship, it doesn’t really gel with the way the group’s race in normal every day racing, so maybe I’ll have another crack then if they do and I go up an age group.

The sun was shining so I stripped down my bike and put into the hard case ready for the flight, then wandered back to the course for some spectating, after all I was only going to Amsterdam to stay in a hotel ready for my flight on Monday.

It was really nice that 4 or 5 of the guys that I’ve been racing with stopped to chat and wish me a safe flight, I certainly seem to have connected better with more riders this trip which has been good.
Watching the O50 race, it seemed to go pretty much as ours did except that since it was a bigger field, 135 I think, many many more got chopped on the first lap. In the O40 race which was bigger again I was surprised to see they pretty much held together for at least three laps, just a few stragglers, there was quite a large crash on the first lap, inevitable with so many riders, it happened on the back straight where the road pinched down from 8m to 4m, everybody was trying to get closed down but not lose places. The front third managed it OK then smash, it was actually relatively low speed and a few of us had a bit more exercise running along pushing riders back up to speed. Then there was a huge black cloud and a torrential downpour, I left them to it at that point.
So all that remains is to repack my bags and get the flight home. I’m looking forward to being home but it’s a fantastic trip if you are fit enough, maybe I’ll train harder next year?