Fear and Loathing…

“How long could we maintain? I wondered. How long until one of us starts raving and jabbering…“

Palace, 27th April. 3/4 race. Hard. Very, very hard. Like holding onto the end of a rope attached to a rapidly rising balloon. You have to hold on, but the longer you hold on the worse the fall. That’s how I feel racing at Palace. The longer I maintain contact with the bunch the more it hurts when I let a gap open up and slowly slide backwards, the worse the loathing that sets in as you see them dangle just out of reach around the hairpin, knowing that you’ve already sprinted to chase back on twice on the two previous laps and you don’t have the energy to fail again. And the fear of the blind corner for the first few crowded laps, riding inches from a wheel that might be ridden by someone even more nervous and skittish than you.

So I lasted about half the race in the main bunch, dangled, joined up with a few stragglers, gave up and let the self-loathing start early. There were some really strong riders and some really shocking bike handling. Some Dynamos did pretty well, two did brilliantly, others (like myself) held on as long as possible then called it a day. I felt stronger on the incline than I thought I would and closed a lot of gaps early on, which is something I suppose, but more hesitant on the blind corner, which annoyed me. Great fun overall, predictably I got bitten to death by the bloodsucking insects as the sun went down and, even more predictably, I totally over-ate when I got home (home cooked Thai Green Curry – perfect recovery food)!

After a decent sleep I now hate myself, reckon I’m a terrible rider with no proper stamina and have no hope of ever getting any points as a 3rd Cat. All part of the Palace experience.