Birthday cards

Another year older and, as usual, a number of cycling-themed cards. Below are my three favourites:

I like the muscular pose of the Champ rider here, especially with the heroic moustache. I’m less sure about the fact that he’s on some sort of Penny Farthing…




A more ’Impressionistic’ view of the sport called, according to the back of the card, “On The Pace”. Good riding position, armwarmers rolled down suggesting that he’s been giving it the beans in a solo breakaway up the climb and hasn’t got the time to roll them up again. Looks like a Provence landscape – Ventoux?




My favourite. Cycling and cake in perfect union. Imagine the joy in labouring up a hill only to find that it’s actually an almond patisserie. Mmmm!

Feeding strategy

Rusper 3rds, Sunday 19th Sept. My last race of a sporadic and spectacularly unsuccessful racing year where I have regularly failed to trouble the finishing judges. I decided the day before to approach it as a workout, try and help any clubmates and definitely not sit around the back of the bunch.

First up was the evening feeding strategy – my pre-birthday celebrations at the bar in The Botanist and then La Poule au Pot consisted of:

Liquids: 1 x Rasberry Collins, 1 x pint Guinness, 2 x glasses St.Emilion, 2 litres tapwater.
Solids: Onion tart, fillet steak with cream/pepper sauce, chips fried in goose fat, spinach in cream, creme brulee.

That’s a quality fuelling strategy - as a result I managed to sleep really well for 6hrs (a pre-race record). I awoke just after a dream that I was late for the start of the race, had left my helmet in the car and was racing back from the start line to get it. But the car was parked at the top of a hill, and the road turned into sand halfway up so pedalling was a bit tricky!

The forecast drizzle failed to materialise on Sunday morning and we were treated to sunny, cool and breezy conditions. Rusper is a pretty nice circuit, with a long draggy climb up to (and past) the finish, a tight lefthander and then a series of long sweeping descents and flats until you reach the draggy hill out of Capel again.

We set off at a steady pace, one Kingston Wheeler going off out front on a solo effort for the first lap. I reckon he was just warming himself up, since he was in a skinsuit with short sleeves and the wind was pretty chilly. Whatever, a lap later he returned to the bunch and a series of attacks started. Robin got into one so Rob and I tried to sit on the front and slow the pace a little, which is tough on a downhill section with the wind behind you! Eventually this break came back too, and as soon as it did Rob decided to jump with a few other useful looking riders. They got a decent gap, no chase went and I took the opportunity to have a mid-race breather in the middle of the pack for 10 minutes or so.

That was it then. The break seemed strong and all we had to do at the front of the bunch was keep the pace high enough to discourage further breaks from the pack, which we managed quite easily, whilst not gaining on the breakaway. I spend a fair amount of time on or near the front hoofing along the usual bumpy, potholed Surrey roads, getting a good workout in the process.

The race was neutralised on the final lap when we hit a traffic jam for a car boot sale! It was quite bizarre waving the breakaway group off with their 2min30 gap and then standing there chatting.

For the remaining lap I tried to stay near the front and keep the pace high until the climb, thus hopefully ensuring a slightly safer finish that avoided all the terrible slowing down, looking, swerving, etc that can happen as everyone prepares to sprint for 7th place. I had no legs left for anything once we hit the climb though, and had to sit up and watch just about the whole bunch come steaming past at the finish. Not a problem for this race, but I really need to work on anaerobic efforts in training a bit more. Not yet though, for my leisure activities now take a distinct swing from cycling to social activities (read: eating and drinking with family and friends). About time!

The first cut is the deepest...

Cutmill 3rds, 12th Sept. I’ll begin with the excuses (so you can guess where this is going).

Body condition: sub-optimal. Tired. Extremely tired, due to a stomach bug during the week, a busy project at work and the usual inability to sleep well the night before a race.

Diet: poor. Biscuits formed a large part of the daily feeding routine. Gin and tonic made a reappearance during the week. I was going to say an unwelcome reappearance, but who would I be kidding?

Race shape: middling. Lack of time resulting in inefficient (i.e. minimal) training. All riding done at that level of either “not hard enough” or “not easy enough”. Body neither trained well nor recovered. Mental state: flabby.

Bike condition: clean, but irritating creaking BB under heavy load and wheels (Mavic Cosmic Carbone) needing spoke adjustment. Too much flex, slight rubbing on brake blocks at high speed. Issues not mechanically serious, but enough to provide irritating noises that act as a continual irritant during a 50 mile race.

Circuit: Cutmill. Never ridden it before, heard it’s pretty tough.

I got dropped, about halfway through. Not on the main climb, and not on the short ‘power’ climb after the sharp left past the long descent of The Sands. No, I waited to get dropped on the flat part of the course with a tailwind. God knows what was going through my mind to switch off there, but switch off I did and instantly regretted it. An AD Cycles guy and I were hurtling along at about 50kph but dangling just out of reach of the back of the bunch. I knew if we didn’t get back on before the left hander into the hill we would be done for. We didn’t quite make it, the service car and the ambulance came past us and we were out. Annoyingly we could still see the bunch about 20 bike lengths ahead as we went up the hill and, as they slowed, I tried to get round the ambulance in a final attempt to get back on, only to be faced with a car flying down the hill the other way. I had to pull back behind the ambulance and come to an almost complete stop to avoid being squashed and the loss of momentum meant I’d had it.

Head down, motivation lost. Do I chuck it all in or carry on? Sod it, I’ll carry on. I continued with the AD Cycles guy for company for the rest of the course, finishing stone-cold last. Plenty of riders DNF’d but there was no way I was going to give up, not again.

JamesM won for Dynamo by getting a gap up the hill on the penultimate lap and making it stick – a great solo effort. Most other Dynamos did well, finishing in the bunch, one other in the top ten. That’s a good result on a very tough course.

I hated Cutmill as a circuit though, not for the hills, but because of the narrow potholed lanes and the high numbers of cars. It’s a really fast circuit in places and it can be quite terrifying hurtling downhill in the bunch at 75kph with cars parked on one side and cars approaching the other way as well. Add into the mix the unpredictability of many riders and it turns into the type of place I’d rate low down in the list of enjoyable experiences!

Surrey League E1234 Handicap, Kirdford circuit, 5th Sept

My first handicap race took place on Sunday on the Kirdford circuit. It’s a great format – try to stay away from the marauding hoards behind whilst trying to catch the group in front! I had the benefit of going off in the second group with about 15 other 3rd Cat vets – the first race I’d done where my age had led to a slight advantage.

Light rain showers before the race made the surface a little greasy on the 10-mile circuit and some of the corners needed to be taken with care. The first three or so laps involved our group trying to work in an effective chaingang, although it became clear early on that we were carrying some ‘baggage’ in the shape of riders who didn’t want to keep the pace high or do too much (or any) work. I can’t really understand this – if you want to be towed round waiting for the E12s to catch up then continue to be towed round to the finish then why enter a handicap?

A Kingston Wheeler (No.19) and I did some long turns on the front, and at times were off the front of the bunch (not breaking away, but trying to keep the pace up) whilst on the long bumpy shallow descent I tried to grab clubmate Robin’s wheel wherever possible and catch a breather. We caught the 4ths up ahead about halfway through the race, then shortly after I sensed a lot of activity behind me in the bunch and lo and behold we had been joined by the chasing E12 bunch. Instantly the pace went up again and the real race began.

My role went from trying to drive the bunch to hanging on, and I found myself slipping futher and further back until I was able to settle and get a bit of a rest behind a Brighton Mitre guy who had been in our original group.

So what happened next? A predictable surge of pace up the hill on the penultimate lap combined with the rider in front of me dropping his bottle (this happens in every bloody race) caused me to slow and swerve, meaning I lost contact with the bunch briefly. I chased back on but the damage had been done – about 12 of us were off the back. We managed to keep the main bunch in sight for a short while but with so few working it meant we never stood much of a chance. The final lap was taken at a reasonable pace but we were loosing a lot of time on the main bunch, especially whenever the road went up, and we ending up rolling over the finish line 4 minutes down on the main bunch.

I enjoyed the race up until the final lap though, and it’s definitely a more interesting format than churning around in a huge bunch where everyone is watching each other. I have two of those types of races coming up though!