- Note one: If you are visually impaired it is advisable that you wear your glasses or contact lenses when racing. That way you won’t go at corners like a sparrow at a closed patio door and end up forming a close acquaintance with the trees.
- Note two: If you have the lung capacity of a chaffinch there’s really not much point pretending otherwise, you’ll only overdo it and end up in pain and rattlnig well into the week.
- Note three: I will, by fair means or foul, beat that woman who keeps on finishing ahead of me, before the season is out. Petty rivalries are a helpful motivating factor for cyclists so I apologise in advance for the one I am now beginning with a woman I believe to be Jenn Hopkins, on the grounds she keeps lapping me and doing so with good humour and encouragement.
So it was down to Lancing with Rusty this weekend. Big prize fund, Sean Yates hanging around, bitch of a course. If you weren’t going up the hill past the allotments you were being flayed by branches as you came down the hill on wood chippings through the trees.
Going up: Power, slog, gritted teeth. Coming down: balls of titanium to hold your line and avoid the all to solid stuff either side of it.
There was only one serious fall but he was up and walking by the end of the day and reports himself to be a little stiff and sore but not put off.
So why is it a better result? Well I rode harder, and pushed myself and nearly finished in the top 50. I felt more confident hammering through the downhill singletrack and was getting out of the saddle and holding my place up the hill. I’m starting to feel competitive by my own standards again.
I’m stuck for riding opportunities for the next couple of weeks due to work and other commitments but my next race will be a relatively local fixture at Herne Hill. Makes a change to be doing a London League race in a London postcode for once.