Beeston Road Race

Sunday saw me take part in my second 2/3/4 road race of the season. It was a relatively flat course, benign conditions meaning the chances of a breakaway were slim to say the least. My team mate, Andy, worked hard to attack early on but his efforts were in vain as the bunch were in the mood to chase everything down. I left my efforts until half way through, again the bunch allowed me to get a gap of 30 seconds or so before frustratingly chasing me down.
Everyone was gearing up for the sprint and I had positioned myself wheel. However not knowing the course I opened up the sprint very early which blew the race apart. It left me and 6 riders effectively off the front one of which was Andy. He managed a very respectable 3rd place and I held on for a top 10, or so I though until the organizer left me of the results!
Fingers crossed the result will be corrected and I will maintain my run of top 15 results this season. Next for me is the BUCS 25 Mile time-trial and the Out of The Saddle Road Race.

BUCS 50km TTT and Sheffrec RR

As mentioned in my previous post this weekend I was competing Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday I road in my second BUCS event for the university. BUCS is an inter-university competition, I competed in cyclo-cross before Christmas finishing 11th and this weekend was the team time-trail. I was riding with a teammate of mine Andrew Nichols and another student Nick Latimer. It was a shocking day for time-trialling  with high winds and rain making it very hard going.
We started very well with us all taking strong turns on the front and the pace kept high. However I began to struggle after 15km or so as I wasn't getting the full benefit of the slipstream whilst on my road bike. I missed a few turns whilst trying to get my heart rate back out of the red and was able to contribute more on the second lap of the course. We posted a time of 1 Hour 12 Minutes 27 seconds (average: 25.7mph) meaning we finished 5th in the BUCS event and 13th overall out of 60 riders.
Sunday was the Sheffrec RR which was held in very high winds near Rotherham. I rode out the event and my legs felt good which was a surprise after yesterdays effort. I was 5th reserve and when I turned up and 5 people had already pulled out so I was in the race. I finished my warm up and the race was quickly underway. Unfortunately it was just as quickly over for me after having a puncture within 2 miles! It was my first puncture of the season but hopefully my last as I have now bought a new set of tires.
Next week is the BUCS 10 mile time-trial and the Beeston RR which I am looking forward too.

Thanks for reading!

Varsity

Varsity is held every year and is a sport competition held between local universities, in my case Sheffield University v Sheffield Hallam. The competition involves all sports and there are 5 cycling disciplines to compete in. Being a road cyclist I chose to compete in the hill climb and the 20km time-trial, in the future I may also compete in the mountain bike event as well.
The first event is a favorite of mine, the hill climb, which was held at Monsal head. I knew I had a great chance of victory and had support from friends of my course (Becky & Will) to spur me on. I was one of the last riders off which meant I knew the time I was looking to beat was 1 minute and 39 seconds. Having completed the effort I was asked 'Did you set of at the correct time?'. I knew this was going to go one way or the other and after the times were read out my time of 1 minute and 23 seconds had secured victory in the event by 10 seconds. I was very happy with my time and will look to improve it during the hill climb season in October when the infamous Monsal hill climb is held.
The next event, held a month later due to snow delays, was the time trial. This season I am trying to improve my time-trialing as it a useful skill to have and can be key to success in road races. We rode out to the start of the race and I told myself to use it as a hard training session as I was just riding my road bike, this makes a significant difference compared to riding a time-trial bike which can knock minutes off your time. I really enjoyed riding the course which was very hilly compared to what I had ridden in the past. My time, 31min 30sec ,was good enough to secure 4th place in the event and 26 seconds off the winner Tom Stewart. I stupidly did not warm-up properly which caused a slow start and I could not make up the lost time in the latter half of the course.
Varsity was great fun to compete in and the cycling team completed a 5-0 whitewash against Hallam whilst Sheffield University were crowned Varsity champions. This was a great results for the sports teams and I hope to be part of several more victories in the future.

Photos

Startline of the Jock Wadley











After the Jock Wadley

Goals for the Year

• First cat licence
• 5 Wins
• Win a national B
• 22:30 for a 10mile TT

I forgot to mention as well that I have recently changed clubs. I started the season riding for Colchester Rovers CC and am now riding for neon-velo.com. This means I will have a team mate when riding up north (Andrew Nichols). I am still a 2nd claim member for Colchester Rovers and I am sure one day I will be back riding for them.

If anyone fancies coming up with a name for my blog please comment! 

The Rest of the Season

Since the Wadley I raced three more times and rode a 2-up time-trial with a team mate of mine. The 25mile time-trial was the week after the Wadley. I am a fan of time-trialing but have always lacked the equipment to get the times I should and for that reason I have not competed in as many time-trials as I would like. However this weekend I couldn't get to any road races so I decided to ride the time-trial as a bit of training on my road bike. Apart from being on the brink of seeing my breakfast again on the way round we completed a respectable time of 59-36 which also happened to be a course record!

Next on the calender was two races at hog hill over the Easter weekend. The first was on the Friday and was my first ever elite race round the circuit. I rode conservatively as I had no idea how my legs would cope in a breakaway round there so I elected to sit in and save myself for a sprint. Having said that my natural racing instinct kicked in and I ended up in a few breaks which came to nothing. 8 got away and I think I finished 11th/12th however I am still waiting for the organizer to confirm the result.
Next race was on the Monday after and was in memory of Alan Rosner. He was a fantastic man for the sport of cycling and the development of youngsters , he will be sorely missed. The field for the elite race was a lot better than on the Friday with several elite and 1st cat riders. I had the choice to ride the 2/3/4 but I felt that seeing one of my aims for this year is to become a 1st cat I should probably ride the main race. The race had a very quick start and eventually a break of 9 was established which settled the pace. I simply didn't have the legs to make the break which was disappointing but I knew there was still a result in it for me. 5 laps to go and a group of 5 of us got away. We established a healthy lead and I finished a close second in the sprint for the line to pick up 11th place.  

The last race I have competed in was the Chelmer RR which was held last Sunday. It is probably the flattest road race course in England but I still wanted a result seeing as it was my first 2/3/4 of the year. I knew that the flat course and lack of wind meant it would be difficult to establish a break but before I knew it a group of 15 riders or so was away. A team mate and I made it into the break along with all the riders who I thought would be up there. The break was established with 30 miles to go but the gap over the bunch only grew to 50 seconds. There was around ten riders working in the break and another 5 or so just sat on which stopped everyone committing to the break. I tried to attack the break when I saw the bunch was closing on us to see if I could provoke anyone to work. Unfortunately not, everyone continued to just sit there and the break was brought back with around 8 miles to go. The sprint came and it was carnage as expected, I managed to fight my way up there but with my legs spent after the break I only managed another 13th!
So that is my season so far, nothing special but consistency and importantly I was competitive in the hard races. This week I will be competing in a 20km TT, a 25 mile 3-up TT and hopefully a ride in the Sheffrec RR which I am currently 5th reserve in.

Thanks for reading, James

Start of a new season and the start to a new blog

Introduction
I am a 19 year old cyclist from Colchester who is currently studying at the University of Sheffield but more on this later. I will start by explaining why I haven't had a blog until this point, this is for several reasons. Firstly I make myself annoyed at reading fellow cyclists blogs about their 'heroics' in 4th cat circuit races and I felt that until I was competitive at a decent level I wouldn't start blogging.
The second reason links into the first, when it comes to competition, for me its 1st or nothing. Until now my ultra-competitive attitude has led me to a lot of disappointment from racing (I've only ever won one race and ironically it was a 4th cat race at hog hill). This season I have tried to accept that some days you just are not strong enough to win particularly when riding elite races. However there is still some element of disappointment when rolling across the line in 13th, even if it happens to be alongside some of the best riders in the country! I will also continue to analyse each race to see if there was anything I could have done to win and make sure I do not make the same mistakes.
The final reason I will explain is to do with time. Until now I haven't had a great deal of it free as it has been filled with far to many commitments. It was difficult enough to find enough time to ride my bike so to consider writing about it would be mad. Starting university last September has led to me loosing a lot of commitments and the only things I need to worry about now are: Cycling, my degree and socialising and for now it will remain in that order of importance.
Winter
In the past I have ridden a full season of cyclo-cross during the winter and then gone onto riding road from March. This was great fun but at the same time I wasn't getting in the crucial 'base miles' that form the foundation for a good season. However this year was different, just one cyclo-cross race and the rest of my time cycling spent slowly riding round the peaks enjoying the scenery. This led to me completing 216 Hours between October and February which included a week off for illness and more than enough snow to forcing me onto the dreaded turbo trainer.
Racing
Onto the important stuff, racing. My season was initially scheduled to start at the Crest RR back home in the East but unfortunately my Easter break hadn't started. Instead this left me with the Jock Wadley as my first race of the season, a slightly different matter to a 60 mile 2/3/4 race. I managed to get onto the reserves after a battle with my own club (yes I can't get into my own clubs race!!). As it turns out waking up to a strong wind, snow and freezing cold conditions meant I was almost guaranteed a ride as 4th reserve.
Stood being the lead car about to start inside I couldn't have been happier. I love racing in shocking conditions as I find it makes the race a lot more predictable. We got rolling and I already got a sense of who was there to race and who wanted to be tucked up in bed. We left the neutral zone and straight away the attacks were coming, one after the other, relentless attacks until eventually a break of 10 or so riders got away. Before I knew it I was sat on the back of the second break on the road and the race for the other riders was effectively over.
Eventually the second break caught up to the first group on the road and that left us with a group of about 20 riders with 3 minute gap. The gap continued to grow despite the relatively sedate pace (easy for me to say, I took about 2 turns on the front). I knew the break would not just trundle round and sure enough the attacks came again. Three riders got away and I was left in the break just hanging on and trying to stay warm. With two laps to go the pace was upped and it left me riding alone for the last lap having been dropped but I hung on for a respectable 13th. 
Throughout the day I had incredible support from people from my club and I took great pleasure in seeing people's 'what the f**k is he doing in the break' faces on the way round. I have also had great support from Russell Ford (Glade CC) since August, he has coaching me and making sure I am doing the right sort of training for the time of year. He gave me the loudest shout of the day minutes before I was dropped and it probably should not be repeated, he was happy with my performance to say the least.

Thank you for reading and I will try and get you up to date with the rest of my season tomorrow!

James