BUCS 25 & Out of the Saddle RR

Last weekend was the first time I have competed on both Saturday and Sunday this year. Saturday was a 25 mile time-trial in Cambridge which was part of BUCS. I went into the race with no real expectations as I knew I didn't have the equipment to be in the top 10. This left me with the only real goal of a PB which realistically I could have achieved riding a BMX round the course. Ok that might be a slight exaggeration but even so I smashed my PB by 12 minutes and finished frustratingly close to a sub 1 hour time, 01:00:15 by my watch. This leaves me with a solid benchmark to beat over the coming season. 

After a quick removal of my clip-on TT bars and a nights sleep I was ready to compete in the Out of the Saddle road race. I decided to ride over to the race to give me a chance to spin the legs out and get a few extra miles in. It also gave me a good chance to assess the conditions which were: a. Cold and b. Windy. I knew the conditions were going to be hard enough to blow the race to pieces so I looked for the early break. Eventually I bridged across to a break which swelled to 15 or so riders with another 2 up the road. I then stupidly missed the split in the break I was in so only ended up with 11th place. Another top 15 but still no top 10 this season which I am gutted about. 

Overall I feel I can take a lot of positives from the weekend, PB in the time-trial, competitive in the road race and more importantly my legs felt OK both days. So onto the next weekend of racing which is in a fortnight and I will make sure my season does improve at some point!