This was my first race after an 18 year break from
cycling&racing and only one year back on the bike. I think without
London Dynamo's encouragement to have a go and try, I never would have, in
particular after a tough Sat Richmond Park clubrun with 2nd and later 1st
group in the morning of the same day.
The race: What a beautiful day, although quite
a bit windy out there, it wasn’t quite that slow race I wanted, with an average of 40.8km/h, although
it was more like fast and slow pace in alternation. I tried the “Contador” tactics for the first
half hour, with about 10-12 rather serious attacks, but couldn’t break away for more than
10 seconds, always until individual chasers got me and then apparently didn’t see
any reason to support the work to make it a successful breakaway, they
just got hung to my back wheel and wouldn’t lifted their legs. I couldn’t sustain any of the breaks on my own.
The second half was then more the reverse. I was
more chasing rather than being chased. With this game we got all the way to
the final lap and things started getting hairy. Not wanting to end in a pileup (my alarm bells were ringing very loud) I took things very cautious and got around the final bend only in approx 12th position or so and already though all was lost. Knowing that my earlier “Contador” tactics didn’t fruit, I suddenly remembered how I did it 18 years ago, Zabel style and...did it work well! Got first to the finish line, but about 20m ahead
of the closest contester. Although it was just a cat 4 race, this win came totally
unexpected to me and therefore made it a rather sweet experience at the age of 43.
I
need to give credit to the London Dynamo clubrides for this, in particular hanging around 1st
and 2nd group on Saturday mornings and the super fast Wednesday evenings with the Cat1/2 guys. Also the interval training with Paul (Ucanfitness), which I managed
to join 4-5 times in the last 2 months did a good job in preparing for this. Many
thanks to all of you.