Fresh from the Bont shoe disaster last night I headed in the other direction this evening for the first of the Surrey League handicap series at Kittsmead Lane.
For those not in the know, handicap racing sees all the competitors including women, veterans and all categories in the same race. The catch is that groups are started at different intervals, with the women and vets first, then the 3rd cats, then the 2nd cats, and lastly the ‘scratch group’ of 1st cat/Elite riders. If Keith Butler gets the timings right, it can be quite exciting as the fastest riders might not catch the slowest until the last moment, if at all!
Tonight the Sigma Sport team arrived en masse, including Wouter Sybrandy the silver medalist at the national Time trail championships last year, so they were definitely the ones to watch. The real news was however that roadworks on the course would mean a switch to the Staple Hill circuit, used as the finishing circuit at the Hounslow Road Race where I had come 5th earlier in the spring.
I set off in the rearmost group with five or six others, and we proceeded to gobble up the first couple of laps at a crazy speed, my data shows 43.3kph for the first twenty minutes. As we caught each group ahead, riders were getting dropped on the Staple Hill climb, and as we caught the last group up the road six of us continued to ride through hard and got a gap. This was myself, Wouter, Andy Betts and Jerone Walters (three Sigma riders…) Lee Smith from Agiskoviner and a strong 2nd cat who had joined us from Thames Velo.
As we rode through, it was clear we would stay away with three laps to go, but the question was how to beat the Sigma riders?! The first serious attack came from Wouter, and I was on his wheel but didn’t follow as I was concerned about the likely counter attack. This proved to be a mistake I won’t make again, as he rode off into the sunset never to be seen again…
There were a couple of efforts by Lee Smith and Jerone to get away for second place, but it finished in a sprint for the top five. I stayed at the back until the two hundred metre flag and then unleashed the sprint, and just as I thought I might hang on for second Lee Smith came around me with Jerone hot on his heels, just pipping me for a podium.
This was such a fun race, really fast and hard. The new shoes felt great. What really amazed me was my power file. An average speed of 42.3kph for the race, with average power of 318 watts. The real eye opener for me was the 359 watts normalised power, a good indicator of FTP. This shows a real leap in performance from before Easter. Unfortunately data alone will not win races, so I’ll have to keep working at it!
