If you haven’t seen Any Given Sunday, it’s a film about an American football team and their ageing coach Tony D’Amato (played superbly by Al Pacino) and how they lose their star quarterback to injury. “What has this got to do with Cycling?” I hear you cry, well, amongst the guys I race with week in week out there is always that belief that on any given Sunday, it might just be your day. It’s more than that though. In the film, Pacino makes a speech to his team before their final match about inches, and it seems to strike a chord with competitive athletes.
Saturday 12th September, Team TT, Alford
Two Kingston Wheelers teams lined up for this Surrey League event, with Guy Powdrill of London Dynamo keen to knock me off the top of the Surrey League TT series. Team time-trialing is a real game of inches. If you’ve ever seen the team pursuit on the track you’ll see how a slick team rides in a compact unit, with only a small gap between the back wheel of each rider and the front wheel of the rider behind. A team of Martin, Phil, Luke and myself had done a couple of practice sessions in Richmond Park to try and find those inches that could make all the difference, and it really helped us ride well.
The first lap we stayed together, all sharing the work, but on the second lap Martin couldn’t stay on the wheel up the drag to Plaistow so we continued as three, with Phil just about hanging in as Luke and I tried to drill it to the finish. I really enjoyed the race, but the stats reveal how much more I had in the tank (I reckon I have an FTP of around 360watts). That is part of the fun of it though, trying to get around as a team! Sigma Sport were dominant and destroyed the field by minutes to win.
RACE:
Duration: 1:19:49 (1:22:28)
Work: 1411 kJ
TSS: 112.9 (intensity factor 0.921)
Norm Power: 313
VI: 1.06
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 55.519 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 919 295 watts
Heart Rate: n/a n/a n/a bpm
Cadence: 34 246 94 rpm
Speed: 7.2 65.8 41.6 kph
Pace 0:55 8:20 1:26 min/km
Crank Torque: 0 138.4 29.9 N-m
Sunday 13th September, Hillingdon
The circuit at Hillingdon is perhaps my least favourite place to race. Having been spoilt by racing in the Surrey and Sussex lanes, a wind-swept brownfield site in the heart of West London doesn’t float my boat. The venue does however do a lot for grass roots cycling and many love it’s constant wind and flowing bends. The lure of points took me there, but I wasn’t the only one as several strong riders showed up including a strong Sports Beans outfit with Polish hard man Marcin Bialoblocki. Indeed it was Bialoblocki who made the race, and as I followed his first attack my lungs were in bad shape after a two minute effort at over 500watts to hold his wheel… The race remained fast throughout, until Bialoblocki got away on his own and won in some style (the bunch averaged 43kph so he was in some form!). The bunch sprint was my idea of hell, as riders were all over the place on the grass verges and shooting for gaps that simply were not there. These were the inches I wasn’t willing to die for so rolled in out of the top twenty.
RACE:
Duration: 1:43:11
Work: 1769 kJ
TSS: 166.2 (intensity factor 0.983)
Norm Power: 334
VI: 1.17
Pw:HR: 2.6%
Pa:HR: 0.18%
Distance: 73.953 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1285 286 watts
Heart Rate: 90 190 170 bpm
Cadence: 30 246 104 rpm
Speed: 3.6 60.4 42.9 kph
Pace 0:60 16:40 1:24 min/km
Crank Torque: 0 129.9 25.8 N-m
20th September, Surrey League Cutmill
In a season where I have not manged to get a win, I went into this race full of thoughts of my victory here as a 3rd Cat back in 2007. That day I had won the uphill sprint by inches that I fought for with everything I had in my legs. The circuit was changed today due to a horse event around the normal finishing climb although it didn’t make the race any easier as we still had to climb to the same point just from a different direction!
Again, a very strong field took to the start line with many Elite riders entering on the line. Many of the top five from the Surrey League 5-day were here, including the winner Gareth Hewitt (Team Sabbath) and runner-up Chris Spence. (Caesarean CC)
I was in the first attack of the day with Grant Bayton (Sports Beans) but the strong field was not keen to see an early move go. I was feeling good up the finishing hill, and tried to make those behind suffer a bit each time up. Just after I had made a big effort to get away from the dead turn at the back of the circuit Hewitt came past like a train, with Chris Spence in tow. They were followed by Roy Chamberlin (Team Corley) and having just had a big dig myself I couldn’t find the inches I needed to latch on. Perhaps I wasn’t willing to die for them. This was a big mistake, as the bunch looked at each other and let them get up the road. I suspected with strong guys up there we would have a hard time bringing it back, although there were still plenty of talented riders still in the bunch. I persisted in attacking up the climb, only to be brought back by the end of the fast downhill section following it. Several times I had Cam Austin (London Dynamo) for company but we couldn’t make it stick.
With two laps to go, Austin again attacked up the climb, and thinking the same pattern would play out I gave it a miss. This was a mistake as he then got up the road for the remainder of the race! With ten riders away in various groups, it came down to a desperate sprint for points that I led out, before crossing the line in 17th place or so. David Sinclair (GWR Team) took the win.
A very hard day where nothing really went my way- including repeatedly dropping my chain at the top of the climb. Still, at least I might have another couple of points…
RACE:
Duration: 2:43:23
Work: 2446 kJ
TSS: 257 (intensity factor 0.972)
Norm Power: 330
VI: 1.32
Pw:HR: n/a
Pa:HR: n/a
Distance: 105.84 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 1272 249 watts
Cadence: 30 246 95 rpm
Speed: 3.6 73 38.8 kph
Pace 0:49 16:40 1:33 min/km
Crank Torque: 0 182.7 25.1 N-m
Road racing is truly a game of inches, and requires constant decision making. Some days, it seems like you make all the wrong choices and the inches you need to win are nowhere to be found.
There’s always next Sunday though…
