ACC Road Race: March 29th

"How was the race Dad. Did ya win?..." for mere mortals such as myself, the first race of the season is usually just a stern fitness test. This time last year I nearly got dropped during the neutralised zone so I moved up to mid pack as soon as the lead car got going. The race circuit (Henfold Hill) is a rolling ~8 mile loop; no real climbs as such, more short drags really. Oops I lied there was a little 17% brute that at various points during the race had riders stalling, honking and in some cases seriously f'ing up their gear changes.

Once the lead car pulled away there was no dramatic change in pace (perhaps the front guys knew I was a slow burner ;-)Naturally, it being our promotion the Addiscombe boys made up the biggest contingent of racers: Sylv, George and Stu true to form rode upfront, as per usual Marek rode shot gun stylee and myself, Matt and Dan found nice little places for ourselves as bunch passengers.

It was a pretty good turnout - Kingston Wheelers, Norwood Paragon, Agisko, City Hub and the ubiquitous London Dynamo etc had all come for the extremley agreeable Lactate Threshold party in Leigh. From what I recall laps 1 and 2 were fairly steady. From 50 metres back I could occasionally make out a few of the big dawgs pulling away from the strung out bunch. But most of the attacks seemed to be stymied by strong headwinds and chasers.

Soon enough though things started to happen. Although not part of the ACC race plan. Our super strong junior rider Stu had to pull out due to a mechanical. Although he got back on he was immediately a lap down so rode around looking like someone who lost the winning lottery ticket. The Smilin Assassin, George ran into more painful problems when he touched wheels and went down before eventually bowing out of the race.

Somewhere between laps 3-4 the heavens open up so we were now racing in what my old Sales Manager would term liquid sunshine. No biggy really, after a while you just got used to back wheels spraying up dirty water in your face.

With very few group rides in my training regime my bunch skills were surprisingly OK. But I did have a tendency to relax too much and failed to always pedal around bends which of course meant a gap would open, this meant I had to pedal like an insane man to close them. As all experienced Road Racers will tell you there's only so many matches you can burn before all your efforts are finally pegged. Yes indeed, this was definitely not a performance from the Warick Spence (CycleFit) Crit Riding school.

So how pegged back exactly were my efforts? Well I needed to find out so during lap 4I went on a suicide mission and tried to take advantage of a lull in a strung out pack. Oh my God, what a knucklehead. I pulled out, adopted the superman position and rode straight into the raging headwind. Er...in that way two year olds learn not to touch the fire again I quickly learnt my lesson. Ouch! completely shattered I returned to the less celebrated end of the pack.

Near the end of the penultimate lap a group of around 12-15 some how succeeded in working themselves away from our clutches. In nearly two and a half hours of riding I still hadn't been front wheel. Call it ego if you like, and yes it might only have been half of the pack but it needed to be done. I managed 20 seconds before the catapult effect took place.

Now blame the effects of the wind and rain but we riders did seem to fan ourselves across the road a little dangerously at times. With this in mind perhaps what happened next was inevitable - a police community car went screaming down the right hand side and essentially forced us all to stop riding. It transpired that there had been a number of complaints. I do remember a particular animated old lady who was not happy to be forced to stop driving at a junction and wait for 80 blokes in Lycra to ride past. Jesus! what else are thirty and forty something blokes suppose to do on a Saturday afternoon. Next race April 12th :-