Palace: Bring Forth The Pain

So what's the baddest crit circuit in London? Its Crystal Palace baby, so fuck whatever else ya heard. At 7.15pm the E12 boys rolled off the starting line and forty five seconds later those of us that duke it out at the bottom of the British Cycling's competitive Road Race pyramid got the chance to get busy. I stayed 3rd wheel for most of the first 3 or 4 laps whilst Kieran (Addiscombe CC), a junior De Ver rider and a guy in yellow/white sung the tail end riders an ABA pop classic - "Breaking up is never easy [we] know but we have to go". Accelerate, turn, sprint: accelerate, turn, sprint. That was it, "see ya later" to all the unfortunates chilling at the back.

Oh my gosh, you'd be hard pushed to plan a more painful set of intervals on the turbo. I hit the front with the same intensity and so did the other four or five guys who help to drive the race. There was no blocking or cruising. In short, the pace was relentless and with 10-15 laps to go my thighs were fried. Hal (Addiscombe CC) took the front half way through the race and at one point I slowed the pack down at the top of the bend while Hal went searching for gold

The pack were wise to it this and there was no way they were gonna get gapped. People quickly sprinted around me. Hal (Addiscombe CC) was dieing two laps later so as he eased up at the top of the climb I gave him one big shove(unwritten rule, its OK for heterosexual men to touch each others bums while racing!). With around 8-9 laps to go things got very confusing, dropped E12's intermingled with our race and we began to lap dropped 3/4riders. To be honest it was hard to keep track of where you were in the group. On the bell lap my position wasn't great (10 places back partly due to the fact my right calf muscle was sending me pain signals). On the climb the guys began to pull away with Kieran (Addiscombe CC) in about 8th position I sat up at the top of the climb and cruised in happy enough with my nights work